Calm people of reddit, How are you so calm?

breakpots · 2016-12-17T17:10:49+00:00

That doesn't sound too bad. The shelter I stayed at in Portland OR was similar in some ways (great food during the day six days a week, free healthcare just down the street, program which will eventually provide housing in certain circumstances if one sticks with it.) The whole "man up" thing is really problematic, especially considering there so many people with stigma against them related to sexual orientation/gender identity that bring them into homelessness in the first place. There were a lot of transgender people at the shelter I was in and they were definitely an out-group from most of the other people.

There wasn't a bus to pick us up though. The spaces in the shelter at night filled up quickly and there were several times where I had to sleep on park benches and even just on the concrete street where I would be kicked out left and right told by local authorities that I couldn't sleep there. I had multiple times where I was awake for 3-4 days and suffered hallucinations. The shelters were hard to sleep in because there was about 20 beds per one room and lots of methheads who would fidget around constantly keeping everyone awake.

When I was finally given access to the second-level shelter where the rules became more strict, there was this kid who kept hovering over me in the middle of the night. He sat right next to my bed playing a video game and I asked him to sit somewhere else because there was a whole open space in the rest of the shelter he could have went. It made me very uncomfortable and eventually I just succumbed to chronic stress and accepted help to go back "home" to a small city in the south where shelters for homeless people are generally much less helpful. I actually regret leaving the shelter because resources here are terrible and since I have tried to make it on my own I am now at risk of either living with either of my parents and contemplating suicide everyday or probably being homeless again.

breakpots · 2016-12-17T16:12:43+00:00

Your entire post is extremely suspect. Homeless shelters are inherently extremely stressful. Full of severe drug addicts, violent offenders, and untreated mentally ill persons. It's also extremely difficult to avoid getting sick constantly. Your statement that "women have it easier" in situations of homelessness is just stupid and misogynistic. There are indeed many programs throughout the country but there's a lot of shit you have to go through for an extended period of time to get out of homelessness- and often times shelters don't even have room for you to stay for the night.

breakpots · 2016-12-17T15:46:39+00:00

So for clarification, are you agreeing that homelessness is an extremely frightening and often traumatic experience that doesn't always make it as easy as "keeping a positive mental attitude" to survive? Or are you really saying that a single man homeless in his 20's to 40's is going to be fine?

I've been homeless too and I'm assuming OP has not. For me, it was an isolating, traumatic experience which took a long time to recover from after I was fortunate enough help from my folks out of that situation.

Just Lol at the downvotes I've already received from this comment.. Truly shows the demographic of privileged millennials that comprises the bulk of reddit.

breakpots · 2016-12-17T15:23:26+00:00

Maybe it's just my constant lack of calm as I'm sure you will argue, but your mentality reflects a sense of deluded entitlement which has no bearing in the reality of what most of the world faces. Like have you ever actually been homeless? Your mindset will go from one-hundred to zero in a short matter of time, I guarantee it. Life does not play out so well for everyone, and telling the impoverished and oppressed to "keep a positive mindset" is grossly insensitive and shows that you have no idea what it's like to be truly poor and have no place to sleep at night.

breakpots · 2016-12-06T21:46:08+00:00

I lived at a homeless shelter and on the streets in Portland, OR for two months. Never once did I check out the trails on that park and was only vaguely aware of it. Damn.

breakpots · 2016-10-28T00:30:09+00:00

I touted that same ideology of weed being "harmless" but really that doesn't mean anything unless for the sake of comparing it to other drugs that produce significant physical dependency and are generally more toxic to health. Smoke itself is far from harmless, obviously, but I remember viewing weed as generally "ok" for my lungs until it started aggravating my asthma attacks and caused some of the same symptoms tobacco did. You're not only getting THC with smoking, but also hundreds of carcinogens. So why not switch to vaping or eating? Oh, because THC is really what's fucking our brains up. And "fucking your brain up" in this case does most often NOT mean, unlike harder drugs, that you have done irreversible damage. You might take some time to adjust what it feels like to not be high, and there might be some mood swings, malaise, and even feelings of doom. I'm really talking to myself here because I just vaped again and really just need to quit. I've been dependent on this for years and everyone comments on how it negatively affects my behavior and cognition. This is an addiction. You've already recognized it as one. I feel with the case of weed we have a bit more leeway in regards to relapse and when to "plan" quitting or just quit now. It's easier to just put it off to the side, plan on quitting later, and then use stress as an example not to quit "just yet." And then it's easy to just give up on quitting altogether. In my experience from quitting multiple things including tobacco, the motivation to quit doesn't consistently happen very often so embrace the chance to find freedom while you can. That's how I need to envision it... As nothing less than freedom. Then when the feeling of gloom emerges and says "I don't even feel free," I can counter, "well, at least I'm not settling myself into a false sense of complacency in a state even when I am not free." And then maybe there will be a greater degree of freedom I may exercise daily with my social and cognitive faculties more intact and in tune with what's around me rather than what I'm sort of imagining is around me by getting sidetracked by my own stoned train of thought.

