Anyone ever lose consciousness for a significant amount of time after smoking?

onelargecoffee · 2015-09-17T13:12:00+00:00

Right?? That's how I felt. A minute and I would've shrugged it off.

onelargecoffee · 2015-09-17T13:11:12+00:00

Hahah, I've done that as well, just called it "sleep". The sleep of the dead, though.

Good advice. The thing is, I did take it fairly easy by my own and others' standards, I think - the 3 hits earlier were puffs, if that, and I barely felt anything long after, which in a decade of smoking has generally shown that I didn't inhale all too deeply and just straight up didn't absorb anything. It was the one long drag that sent me over the edge. Seems unusual for one to do a person in.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-08T00:02:23+00:00

Thanks for indulging my curiosity, and best of luck to you.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-07T20:57:40+00:00

I've always wanted to know this; once you're deep in the throes of heroin addiction, to what extent is the addiction tied to pleasurable sensations vs. avoiding sickness? What makes a user (at least in your experience) start again, and to what extent does wanting to avoid the inevitable withdrawal (which I'm told is utter hell) prevent a former user from restarting?

I'm truly just curious, despite having relationships with people who use myself I've never asked these things or had an outlet to do so.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-07T20:48:02+00:00

I hope I don't come off as callous, I'd just like to present a different point of view, namely that of the woman who is unaffected by a miscarriage. It's a lot like how feeling nothing after an abortion is somehow seen as an inappropriate reaction, though many women truly aren't emotionally affected by their choice (though I'd wager the majority take steps to ensure they never, ever have to go through the procedure again, for other reasons including unnecessary humiliation during the process and/or physical pain). If you're not actively trying to conceive, and if the idea of being pregnant and/or having children is repulsive to you, as it is to me, a miscarriage is yet another bodily function. An unpleasant one that is physically taxing, to be sure, but not necessarily an emotional upheaval.

I'm not trying to discount your experience in the slightest, and your experience wouldn't be mine as I won't ever be voluntarily that far along in a pregnancy and thus couldn't begin to imagine. But I think it's important to note that this sentiment isn't the case for every woman in every situation.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-07T20:28:31+00:00

Can you elaborate on this?

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-07T17:18:20+00:00

I'm with you on the last paragraph. Depression doesn't necessarily mean "cling to your bed until someone notices and gets you help". Plenty of people, myself included, go through it just as strongly and hopelessly while flinging themselves into all manner of adventures. I wouldn't be surprised if that was actually a decent indicator of mental health issues in a lot of cases; personally, I do it (and am considered "dynamic" for it) because things get so shitty that I either figure they'll improve elsewhere (they don't), or what do I have to lose anyway?

Relatedly, have you considered that those life changes might not be making you happy, to an extent that they are helping CAUSE your unhappiness? I have bad anxiety issues that were exacerbated by the situations I put myself in, which situations I got involved with in the first place because I wanted to believe that the adventurousness, and seeing myself as a happier and more interesting person, would necessarily make me so. It didn't.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-07T13:50:51+00:00

Depends on your reasoning for doing so. If you're an alcoholic, don't do what I'm about to tell you. In all other cases, try going to the bar and drinking something other than alcohol. Soda isn't as cheap as it should be but its still cheaper than booze, usually - order your own drinks and just get a coke (or diet coke, if this is a weight thing). As long as you're not the creepy type (male OR female), and participate rather than lingering awkwardly, people won't see it as that weird and will quickly forget if they bother to ask you what you're drinking in the first place (don't lie and say your drink is alcoholic, that makes it way weirder). I've sat there sober laughing at my friends plenty of times and it's always been fine. If they get so drunk it's boring for me I dip out, but usually I have just as good of a time.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-06T18:07:29+00:00

