So here's the story of that one time I had a pot brownie...
In high school and college I was a goodie two-shoes when it came to drugs. Besides the fact they were illegal and I was scared shitless of ever getting caught, I didn't want any of that crap in my body. I didn't care if others around me did drugs (and really, the only drugs people I knew did was smoke pot), but I didn't want to. I had never smoked a cigarette in my life (still never have) and didn't want any foreign substances (besides alcohol and large athlete penis'. Zing!) in me. However, as my trip to Europe was approaching last summer, I knew I'd be going to Amsterdam and wanted to partake in the culture. But first, I needed to experiment here and see how my body reacted. I wanted to smoke some weed and try a weed brownie. I had been wanting to try weed for a while but was too scared to do so because I didn't want anything in my lungs and also didn't know how I'd react. People had been telling me for years that I should smoke it because it would mellow me out and also because apparently, its good for my Ulcerative Colitis. Not only would it calm my brain, but also my bowels. I still resisted. I'm such a good girl!
I got some joints from a friend and tried smoking a few times on my own and it really had such a minimal affect on me. I felt slightly relaxed but nothing that some prescription pills couldn't do. Meh. Then my friend told me she had some homemade weed brownies in her freezer so we decided to make an evening of it. I wasn't going to go at this alone. I needed some support and a partner-in-crime. And then we had the best idea ever: we decided to make weed brownie fro-yo sundaes. I stopped at 16 Handles (an awesome frozen yogurt spot in NYC) and got us some fro-yo and fun toppings. At her apartment, we then each put brownie pieces in our frozen yogurt, ate it and waited. I felt nothing. Nada. Zilch. So I added another half of a brownie. Still nothing. (Yes I know it takes longer for the drugs to enter your system when you eat them, but I was impatient.) She was starting to get high and I still felt unaffected. So of course, naturally, against her advice, I added the other half (totaling my consumption to two brownies). After more time passing, I still wasn't feeling anything and she was very high. I decided I was going to just head home and go to bed. Of course, as the story usually goes, the moment I left her apartment, I realized I wasn't really sure how to head home. It was as if I was in a foreign city. I had only been to her apartment, which is only like 5 blocks from mine, 1000 times, and now I wasn't sure how to get home. Also, I wasn't really sure my body remembered how to swallow. Like what if my body literally forgot how to swallow and I just died on the street because I couldn't get oxygen in? OMG. I was panicking. Seriously, I thought my body was letting me suffocate and my heart was going to just stop. I finally made it home even though nothing looked familiar the entire way. I talked to my friend on the phone the whole way home to make sure I made it there alive (even though she was now super high) and then got inside and the tweaking really began. Like a full on paranoia attack. It was surreal.
I tried going to bed but I really thought I was going to stop breathing in my sleep because my body just forgot how to do that also. I called my friend again and told her that if she didn't hear from me by nine in the morning to come over and make sure I was alive. I then called my parents telling them to call me in the morning and if they didn't hear from me, that my body forgot how to breathe and to make sure my friend found my body. They were hysterically laughing at me. I thought I was not going to survive the night and they were laughing. They told me to relax and go to sleep and it would all be fine. This was clearly not going to happen for me. I was fucking freaking out. Being left alone with my own thoughts on a regular day is scary to me, but when I am super high, it is just not okay. Thing things that went through my head were just straight up crazy and I can't believe I even thought them.
I thought about taking myself to the ER but realized there was nothing they could do. I was going to go for a walk and get fresh air but didn't know if I'd know where to go or how to get home. Didn't know if I'd get in a car with a stranger and end up dead. Didn't know if I'd get hit by a car and end up dead. Didn't know if I'd just get tired and crawl in a bank vestibule in my pajamas and go to bed and freeze to death. (Seeing a pattern here?) And all the meanwhile, if I died on the mean streets of NYC, it would come out later that I was high and that was the reason I made such poor decisions and died. Then everyone would think I was this big druggie. Not okay. This was turning into a nightmare. This is why I always said no to drugs in the past.
Okay I thought, maybe I'd get in a cab and fly home to Chicago right now and see my parents. No big deal, they'd love it. We'd been talking all night and an hour into me being high they had had enough of me and my "what-ifs". (I kept saying to them "well what if I..." and "what if I..." Like crazy ridiculous what-ifs.) They were starting to get scared because I was so paranoid and my mind was racing and I was just spewing out all this information to them. (And not to mention I was calling them like every eight minutes or so with something new to say. Or just repeating my fears over and over again.) I totally would fly home and see them right then and it would make everything all better. What was I thinking?!?!
Okay, so I wasn't going to leave my apartment. Naturally, I barricaded myself inside by moving my coffee table all the way in front of the door to protect myself from myself. I wasn't going to go anywhere and cause any problems for others or for me. But what if I died and no one knew since I lived alone? And what if my friend came by to check on me in the morning since she didn't hear from me and couldn't get in because of the barricade? So then I moved it back. I did this about four or five times. I'm sure my downstairs neighbors hated me. And mind you, while all of this was happening I had to remind my body how to swallow and breath. This was a nightmare. I hated myself.
Throughout the rest of the night, I tried to fall asleep a million times. Between all the bad thoughts in my head (all these what-if's of really terrible things I may or may not do while high (which I can't even get into because everyone will think I'm certifiable)), I could not sleep. Finally, after talking to my parents again, my mom, now very irritated and tired because I kept calling frantically, told me to put on Troop Beverly Hills and perhaps that would calm me down. It was now like 3:00 in the morning and I needed to not be high anymore. Or ever again. I put on the movie and just sat up in bed breathing and swallowing until I finally passed out.
This was probably one of the scariest, worst experiences of my life. Not having control over my thoughts is beyond terrifying. On a good day, I let them get to me, but on this day, everything was magnified and out of control. It wasn't fun to say the least.
So that's my story. Sure, maybe I shouldn't have gone ahead and added the second brownie to my sundae. Sure, maybe I should have just stayed at my friends house although she may have killed me because I was so insane that night. Some of the stuff I remember from that night I didn't even share because it was so beyond ridiculous and crazy that 1) no one would believe I actually thought those things and 2) I scared myself so much by my own thoughts I don't even want to relive them. Regardless, the moral of the story is that I will never, ever eat any marijuana laced food again. I've smoked a few more times and it really seems to have little effect on me. Whatever it may be, I will never forget that night, my parents will never let me live it down, and of course, I stayed far, far away from all the space cakes in Amsterdam. Lesson learned my friends. Lesson learned.
This is too awesome for words! My favorite blog by far! We are so different yet so alike in many ways :). The first time I had HALF of a glass of wine was after college at a nice steak restaurant with Steve. I got up to go to the bathroom and everything was in slow motion and spinning around me. I didn't know what was wrong with me and thought I was going to die! I freaked out until I realized this awful sensation must be what they call being "buzzed." I felt a little less scared, but I sure didn't take another sip of that wine. I HATE being in less than full control of my body, and to this day I have never been drunk. That was as drunk as I came :). Hahah. Good stuff.
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