If I went outside, I was certain that strangers could read my thoughts, and they snickered behind my back as I passed them in the street. My brain would fashion this muffled nonsense into elaborate insults, and I would stand with my ear to the wall or door for what felt like hours in a state of panic. If I heard my housemates talking when I was high – not even the actual words, just the low rumble of conversation, I would be absolutely convinced that they were talking about me. However, my quiet suspicion that everyone secretly hated me inflamed into full-blown delusions and auditory hallucinations once I started smoking cannabis regularly. Paranoia is a common symptom of BPD, and it is something that I experienced well before I started smoking weed. My mental health was gradually deteriorating, but I didn’t realize it until I was fully entangled in a web of paranoia, delusions, and depersonalization. I welcomed the brain fog with open arms, but it lulled me into a false sense of security. My bad thoughts lingered barely long enough for me to acknowledge them, and whatever anger I had seemed to evaporate with the smoke.
#Alien hallucination strain free
My relationship with my boyfriend blossomed, free from the daily arguments, suicide threats, and co-dependent clinginess. The first few months of heavy smoking was blissful. I spent excessive amounts of money, took dodgy pills in clubs, and drank to excess, but nothing seemed to calm the storm – that is until I started smoking weed. To cope with my emotional turmoil and unstable self-identity, I did what many people with BPD do and engaged in self-destructive behavior. I didn’t know it back then, but I was suffering from borderline personality disorder (BPD). It was the anger, frustration, and suicidal despair that erupted out of me every time I didn’t get a text back. It was the toll of my string of toxic relationships and the guilt I felt for my constant co-dependency. It was the intense, explosive mood swings followed by periods of crushing emptiness. At that point in my life, depression’s grip on me was firm, and my panic attacks were growing more frequent, but it wasn’t the sadness nor the anxiety that drove me to drug addiction. I was a troubled college student when I started self-medicating with weed.
I was your typical die-hard stoner, ignorantly insisting to anyone who would listen that ‘weed isn’t a drug, it’s a plant.’ For a while, it was my saving grace, but I quickly learned the dangers of smoking cannabis when you have a pre-existing mental health condition. Me? Well, at one point, I was convinced that cannabis was the answer to all of life’s problems. I also have friends who refuse to touch it, telling tales of intense paranoia, derealization, and projectile-vomiting. I have friends who have been self-medicating for years, insisting that weed cures their anxiety and helps them cope with their depression. Marijuana is a controversial topic when it comes to mental health. How cannabis abuse aggravated my borderline personality disorder to the point of medical intervention.
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