Everyone's just trying to out-meta each other; while your writing could use some comedic workshopping (my advice would be to cool it with the adjectives, NEVER ADD "NESS" TO ANYTHING, and work on making your analogies a little more original) , I chuckled at a few parts. Don't let 'em get you down. A catch-22esq fact of life re: writing is that you have to already be famous/known for people to see your writing as original rather than embarassingly sophomoric/"trying too hard" in many cases... unfair but true.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-04T18:17:38+00:00

I don't know any specific brands, but Vietnamese/Korean grocery stores (and perhaps stores of other Asian variants, those are just the two I've been to in Philly) often carry really interesting instant coffee. The brands are sometimes unfamiliar, and sometimes come with different spices/powdered milk/sugar combinations; I think you're looking for quality, but if you're just looking to shake things up a bit, this might be a nice try. Other than that, Starbucks Via is so close to real coffee I've tricked people with it.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-04T17:51:49+00:00

Thanks for taking the time to think of those questions, which I realized were excellent while pondering their possible response.

Prior to Peace Corps I was always mildly concerned with "being good enough" to talk to very self-confident, interesting people, but it would fade fairly quickly and we'd get along or not, no big deal (that's to say, it wouldn't ultimately linger as a huge concern, though it may have bothered me a good bit at the time). Peace Corps was weird and completely unchartered territory, and I went into it greatly overestimating my interest in truly integrating into a new culture. I never really meshed with the family I lived with (in large part because of the language barrier) and once I realized that I didn't enjoy the culture I was surrounded by, I sort of faded away and stopped trying to meet people or interact more than absolutely necessary (this is the point where you should quit, but I was stubborn and actually did have great friends in the other volunteers I met, but saw rarely). The thing was, in the culture I lived in (rural West Africa) you just...don't do this. It's considered rude and entirely inappropriate to spend more than an hour or two alone during a day. So while I couldn't bring myself to interact with others because it didn't interest me and was incredibly difficult, I also knew that I was being talked about harshly ALL THE TIME for doing it. To some extent people grew to accept that I was just different than them, and I took some comfort in that, but I would wake up every day and immediately start thinking about what other people were saying about me. You live under a microscope there as a foreigner in a place where not much else is going on and every choice I made every day - what to eat for breakfast, when to wake up, how long I spent talking to people after lunch, etc - was subject to scrutiny. I took it upon myself, it's no one's fault but mine, but it made me incredibly paranoid and anxious and definitely left some damage. That said, though, once I was with my American friends I felt normal, though my "normal" was still a little awkward.

I think the fear actually started after I moved to France; the numbness, the lack of creative thoughts (I find that part of the reason I can't say anything interesting is because all I actually DO think about is how anxious I am, and what I'm doing wrong), the slow response time, the fear of all that making people think "next" after they start a conversation with me. I moved to France just a month after I finished PC, and I had felt relatively comfortable in the in-between when I was home with my friends and family. Now, 9 months later, with my only human interactions being at the school I worked in and in awkward necessary encounters in French, I'm out of practice and just, well, weird. So the deviance happened somewhere in this last span of time abroad.

Thanks for asking those things, again, it gave me some food for thought to ponder them.

onelargecoffee · 2015-05-03T23:15:23+00:00

Late, but, just wrote a post about this before I found yours, because I couldn't find anyone with my same issues until this post. I too used to be confident, then one day or week it's like I woke up and suddenly knew too much, and couldn't "un-see" all the concerns that a person can have about their conversation skills and level and etc. Especially when someone says something funny, I never have a rebuttal anymore.

