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What is socialphobia
One day I googled "socialphobia" and I found this article about socialphobia by Thomas A. Richards, Ph.D. to be the clearest explanation of socialphobia I can find. Reading it, I saw myself. It was like he had lived in my head all these years and put down on paper my feelings.
My socialphobia has been with me for a life time. I was lying in bed last night trying to think of when I became socialphobic. My earliest memory of feeling inadequate about everything began when I was somewhere around the age of 6 or 7. I can begin to pin-piont certain events that caused me so much distress I was actually suicidal. Not suicidal enough to harm myself but enough imagine throwing myself infront of a car or to just to wish I was dead. At the time I had no idea what was going on in my head. I just knew I wasn't like everyone else.
My first recollections of feeling inadequate began when I started taking piano lessons. I was instructed at home by a good friend of the family. My two older sisters also recieved piano lessons. I can remember trying so hard to accomplish the tasks set out but I could never seem to please anyone with my efforts. I felt increasingly unable to do what was asked and I pleaded to be allowed to stop. luckily my wish was granted.
The next time I can recall feeling so totally useless was when I began to take ballet. At school I was in grade two. Even at that young age I was well aware that my legs were very thin and knobbly-kneed. I was so sure the other girls had "ballet legs" and I didn't. I felt I could never be a dancer because of my leg shape. So again, I pleaded to be let out from the lessons and again i was granted permission.
Soon after the ballet fiasco my parents audtioned me for a play and I had to be a fairy in a production of Cinderella. My job was to learn dance steps. It was hard and i could never remember what came next. One dance I kept messing up so badly it was decided I would just perch on the edge of the stage with my wings spread while the other's did their little dance. I was young enough to believe this was how they had planned it from the beginning but old enough to begin feeling like they thought I was stupid. Anyhow, during this little dance routine there i was perching when the number came to and end. The curtains closed behind me! i had been too far forward. I was mortified! The audience laughed and laughed as i fumbled for the part in the curtains trying to find my way back onto the stage and into the safety of the darkness backstage. This one event has haunted me for over 50 years. This is the event where i realy began to understand i was not like anyone else. That I was different and terribly wrong.
Sometime passed before I can remember socialphobia causing me problems again. This time I was around the age of 12. I was going through puberty and I was begining life in a new city. I was feeling increasingly flawed but really didn't know why.
My previous 12 years had been spent growing up on army bases. My parents were strict and I led a very sheltered life. Now, at the age of 12, I found myself in my first city school. There was no way I was going to fit in. I was an outsider and felt very unaccepted by the kids and by now authority figures were terrifying me.
I had trouble relating to kids at school. I basically became a loner. I didn't fit in anywhere. I was painfully shy and longed to have a friend but the kids saw me as a snob because I shied away from them. I became rebellious and started skipping school and neglecting my homework. Teachers didn't like me, either.
My problems were growing and my social skills were zilch. If I had any friends at all, it was just one close friend and who-ever they hung with. I never had a "crowd". I couldn't take peer pressure and teasing. It was just too painful so I began "hermiting".
About the time I reached 14 I began using drugs. At first, I tried sniffing glue. I got high a few times and I liked the feeling it gave me. I could relate to those around me. But glue sniffing went to the wayside after a few tries and i went back to feeling like a big nothing.
When I turned 16 I left school forever. I was using acid, speed and mescaline on a regular basis. Again, it was experimental and my use was sporadic but, this episode lasted until I was 19.
At 19 I was really feeling the symptoms of socialphobia big time and still I had no idea my feelings of being the world's biggest loser were an illness. I just assumed I was flawed and kept my mouth shut. I couldn't explain the feelings I had to myself, nevermind trying to explain them to someone else. In those days you had to be a raving maniac to be thought of as mentally ill. I really felt alone in this world.
I had trouble finding work. Not because there was a lack of employment, but because I couldn't cope in the interviews. I was so devastated by the fear of failure I couldn't even try. Again, I beat myself up for the millionth time. I hated myself and my inability to function in a normal world. During this time I held a few jobs but ended up quitting them within a few months. I think the longest I held a job was for 6 months.
I began drinking as a way of easing my distress. I felt more at ease with people and I didn't feel like such a loser. I drank sporadically up until I was 21. At this time i gave birth to a healthy bouncing baby-boy.
My personal relationships were going south. My husband was cruel to me and my baby. I left him and started life alone. I used pot and alcohol now to self-medicate. This way of self-medicating consisted of occassional binges once every other month or so.
Work was increasingly becoming impossible. I seemed to fail at everything. Not only did I think I screwed up every task, relationships with anyone sucked the big one. My secret inadequacies were getting harder to cover up. I knew now everyone saw me as a big fuck up.
For the next 10 years I hid at home. I tried working at menial tasks because I didn't have to perform at any level of intellegence. Even so, I felt I couldn't do the job as was expected and beat myself up even more. I began drinking heavily.
I was alone and away from my family. I couldn't hold a job. I stopped looking for work altogether. This suited me fine because interviews were THE most terrifying aspects of my life.
I drank for about the next 10 years. I used pot occasionally. Pot made me feel really good and I began to leave the alcohol behind. I had found my drug. My drinking had really ascerbated my socialphobia. I had become a total hermit only leaving my house for doctors appointments and food.
Soon I found myself involved in the mental health system when I became hospitalized for being sucidal. I had taken the next step in self-harm and overdosed on alcohol and pills. Little did I know that this step was my first step in understanding my illness.
Over the next 10 years, millions of pills and one-on-one therpay I began to understand the scope of what was wrong with me. I threw away alcohol as a self-medication entirely and began to rely solely on pot.
I am almost 56 now. I use pot as needed. I don't abuse it. I don't take it when I don't feel like i need it. I use it to relieve stress. I use it at home - alone. usually in the eveings after a particularly stressful day. It helps me.
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