I Ran Out of Pot
but
I Got Creative and Diverted Disaster
I have
Depression andI had a major problem with my pot supply this week. I use pot to
keep a lid on my mood and this is a crisis
I am happy
to report that my pot crisis is over. I ran out day before yesterday and
yesterday was no fun because I could feel my depression setting in and my mood
changing as time passed. I too am a casualty of the Down East Freeze. My
shipment of super pot from Toronto is stuck and I was facing a whole
week shortfall this morning.
In panic
and in search od some secret stash I had forgotten I ran across a bag of twigs
and stems I had considered using to make oil. They were small twigs and stems,
drier than hell and tough as rocks but they were covered with hard little green
balls of leaf and resin. I needed a toke badly so I got my mortar and pestle
and I pounded the hell out of a pile of lumber bigger than my fist until it was
reduced to shreds and then ran it through a sieve.
I got ½ a
cup of fine leaf and resin that I proceeded to pestle 200 strokes into a fine
powder. I put a pinch in my pipe and did a good hit. Great Jumpin Jesus! A
miracle: Really good and I’m back to normal in no time flat and I’m looking at
about a two week supply of some pretty decent hoot. My panic vanished.
I decide to
tell you about all this because a FB friend sent me a link to an article on FB
by a girl, no a mature woman, describing her problems with depression. It was
excellent and I could relate to her. I also realized that of all the other
readers of her story very few understood what depression really is and what she
was talking about. The simple fact is that if you haven’t been there, or been
very close to someone who is, you can’t know.
What follows
is my story of my relationship with Depression
1. How I got it.
2. What I learned it is,
3. What it did to me,
4. How it changed me, and
5. The person I am becoming because of
it.
I have
become very conscious of how my mind works and I can detect when trouble is brewing.
After two days abstinence before I created my miracle cure all the alarms were
going and I was extremely concerned about what was ahead for the next couple of
days.
I have
learned to watch myself in my head and I can see my brain going negative, from
creative thinking about my blog and what I was going to do next; to the now,
today and all the problems I have in life. I can control this by using my soapstone
pipe and taking teeny weeny little one puff tokes like every half hour from
from 5AM to 11PM; it levels me out and I get through
the day without a hell of a lot of problems. It really is amazing how the first
little toke can change my whole mood in about 5 minutes, even less depending on
the potency of the pot.
I’ve run
out of pot on a couple of occasions and that is not good because it’s a nasty
downhill slope to the bottom of the hole and I don’t want to go there but, if
it keeps developing, that is where I’m heading. It’s almost predictable in its
development and fortunately I’ve only been out for a short time, about three
days.
Even in
that time you can go from thinking about your problems and the blame game
starts: you start to feel responsible for an increasing number of fuckups in
your past life. That’s not too bad but if you lose it here, you start blaming
yourself for imaginary fuckups that were never your fault but; you remember every
bad turn in your life and you start asking yourself “What if I has only done this? You don’t know
the answer but you assume the result would have solved the problem and you
start feeling guilty for your sin of omission and on and on until every waking
hour is devoted to hating yourself for destroying a mostly imaginary life. You
hit the bottom of the hole when you lose hope of ever forgiving yourself and getting
back to normal. Thank Christ I’ve only hit bottom once when I crashed in 1999.
I avoided it again today when I created a supply of pot.
What Happened To Me
When I
crashed in Sept 1999 I hadn’t worked I over a year and a half, had a work
accident and ruptured a disc at L4/5 six months previously, weighed 289 lbs.
and was completely out of physical shape.. I was sent to a WCB Occupational
Rehab Program with extreme demands and collapsed half way through the second
day of a four hour exercise program. I was sent to Surrey Memorial Hospital, a suspected heart attack but I had
none. I was lucky that my heart specialist was very perceptive an noticed my
downcast appearance. At an office visit one week after discharge he asked me to
write a very quick test of 30 questions that took less than 2 minutes to answer:
As quick as you can, read each question and don’t think, just check the yes or
no answer box. I scored an amazing 27 out of the 30 and was very proud until he
told me that it was a test for Depression and any score over 15 was bad news.
He made a phone call and I walked down the street to see a Psychiatrist a half
hour later.
Apparently
most depression is the result of a problem with Serotonin, a hormone that
controls your moods and their intensity. I can’t remember which gland makes it
but nobody knows what goes wrong and there is no cure. Fortunately there are now
a number of drug treatments that will help but everybody reacts differently and
what will work with you is a psychiatrist guess game. I was lucky to be put on
a drug called Serzone, an SSRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitor) immediately and it
worked for me. Unfortunately for a lot of depressed patients finding the right
drug for them can be a trial and error effort that lasts for years of ups and
downs and that can be completely disabling.
I hit
bottom about a month after diagnosis of depression and it took me about six
month to get back to near normal. In April 2000 I was diagnosed as having a
Major Depressive Disorder Recurrent and I had several bad spells over the next
two or three years. I have been spell free for the past 7 or 8 years but the
worst result was discovering that I was doubly depressed and had Dysthymia, a
low grade chronic depression that lasts forever in some instances. It’s not so
bad being gloomy all the time but for me it meant the complete loss of interest
and ability to do everything that I enjoyed and made my life worth while.
