by Tab Moura
The sweat, the adrenaline, the nightmares, the shame spirals and paranoia. Panic is an old friend of mine. My first panic inducing nightmare was when I was 5. I dreamt that I was being chased down a dark alley by a man in a trench coat who was holding a gun. It’s interesting how I have lost so many memories due to my Epilepsy, but I can remember all of the times I feared for my life. Fear is a loud, intrusive teacher, but it is a teacher nonetheless.
I’ve spent many hours in therapists’ chairs, I’ve attended programs that lasted for days; pouring over my stressors, my triggers, my sins and faults. It was too much to look at sometimes, but they also showed me the strengths that helped me survive, endure and recover. It was addressing my weakness that helped me chip away at the sludge that paralyzed me so often.
When I began using cannabis, I was mostly focused on treating my pain and visible health issues. You know, the “real” pain. But the anxiety was always there, riding on the back of my self doubt and self hate…
“this medicine is too expensive, you don’t deserve to feel relief like this…” “If you just ate better (and better and better) this wouldn’t be an issue,” “people will never respect you as long as you are dependent on medicine,” “church people will reject you,”
“people won’t let you babysit…”
“you’re gonna lose your kids if you advocate for this plant…”
This is the censored version… I can promise you that my inner-anxiety-voice is crueler and colder to me than anyone in my life has ever been.
But I have learned to identify these comments as what they are… anxiety. A valid concern occasionally bubbles up; the anxiety voice is not balanced— but it’s not always wrong. For example, I did need to eat *differently*, but demonizing food was not the right way to handle that. And the truth is that not everyone supports my choice to use cannabis, but I have found support in some of the most “unlikely” places. My anxiety just wants to keep me safe… but it’s not a genius. So I’ve learned to ask “how is this true, and how is this false?” Sometimes the best I can do is just ask it to hang on a moment… but no matter what, I don’t own it’s voice as my own anymore.