Introduction for our new blogger Lacey!đ€
- XQST
- Jan 2, 2020
- 4 min read
Updated: May 31, 2020
Lithium, Kolonipin, Neurontin⊠just a few of the many medications I was on at any time from 2012-2015. I didnât see anything wrong. I didnât think much either. I questioned nothing. I was a pin cushion. I was a shell of myself. I a pill bottle with legs. I felt next to nothing and anything I felt could be easily remedied with a trip to the doctor.
By the sounds, youâd think I was a pill seeking âjunkie,â but in reality, I suffer from a variety of mental and physical health conditions and was taking medications as prescribed. In fact, prior to 2012, I wasnât even able to swallow a pill consistently. Now I am able to swallow a handful at a time, and I hate it.
For as long as I can remember, Iâve always been different from the others. Slower, less active, uninterested in much of what was going on in the neighborhood. I have always felt tired, achy and at times in unbearable pain for no reason at all for days on end.
Growing up it was always chalked up to growing pains and being a picky eater, maybe over doing it when I was active. But there were other things that made me different too, like having had chickenpox four times. âRandomâ blackouts and strep throat for what felt like forever. My parents took me to the doctors, but the doctors never seemed to find anything.
Having dealt with pain and illness so often, my parents trusted me with things like Tylenol and taking my medications as prescribed. It was never an issue. I never enjoyed taking anything, so there was never a fear of abuse or addiction. I was even trusted to decide when to stay home sick, as I got a little older. No need to pull a Ferris Bueller! Total trust and belief in my pain, whether it was physical or mental.
In spring of 2012, I was on more than a half dozen medications to treat my mental and physical health conditions. I was taking over twenty pills a day. Four, eight, twelve, twenty four hour increments, this was just alarms on my phone, breaking up my day to remind me to take my medications as if my body could let me skip a dose.
High? Addicted? No! Of course not! Not me. My doctors know every pill I take, and they know whatâs best. Iâm not high, Iâm medicated! Iâm not addicted! Iâm a patient!
Or so I thoughtâŠ
I had a family member and their significant other visiting me for an extended time. We hadnât seen each other in years and we had the best time! But, I kept finding my medications out of place and often where they didnât belong. Loose pills on the stoop or in the furniture. Naive, I believed the lies and misdirection, âno, we didnât touch it.â âAre you sure you didnât drop/move it there?â I didnât want to see what was in front of me. Maybe I just couldnât?
Sadly, I learned the hard way that that loved one and their significant other were taking my medications, and not just mine, but anyone else whoâs bathroom they used. They were also using dope and that was what lead to the discovery. When I confronted them about what theyâd done, they deflected to me, and how I was no better than them. How I could think I was all I wanted, just because my dealer wears a white coat⊠but itâs all the same.
Now, they werenât right, but they werenât wrong. I was addicted to medications because I let someone else control my body and what I put in it. Those âmedicationsâ made me a zombie and stripped me of my personality and life. I wasnât trying to escape life, I was just trying to survive and cope, looking for pain management and emotional healing, but I was going about it only half right.
Though I wasnât abusing my medications, I was addicted. I wasnât taking them to get high and escape, but I was high and what I was doing could hardly be considered living. I was nearly completely bedridden and had social workers that checked on me three times a week, took me to appointments and made sure I had all the necessities, such as food and shampoo. I was at an all time low in my life, but I was doing everything the doctors told me too.
I realized that I could no longer âliveâ like that. I decided to detox myself of everything. Of course none of my doctors approved of it, so I had to do it on my own and I stopped seeing all of them. I felt like they just enabled me and kept me from finding better alternatives. Healthier alternatives. As long as I kept filling scripts, they kept getting paid. It was never going to end.
I stopped all my medications in April of 2012, I spent two months sweating, puking and feeling like overall absolute total death. The worst one for me was the Kolozapam. I wanted that little blue pill 3 times a day for over a year. Iâd pick at things, get agitated and fidgety. It was hellish.
In June of 2012, I became a patient of the New Jersey cannabis program. Though I still âcravedâ several medications for months after giving them up, Cannabis helped me control my discomfort, helped me to stay off most of them until this day, gave me back a quality of life and also, hope for tomorrow.
Was I high then? Yes! Was I a patient? No, I was a consumer.
Am I high now? No, Iâm medicated. Am I an addict? No, Iâm a patient.
I didnât try Cannabis until I was well into my twenties. I didnât get it, but I didnât judge it. I never really understood Cannabis or what it was capable of, until Cannabis gave me something my many doctors and medications couldnât, hope and relief.
Cannabis has saved my life, and I donât think that Iâll go a day without it for as long as I live.
LaceyJaye
@lacey_project
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Love this! Thank you for sharing. đđŒđ€
thank you for sharing your story â€ïž good for you for kicking that bucket! lots of love girl