#1 ·
Hey everyone on the forum.
My name is John, I'm 21, and I'm living in New York City. I'm currently a sophomore at the Harvard Kennedy School—well, hopefully a junior soon. I decided to jump on here because I figured this place has all kinds of different people with unique perspectives, and honestly, I could really use some advice from a bunch of different angles. I’ll just dive straight into my mess since I couldn't find any other subcategory for this.
I was only 17 when I first messed around with weed. It was just part of the crowd I was running with back then. They all started smoking, and I was actually the only one against it. I stayed away from them for a while, but then around June 2014, I finally gave in and took a few hits just to see what the deal was. That was basically the start of my whole saga. At first, I didn't feel anything special and was just like, "This is going to be garbage." And I stayed in that headspace for a long time. Up until mid-November 2016, I only used it occasionally—maybe once every couple of months. I felt the effects, but it wasn't anything worth overthinking. During that gap, if I was using anything else, it was harder stuff, like amphetamines, ecstasy, or cocaine... I was always more of a fan of the chemical side of things rather than the "natural" stuff, if you catch my drift. By April 2016, I actually quit everything. I stayed strictly on weed, maybe once or twice a month. Honestly, I felt great back then; it made the world seem a bit brighter. The real trouble started when I started college in 2016. Shortly after classes kicked off, I started hanging out with a different group of guys from my old neighborhood. These were kids I'd known forever, even before anyone started smoking, but by the time we reconnected, they were all heavy users. I started joining in regularly. Whether it was at my place or out somewhere, I was hitting two joints a day. Some days I wouldn't touch it for a while, so it wasn't even serious yet. At first, it didn't even touch my grades. I actually started strong, passing all my midterms and a couple of exams during the winter session. But then the second semester hit, and everything went south. Early in 2017, my grandmother got sick (it was just me, her, and my uncle at home). That was the first time I dealt with something resembling depression. I knew she was dying—it was cancer—and I knew I'd eventually have to handle the apartment by myself, but I was totally avoiding facing reality. Between January and June of that year, weed started affecting me differently. The high was there, but that euphoric feeling vanished, and I just started sinking into depression. I had some major emotional breakdowns in mid-May, so I decided to quit cold turkey to focus on my studies and try to grow up a bit. On June 6, 2017, I smoked my last joint, and it triggered a massive panic attack. My head was pounding and my heart was racing like crazy. That was my breaking point. I officially quit right then and there. Two weeks later, I landed a good job at a decent firm and threw myself into work and school. I cut ties with that old crowd by about 90%. I started hanging out with sober people, and whenever I was around smokers, I could say no without even blinking. My grandma passed away at the end of July 2017. I didn't fully process it at the time, but the grief hit me hard and fast. Then, on August 12, 2017, I got hit with those intense headaches and dark, intrusive thoughts because of some relationship drama—I was crushing on this girl who didn't feel the same way. All that stress triggered OCD. Basically, everything hit me at once. I saw psychiatrists and therapists and ended up with a laundry list of diagnoses: various substance-induced mental disorders, moderate depression, OCD, PTSD reactions, and psychosomatic pain. I tried to push those diagnoses aside and keep grinding. By late September last year, I actually made the cut for a scholarship/grant for my sophomore year. I was so happy—even with the mental health struggles—because I wasn't smoking anymore and I was finally making progress. But the downward spiral was just beginning. October and the rest of the fall were brutal. I became incredibly depressed and anxious. My vocabulary actually shrunk; I felt like I could only manage maybe 700 to 1,000 words a day. I didn't want to talk to anyone, and when I did, it was always just about my illness. On November 1, 2017, I took medical leave from work and started taking what my doctor prescribed (Xanax, etc.). Things started looking up briefly, but it didn't last. I passed a few midterms, but then I failed one—something that had never happened to me before. My only motivation was getting healthy; nothing else mattered. I spent every day alone in my apartment, spiraling, wondering what was wrong with me and how to fix it. In December, I got hit with a new diagnosis: acute psychosis. I felt completely defeated. I thought it was the end, that I was headed for something incurable like schizophrenia. Just to be clear, I still wasn't hanging out with smokers or using anything during this period. Everything reset on December 23, 2017. I spent a Friday night with that old crew and smoked again for the first time in almost seven months. That was the spark that lit the fire all over again. I started smoking regularly, and weirdly enough, I felt my mental health actually stabilize slightly at the start of 2018. As time went on, I drifted back to my old smoking buddies. By early February 2018, I thought I had beaten the depression because I wasn't feeling as low. I even tried some "self-therapy" to tackle my OCD, and for a moment, it worked. I felt like I'd conquered my fears. On February 15, 2018, I took my last pill, and I truly believed my mental illness was over. But I had turned back into a smoker. We were smoking almost every day in groups of four to seven people. On March 8, my uncle caught me smoking at home with my friends. It was total chaos. My family decided to give me one last shot if I promised to stop. I promised them, but I lied. I actually started smoking *more* out of pure rebellion. I’d sneak out during the day and come back late at night. I became a master at lying and manipulating the situation to hide where I was going. Now, as summer approaches, things are bad. I've been smoking like crazy—sometimes a week of daily use, a two-day break, then another stretch. I don't go overboard; maybe one to three joints per session, but it's constant. I've completely tanked my academics. Every time I plan to study, I get distracted searching for weed, or a friend calls me to smoke, or something else pulls me away. I feel stuck in this loop of mild to moderate depression. I get these tension headaches because I constantly beat myself up after I smoke. I'm so frustrated because I know this is holding me back from growing up. There is zero positive effect left—just the temporary high. Plus, when I'm high, I get these psychotic, dark thoughts. It's like my own brain turns against me, pumping me full of negativity and telling me my life is going to be a disaster. But that only happens when I'm stoned and alone; my head hurts, my veins feel like they're popping from stress, but it clears up once the high wears off. I can handle those thoughts when I'm sober because I know the techniques to neutralize them, but being high makes it much harder. I only passed 3.5 exams for the entire year. I'm going to have to pay for a third year now because I lost my financial aid/scholarship status. I'm incredibly frustrated. I'm not suicidal, just deeply unhappy. I actually have a huge capacity for learning—people at school tell me I'm gifted. I can learn incredibly fast; I can knock out 40 pages in two hours. The problem isn't the learning itself; it's starting and staying focused. Every time I sit down to work, my comfort zone calls me to chill, grab a coffee, smoke a cigarette, or listen to music. I do that, then my friends call me to smoke, I go out, stay out too long, come home wired, and lose all will to study. It's a vicious cycle. That's why I failed my second year. Just so you know, I don't touch alcohol; it's just cigarettes and weed for me.