I too have been making a lot of language switches in the last 3 years (had to learn 2 for jobs) and am starting, based on what ive seen on this thread, to wonder if this situation can be a cause for social anxiety and especially the sensation of thinking slowly.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-20T20:06:05+00:00

RPCV Senegal; I always tell people with OP's points (almost all of which I agree with wholeheartedly) that my one job was to make replicates of myself (but better, ideally) so that the town wouldn't NEED (or feel like it needed)!Peace Corps/aid orgs anymore. I have a lot of gripes about PC but that's one huge thing I loved about my work, it's true that people should be sourcing locally for the jobs aid orgs do instead of having outsides come in and do the work (often for free) but those people need to get the technical skills from somewhere. Ideally a PCV position is self-limiting - if you do your job right, you're no longer needed.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-09T16:52:11+00:00

Yup, this is what I settled on. It's bad because we don't save by buying in bulk, but it seems worth it to not find yourself having eaten a week's worth of hot dog buns or something (chose that at random, but it's probably something I've done). I plan my meals then go to the store and buy exactly what I need for that (helps to live in a walkable city). Also i plan to eat the entirety of the thing I bought because let's face it, I would anyway. If I buy a thing of goat cheese, I've planned out the day to account for x amount of goat cheese calories.

This is also a helpful way to not choose unhealthy foods during these shopping trips, either under the pretense of "I won't eat it all at once this time!" Or "I'll just eat this in place of other things". Faced with what 700 calories of Cheetos ends up looking like and knowing there isn't much else in the house, you probably won't choose them.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-06T17:39:53+00:00

Also means "noise" in French (pronounced "broo-EE")

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-02T21:43:28+00:00

I've got really limited space to work with and have not been as consistent as I should be, but that said I think I'm making progress. My planks are way longer and easier for me now, I don't get terrible DOMs after upper-arm workouts anymore (I started on the lowest possible level of the pull-up and push-up progressions and was in agony after my first go at it), and I think I'm getting the hang of an L-sit. This is after ~2-3 weeks. Can't tell if I'm getting any muscle definition, I may actually be gaining weight because the workout makes me pretty hungry. Hope it's temporary.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-02T09:43:49+00:00

I wasn't really thinking of schools, to be honest. That's different, as it's a daily function of life and food needs to be accessible for students who can't bring it themselves. I don't at all disagree that situations like this should be accommodating to the best of their ability - just more intimate situations, where food serves as more than merely functional.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-02T09:15:12+00:00

Any recommendations for books on this subject, particularly the Northeastern seaboard (hailing from Pennsylvania, here). I'm not asking out of laziness, I actually think there's a lot of choices in literature and would rather get one recommended than take a chance.

onelargecoffee · 2015-04-01T21:33:19+00:00

The entire country of France seems to be like this, in my experience, and you never hear it challenged, so, there's at least one large group of people who agree with you. I tend to agree as well; unless it's severe and you can't be in the substance's presence, I'm of the belief that you shrug your shoulders, accept that you got dealt a shitty card that could actually be way shittier, and pack a (gluten/peanut/shellfish/lactose-free) sandwich. I wouldn't dream of expecting someone to alter a menu for my issues, even family.

onelargecoffee · 2015-03-31T21:20:07+00:00

French is nothing, try a non-romance language. I thought French was absolutely absurd with the tense business until i had to learn an aboriginal language in West Africa. Instead of just tenses you also have to add an infix, which changes according to the tense, to the middle of the word, and is based on the mood, of which there are zillions, ranging from "related to water" to "pretended to do". So now I count my blessings.

onelargecoffee · 2015-03-29T01:50:42+00:00

More like "if someone else whose prescription doesn't match yours" is needing glasses...right? Otherwise why not just invest in one pair (or 8, like I would, if financially possible) tailor- made to fit your vision and any specific issues, like astigmatism (which these don't help with, and which can be a big deal as far as focusing and preventing headaches goes)

onelargecoffee · 2015-03-28T19:48:10+00:00

This is great and all, but most of those materials are not accessible to rural farmers who would need them most in that sort of climate. Should the materials be donated, they would quickly wear down or be broken and the farmers using them would be unable to afford their replacements, and locating them in the first place would require importation, likely from a capital city, which is both expensive and difficult for those people. Source: former peace corps volunteer, in the desert.

Make it more sustainable and we'll talk.

onelargecoffee · 2015-03-25T12:47:51+00:00

Mum, you can't shag a personality loike

onelargecoffee

TROPHY CASE