Baggy Bags
Active Member
I am a party girl. Started getting drunk when I was 13. My mother was the first person to offer me pot at 15, but Nancy Reagan was still in my head, so I said "No" and was very offended she would offer her daughter drugs. She was so cool, I was so uptight... Then I caved. First with cigarettes (my mother smoked pregnant, so I it was double whammy addictive for me), then pot. I was afraid of harder stuff and didn't try anything else until I was in my 20's. And I never, ever tried anything cocaine-related or anything injected. I was very, very clear about this. Also, the more I smoked pot, the less I wanted alcohol. After being an alcoholic teenager, I barely drank in my 20's.
I told my kid all about our genetic disposition from the time he could talk. As a child, seeing how addicted his grandmother is to nicotine, and having watched me struggle to quit my own 20-year, pack-a-day habit (7 years free this month!), he would talk about how he would never touch any of it.
My son tried pot, DMT, MDMA, LSD and cocaine by the time he was 14yo. I was homeschooling him at the time. We were sooooo close, but I couldn't see it. I saw him changing, but really couldn't believe he'd do drugs like that after ALL the information I gave him. I knew he was smoking pot, but trusted that it was infrequent. I always told him to wait until his brain was fully developed, and that if he wasn't going to wait, to please tell me, and that I rather he bring his friends here than they do it in the street (it is not legal here). I had NO IDEA he was smoking every day and doing all the other stuff. He was retaining what we were learning, doing well enough with algebra, memorizing history facts...
DMT is a very hard-core trip. I was 30 when I tried it, and it was a lot for the mind to deal with at that age, so I can't even imagine how a 14yo brain handles it. Sometimes I think that these drugs can open spiritual channels, and that younger people are especially vulnerable to energies/spirits that can come "in" through these channels. That's on my agnostic days. On my atheist days, I know that these drugs can be catalysts for dormant mental disorders.
I was angry at my life-long sacred plant medicine for harming my boy. I had never heard of cannabis-induced psychosis, until it happened to my own child. But I came to understand that it is not the plant's fault, the illness was already there, it just brought it to the surface. Maybe my son could have lived his life without this monster being awakened, but chances are, something in life (if not drugs) would have eventually.
Marijuana is very different for different people. I'll never forget talking to an extremely religious (Opus Dei) mother who actually acknowledged that her teen son was calmer and more manageable when he smoked weed. Can you imagine what she had to go through to be okay with this? But she is now.
For some of us, this plant is a more natural alternative to other medication. I'm pretty sure I'd be on anti-depressants my whole life otherwise. I'm grateful that the plant helps me with this, but I know it doesn't work the same for everyone. I don't get sleepy or lazy. I get focused, motivated, and have a much easier time focusing on the positive.
I'm sharing this with fear of judgment, in case it helps anyone understand a loved one's pot habit. If it doesn't make them psychotic or paranoid, maybe it is helping them.
Copa, I know that it is nearly impossible for us to watch our kids sit around (smoking pot), being lazy, not doing what (we think) they need to do. But if the pot use is the main thing keeping you from letting him back (I have to say that my heart lights up a little when you talk about taking him back, which might just be me projecting my own dream of my son coming back, but it does resonate), maybe you could try to change the way you look at pot, just a little, just enough to be okay with him smoking it out of your sight. Light incense. Try not to focus on it. Maybe it is helping, like it does with this other woman's friend, and several other kids I know about.
There was a time when L and I would fight about opening the curtains in his room. Then the therapist told me that there was something about a depressed teen's brain that "needs" darkness. I don't know if that's true, but it helped me stop fighting about the curtains. The curtains were the least of my problems, but I needed someone's permission to let it go so that every time I saw him in his dark room with no sunlight coming through, I wouldn't feel like I was a terrible mother.
Hugs all around. The stuff we've been through. Jeez.
I told my kid all about our genetic disposition from the time he could talk. As a child, seeing how addicted his grandmother is to nicotine, and having watched me struggle to quit my own 20-year, pack-a-day habit (7 years free this month!), he would talk about how he would never touch any of it.
My son tried pot, DMT, MDMA, LSD and cocaine by the time he was 14yo. I was homeschooling him at the time. We were sooooo close, but I couldn't see it. I saw him changing, but really couldn't believe he'd do drugs like that after ALL the information I gave him. I knew he was smoking pot, but trusted that it was infrequent. I always told him to wait until his brain was fully developed, and that if he wasn't going to wait, to please tell me, and that I rather he bring his friends here than they do it in the street (it is not legal here). I had NO IDEA he was smoking every day and doing all the other stuff. He was retaining what we were learning, doing well enough with algebra, memorizing history facts...
DMT is a very hard-core trip. I was 30 when I tried it, and it was a lot for the mind to deal with at that age, so I can't even imagine how a 14yo brain handles it. Sometimes I think that these drugs can open spiritual channels, and that younger people are especially vulnerable to energies/spirits that can come "in" through these channels. That's on my agnostic days. On my atheist days, I know that these drugs can be catalysts for dormant mental disorders.
I was angry at my life-long sacred plant medicine for harming my boy. I had never heard of cannabis-induced psychosis, until it happened to my own child. But I came to understand that it is not the plant's fault, the illness was already there, it just brought it to the surface. Maybe my son could have lived his life without this monster being awakened, but chances are, something in life (if not drugs) would have eventually.
Marijuana is very different for different people. I'll never forget talking to an extremely religious (Opus Dei) mother who actually acknowledged that her teen son was calmer and more manageable when he smoked weed. Can you imagine what she had to go through to be okay with this? But she is now.
For some of us, this plant is a more natural alternative to other medication. I'm pretty sure I'd be on anti-depressants my whole life otherwise. I'm grateful that the plant helps me with this, but I know it doesn't work the same for everyone. I don't get sleepy or lazy. I get focused, motivated, and have a much easier time focusing on the positive.
I'm sharing this with fear of judgment, in case it helps anyone understand a loved one's pot habit. If it doesn't make them psychotic or paranoid, maybe it is helping them.
Copa, I know that it is nearly impossible for us to watch our kids sit around (smoking pot), being lazy, not doing what (we think) they need to do. But if the pot use is the main thing keeping you from letting him back (I have to say that my heart lights up a little when you talk about taking him back, which might just be me projecting my own dream of my son coming back, but it does resonate), maybe you could try to change the way you look at pot, just a little, just enough to be okay with him smoking it out of your sight. Light incense. Try not to focus on it. Maybe it is helping, like it does with this other woman's friend, and several other kids I know about.
There was a time when L and I would fight about opening the curtains in his room. Then the therapist told me that there was something about a depressed teen's brain that "needs" darkness. I don't know if that's true, but it helped me stop fighting about the curtains. The curtains were the least of my problems, but I needed someone's permission to let it go so that every time I saw him in his dark room with no sunlight coming through, I wouldn't feel like I was a terrible mother.
Hugs all around. The stuff we've been through. Jeez.