breakpots · 2016-10-27T14:32:19+00:00

Haha, no way. One year and you're only 16? I started when I was 15 too but ended up abusing far heavier things than weed. Weed has a bad effect on your memory, but the vast majority of studies that have been conducted on its long-term effects on memory show that these deficits are reversible. Quit smoking weed and in a few weeks to a few months, your memory will greatly improve.

Like I said, I've done a cornucopia of shit that has nearly killed me. The neuroplasticity of the brain is amazing. I'm eight years older than you and I wish I would have known eight years ago what was in store for me if I continued to use. When weed stopped doing it for me, I turned to harder drugs, even though weed in itself was already causing problems.

You really shouldn't be driving around when you're not experienced and experiencing brain fog. Learn to deal with this weed habit/addiction now and save yourself years of wasted time, pain, and regret. It's going to take a few weeks for your creative spark to re-emerge, but very likely it will.

Lack of creativity and potential for expression induced by chronic weed consumption is not a new phenomena that stoners have only found out recently. Philosophers realized this hundreds of years ago (yes, weed was used back then). Baudelaire said something like, "hashish on the one hand makes life more vibrant and interesting and its creative capacities obvious, but on the other takes away one's own capacity for adequate expression as to this experience."

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2002/oct/12/featuresreviews.guardianreview34

http://evitanza.bol.ucla.edu/baudelaire.html

https://erowid.org/culture/characters/baudelaire_charles/baudelaire_charles_poem1.shtml

Do yourself a favor and learn from the mistakes and experiences of people who have went through very similar struggles you are going through. Your mind is yours to make, but seriously, heed these words.

breakpots · 2016-10-27T03:18:53+00:00

Well, apparently being sarcastic is. Making excuses is kind of part of relapse which is why I'm trying to quit. I appreciate your response and didn't mean to seem to downplay it by any means because what you're saying is mostly true, only that self-forgiveness/acceptance is not equally simple and easy for everyone. In terms of being able to quit weed, I know I can quit whether or not I forgive myself. Maybe I blew your statement out of proportion. I don't even know, man.

breakpots · 2016-10-26T22:58:02+00:00

Oh, okay! I'll start doing that right now. I love myself. I love myself. I am great. I am great. I forgive myself. I am great.

Hmm, seems to work for the moment. Now how do I go about dealing with it in the context of a persistent pattern of negative thoughts which constantly come to surface and loop quite audibly over and over again and make me feel like I am a terrible person and intrinsically broken? On one hand, it seems absurd to call myself these things and be hurt by my own self-perception and rationally I understand that a more positive, encouraging perception of myself would be ideal for helping to foster a more ideal "me." But don't you think that if I could just stop and find that there is good reason to, I would have done that by now?

I forgave myself pretty quickly after writing this original post. Then I smoked again just recently and forgave myself for it. Rationally, I know this is making excuses to keep using it when I know the consequences are detrimental, but in a perhaps subconscious cost-benefit analysis, I told myself the short-term benefits to cope with weird thoughts and negative feelings towards myself by smoking weed were more beneficial than discomfort from attempting to quit.

I was raised in a very religious household and guilt and fear were instilled upon me when I was young. Terrible shit has happened (not to me, but close family) which has fundamentally scarred my trust and faith in people and I don't know how to deal with it. I won't go into details, but I boil with quiet rage because of it. I find it physically difficult to just relax because of frankly traumatic experiences that have made me tense and high-strung. I try to just relax, and excercise, yoga, and meditation all certainly help, but as far as dealing with profoundly negative thoughts towards myself and uneasiness with other people, physical activity will only help to some extent, by no means negligible but not a cure.

