At the Beginning of July, I was all set to submit a piece to Miss Marijuana about how cannabis helped me earn my PhD, and then my father died.
Immediately, I got an onslaught of loved ones doting over me asking if there was anything they could do for me in the moment? I told them straight up, “I need a heady, sativa.”
Some thought I was joking, creating a spark of lightness in a very heavy moment. In truth, I was very serious; I’d previously learned how cannabis could get me through difficult moments in graduate school.
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I did not anticipate a test to show how much I had learned would come so quickly. I looked at it all as an opportunity to take care of myself and to do so out from underneath the shame of using cannabis to help.
In January 2015, I had just completed the first of three major milestones towards earning my doctoral degree.
The first is “comps” or your qualifying exam, which basically is written thesis proving you’re good enough to move beyond coursework.
Next is the design for your research, and finally the dissertation research defense where you present your findings.
Arguably, passing step two is the most trying time, because you are building and constructing original research and also building a case for why it’s necessary.
All that to say, in February 2015, I was sexually assaulted. Beginning the day after my assault, I began to mentally unravel.
I immediately reported the incident, told my school administrators and my supervisor because, I guess even early on I knew this was going to change me a lot, at least for a while. I wanted to be authentic, at least in the truth that I was not okay.
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After about a month of heavy medications that made me lethargic, or lose my appetite, I went to my psychiatrist and complained that I was not eating, I was nervous all the time and I wasn’t sleeping, so something had to change and fast.
He said the four words that basically changed the course of my approach to health and healing forever: Have you tried marijuana?
At the time, in California, cannabis was legal for medicinal use only. So I went to a doctor and described my symptoms, and got the approval to purchase medicinal cannabis.
I had smoked a handful of times prior to heading to the dispensary, so I was basically starting off as a complete novice.
Everything I know about it came after the fact, which is silly. I would now, encourage anyone to do research PRIOR to adopting it or anything else into your health and wellness routine.
However, for me, at the time I was so desperate to eat and not be sick, I was ready to try anything.
My first visit to a dispensary, I talked to everyone. I talked to the bud tenders and learned which “flower” helped with different symptoms and ailments. I got a brief overview of concentrates and tinctures and I asked a LOT of questions about edibles.
I went home with two hybrids one more sativa leaning and one more indica leaning to see which one I preferred.
Learning this early saved me when I had to microdose cannabis during the day for nausea and panic attacks; there was no way I could have done this if I was buying straight indica.
I also talked to a lot of moms. I think because of where I lived at the time, much of the clientele of my dispensary were young millennial moms. They became such a resource, as they were educating me on how to diversify my use of cannabis.
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For a long time, I was only using flower, and on occasion, edibles. But after my anxiety progressed to include muscle spasms, a dispensary mom told me to try CBD oil, she bought it for her son who had cerebral palsy.
Through that experience, I started using CBD when I had muscle aches and especially when I needed sleep.
Learning how to use cannabis effectively allowed me to manage my symptoms well enough to pass step three with no revisions and one year later, earn my PhD. It is also allowing me to continue functioning in the wake of losing my father.
When I spoke to a friend after the funeral I asked her if it was bad I wanted to smoke? She assured me it was not, and that grief, just like trauma impacts our ability to function normally.
She reminded me that at one point of my healing I was taking up to six pills a day only to to be semi-functional and that with cannabis, and cannabis only—because I was able to wean off all other psychotropic meds—I was going to be fully functional.
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I believed my friend, who is also a cannabis user, when she told me I was dealing with the shame of using cannabis as a medicine because of its stigma. She was right.
Grief was throwing my body back to the early days of my trauma experience, and I was having debilitating panic attacks, migraines and muscle spasms.
Then, I remembered a moment. A week before my father passed, he came home from the hospital into hospice care.
The master bedroom furniture replaced with medical charts, wheelchairs and a hospital bed.
On what would be his last lucid moment, he asked to go outside to our back patio.
We fashioned a ramp out of an old piece of wood and his best friend from high school wheeled him out to get some fresh air.
Minutes later my dad says, “Isn’t there any pot at this party?” Cannabis had been long since apart of his cancer journey.
My sister called me, and I packed a pipe and smoked with my dad.
When I think back on that moment, it’s so perfect and normal and beautiful, I think there is absolutely no shame in something that you reach for even on your deathbed.
In the end, he wanted his loved ones in his home with a little bit of cannabis. And I think, well that’s alright with me, too.
Cannabis allowed me a pathway back to myself when nothing else could. Other mental health medicines are not designed to problem solve long-term, though, they do cause long-term effects.
I, myself, was a trained therapist and knew exactly what I was putting into my body and what it was designed to do, chemically to my brain and I was deeply uncomfortable with that.
Still, I will never deny that medicines like Lexapro were extremely useful when my anxiety was at its worst.
Through proper daily wellness management, I’ve been able to be off prescription medicines entirely since May 2018, three years after being on six meds a day. Now, it’s just me and cannabis, and I’m okay if that is all it ever is.
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