What I Lost to Dysthymia
I bought my
first guitar from the T. Eaton Company catalog for $5 when I was 8 and my Mom
taught me to play it first as a steel guitar on my lap then as a rhythm guitar
and I finally would up as a pretty good bluegrass finger picker. I was a Burl
Ives fan and a good singer of his songs and other ballads and I loved to party
and entertain. I knew a hundred dirty jokes and songs and I ran with a beer
loving crowd of buddies.
I bought my
current guitar in 1968 and it’s a pretty rare Canadian Espana guitar made for
the T. Eaton Company by a Finnish guitar manufacturer out of specially provided
Canadian woods. It’s a classical style guitar but I discovered its body is a
little larger and its got a slightly softer deeper tone. Its my baby!
My guitar
has sat in the closet for 15 years now with only the occasional attempt to
play. I pulled it out about three months ago intending to get back into playing
and discovered rusty fingers and a voice that hasn’t been used in years. I’ve
been looking at the damned thing in the corner and wondering what to do.
What is the
point of playing again? Right now, none! The only audience I have is you my
readers and the only entertainment I can share with you is my Joke Collection.
They are the best 70 jokes that I have collected over the past 50 years and I
managed to post them as a blog to share at TheYarnBarn.Blogspot.ca/. Take a
peek when you need a grin. I recommend the following
The Runaway sermon at
Crestmont Methodist
The moral
of the story:
Don’t piss off the
Preacher
I can read
1250 words per minute and I was a compulsive reader. I began reading Zane Grey
when I was about ten, in bed at Granddads farmhouse at night by kerosene
lantern light. I absorbed the Code of the West and his hero gunfighter’s
penchant for pursuing justice. By the time I was 15 I had read every book in
the Fort Saskatchewan town and school libraries and took
the bus to Edmonton to trade for another load of
fiction and fantasy every weekend. My favorites are probably James Clavell,
Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy.
I loved books,
good movies and TV series that primarily featured characters who overcame great
and complex difficulties in the course of their lives. Through the exercise of
good character, determination and courage they overcame their problems.
I have not
read a book for at least the last ten years. I have the same problem with
movies and TV. I try and I get not even a quarter ways through and I’ve just
lost interest in these heroes and their problems. Who gives a shit? I’ve got
problems of my own and she is watching me right now. LOL
I AVOIDED DISASTER
Up until
two years ago I was in total isolation in my room unless I was at work
afternoons as a Security Guard watching a bank. I had no beer, no buddies, no
social circle at all. My wife was totally unaware of how depressed I was but I
damned near hit the bottom of the barrel again and on the way to work just
before Christmas I was indulging in suicidal ideation about how I should kill
myself. I got a wake up call. I was on River Road and wanted to turn left onto Nordel Way. I waited until the last truck cleared the
orange light, turned left and was T-boned in the passenger door by a kid in a
pickup truck trying to beat the light. He was going really fast and spun me
around 270 degrees and landed me up on top of the lane divider about 12“higher
than the road.
I was lucky
I wasn’t killed. I lost consciousness for a very short time but hardly had a
scratch: a badly bruised set of right side ribs but nothing else. I was taken
to hospital, x-rayed and released with an Rx for pain pills. For some strange
reason pot didn’t help with that rib pain and it always was like a stab in the
side that took forever to quit hurting every time I coughed or farted or
laughed.for two months. It was a wakeup call that it just wasn’t my time to
croak. Fate, Kharma, who the hell knows, but the Big Boy didn’t want me yet..
I was
familiar to a certain degree about the problems with Medical Marijuana and had
some nasty relationships with the MMAD and I decided that if I was stuck here,
something had to change, and that was me. Jan 1. I decided to help so I started
this blog on Jan 1, 2012.
January 27,
I read of the Kamermans bust and I decided to become an advocate for him and
that expanded to my current range of interests.
I owe much
of my recovery to you commenting readers for feedback that let me know that I
am doing some good work and have helped some people. That has provided the
incentive and motivation to make more changes and get back to the party animal
I was. I have plans for Youtube to play and sing two very good not quite dirty
songs that I want to get credit for. I have no idea where they came from but
they popped into my head 40 years ago and I think they qualify as Classic
Country, Just the title and chorus of each will give you a pretty good idea of
what is going to come if I can get my new webcam working and learn to warble
and pick again:
.
The first is called:
FLATTULENCE
and its chorus goes:
FART! FART! FART! FART!
Whistle, Bang or Wheeze
Odorous and Awful now
It’s floating on the breeze
The second
is called:
THE SHITHOUSE ON THE FARM
and its chorus goes
It’s that little white building by
the barn
It’s the most important building on
the farm
Where I used to sit at ease
With my elbows on my knees
In that little white building by the
barn
Playing them at my funeral would
make that a perfect send off,
everybody would be singing along and stomping
their feet.
The last
two years of Facebook and the Blog have made a huge change in my mood and
outlook and I hope to continue to grow more. It is a remarkable turnaround from
shame to once again feeling some self esteem and actually feeling proud of
myself for what I have managed to do.
So onward
and upward with the Don Quixote imitation and the Code of the West belief. You
charge the goddamn windmill and then when you get close enough to see the
occupant you quick draw your pistol and shoot the bastard between the eyes
before he can shoot you.
(Standard
Police Procedure: Claim Self Defense)
Unfortunately there is no shortage of
damsels in distress around here with grow-ops to save and I expect to be busy!
That is my
story and how I got here and nobody knows where I’m going until I write my next
post.
Until then
Blaine Barrett
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