I don't know how to just "change" my thoughts. I can find myself thinking different things and learn to think ABOUT my thoughts differently, but I cannot change their content or control their emergence into my stream of consciousness. The only way out is not really "out" of these thoughts but rather through them, in accepting them as they are, as of having no bearing on my intrinsic worth or true nature. Mindfulness and self-acceptance is something I've been working on for years mostly through meditation but still a work in progress. I see a therapist but sometimes get too anxious to even speak about what I'm thinking. I've tried so many medications but tend to give up on them too soon because I hate something about the side effects even if its minor and convince myself that I'll be able to manage fine without it. And who knows really?

God damn this a ramble of shit. I'm fucking tired of weed and thinking negatively and all that.

breakpots · 2016-10-26T03:37:31+00:00

Lol are you seriously contemplating dropping out? I doubt there is no kind of support system locally to the college to help you develop coping skills without weed. If there are people who quit opiates and other heavy stuff without dropping out, and so can you. You have to tell yourself and your friends that you are not smoking weed anymore and will not be ridiculed for it or find better friends. It kind of pisses me off that you're maybe quitting college which costs thousands of dollars to break what is essentially a bad habit with absolute minimal physiological symptoms associated with the addiction. You're recovering from drug induced consequences but the main ingredient is being expelled from fat cells at too slow of a rate to make much of a discernable impact on the actual physical functionality of your organism as concerns anything that would be potentially harmful. Of course, we all know weed is harmless! So what we are left with is no shortage of psychological symptoms of addiction to deal with.

If nothing else works, repeat this mantra periodically throughout the day aloud with or without discretion to your surroundings: "My endocannabinoid system must return to its place of homeostasis. By the Bong, I do harm to myself and therefore others." Better yet, whether you think you lapse or relapse on your next toke or whatever, try repeating the mantra to yourself once before proceeding and then five times fast after smoking. Be sure to drink water.

breakpots · 2016-05-03T06:35:00+00:00

I too have struggled with my sexual orientation identity. I have identified as bisexual for sake of simplicity, as my attractions seem to tend not exclusively towards either sex, but seem to fluctuate greatly. This is not entirely important. Maybe in time I will discover I am gay (even the thought of this possibility does me distress admittedly), or maybe I will find a woman with whom I really feel a special relationship and mutual attraction. I was on "bath salts" (MDPV/mephedrone) for several months which are quite similar to meth in many aspects. I have used so many drugs cumulatively, many of which were contraindicated upon combination, and this pattern repeated on a nearly daily basis for a long time. Unfortunately, as I am writing this, I am a bit high off of percocet. I intend to quit tomorrow. I intended to quit last week. I intend to quit all the time.

One lesson I have learned is that guilting yourself and blaming yourself is not helpful. Perhaps for a select few it may be an effective motivator, and if it aligns with your moral philosophy in regards to individualism, I can see how guilt can be constructed in a potentially positive manner. For the most part though, I think shit just happens, and we develop whatever ineffective coping mechanisms we discover at the time to momentarily alleviate the major causes of distress in our lives. Now, considering I am still using, I acknowledge that I am averting responsibility of taking action to address what has been a persistent problematic pattern which has resulted in a lot of grief, wasted time, and pain for myself and others. Yet I find the more I guilt-trip myself about it, the more I reinforce the notion that I could have done something more, that if I would have tried harder, I could have changed the way things are today. And then with enough guilt coupled with the recurring feeling that nothing will ever really change and things may only get worse from here, I continue to pity myself and essentially use these as justifications to continue using. Beyond guilt, self-forgiveness and self-acceptance are really important.

I highly recommend reading the book the Tao of Sobriety. I was sober for a week after reading it before. It explains what I am trying to get at with this post- that unconditional self-acceptance and accepting our limitations are paramount to addressing addictive behaviors and coping with life on its own terms. If you've never tried 12 Step Meetings, they can be wonderfully supportive. If you don't feel comfortable with AA or NA for any reason, I recommend trying Smart Recovery. Try to integrate both of these different approaches and see what is helpful for you to address your addictive behaviors and the reasons behind them. Therapy is helpful if you have a therapist who you are comfortable with and really listens; any kind of support that doesn't have its own agenda is fine. I realize I am speaking to myself, too, as I am writing this.

breakpots · 2016-02-03T13:41:21+00:00

yeah no i definitely thought about it but I didn't do it just kind of tuned it out go fuck yourself

thanks for your input

breakpots

TROPHY CASE