I really need some honest takes on my situation. I’m wondering if anyone else out there feels stuck in a spot just like this, and I’d love some real, straight-up advice on how to fix this mess I've managed to make of my life. 😵😵😵
My name is John, I'm 21, and I'm living in New York City. I'm currently a sophomore at the Harvard Kennedy School—well, hopefully a junior soon. I decided to jump on here because I figured this place has all kinds of different people with unique perspectives, and honestly, I could really use some advice from a bunch of different angles. I’ll just dive straight into my mess since I couldn't find any other subcategory for this.
I was only 17 when I first messed around with weed. It was just part of the crowd I was running with back then. They all started smoking, and I was actually the only one against it. I stayed away from them for a while, but then around June 2014, I finally gave in and took a few hits just to see what the deal was. That was basically the start of my whole saga. At first, I didn't feel anything special and was just like, "This is going to be garbage." And I stayed in that headspace for a long time. Up until mid-November 2016, I only used it occasionally—maybe once every couple of months. I felt the effects, but it wasn't anything worth overthinking. During that gap, if I was using anything else, it was harder stuff, like amphetamines, ecstasy, or cocaine... I was always more of a fan of the chemical side of things rather than the "natural" stuff, if you catch my drift. By April 2016, I actually quit everything. I stayed strictly on weed, maybe once or twice a month. Honestly, I felt great back then; it made the world seem a bit brighter. The real trouble started when I started college in 2016. Shortly after classes kicked off, I started hanging out with a different group of guys from my old neighborhood. These were kids I'd known forever, even before anyone started smoking, but by the time we reconnected, they were all heavy users. I started joining in regularly. Whether it was at my place or out somewhere, I was hitting two joints a day. Some days I wouldn't touch it for a while, so it wasn't even serious yet. At first, it didn't even touch my grades. I actually started strong, passing all my midterms and a couple of exams during the winter session. But then the second semester hit, and everything went south. Early in 2017, my grandmother got sick (it was just me, her, and my uncle at home). That was the first time I dealt with something resembling depression. I knew she was dying—it was cancer—and I knew I'd eventually have to handle the apartment by myself, but I was totally avoiding facing reality. Between January and June of that year, weed started affecting me differently. The high was there, but that euphoric feeling vanished, and I just started sinking into depression. I had some major emotional breakdowns in mid-May, so I decided to quit cold turkey to focus on my studies and try to grow up a bit. On June 6, 2017, I smoked my last joint, and it triggered a massive panic attack. My head was pounding and my heart was racing like crazy. That was my breaking point. I officially quit right then and there. Two weeks later, I landed a good job at a decent firm and threw myself into work and school. I cut ties with that old crowd by about 90%. I started hanging out with sober people, and whenever I was around smokers, I could say no without even blinking. My grandma passed away at the end of July 2017. I didn't fully process it at the time, but the grief hit me hard and fast. Then, on August 12, 2017, I got hit with those intense headaches and dark, intrusive thoughts because of some relationship drama—I was crushing on this girl who didn't feel the same way. All that stress triggered OCD. Basically, everything hit me at once. I saw psychiatrists and therapists and ended up with a laundry list of diagnoses: various substance-induced mental disorders, moderate depression, OCD, PTSD reactions, and psychosomatic pain. I tried to push those diagnoses aside and keep grinding. By late September last year, I actually made the cut for a scholarship/grant for my sophomore year. I was so happy—even with the mental health struggles—because I wasn't smoking anymore and I was finally making progress. But the downward spiral was just beginning. October and the rest of the fall were brutal. I became incredibly depressed and anxious. My vocabulary actually shrunk; I felt like I could only manage maybe 700 to 1,000 words a day. I didn't want to talk to anyone, and when I did, it was always just about my illness. On November 1, 2017, I took medical leave from work and started taking what my doctor prescribed (Xanax, etc.). Things started looking up briefly, but it didn't last. I passed a few midterms, but then I failed one—something that had never happened to me before. My only motivation was getting healthy; nothing else mattered. I spent every day alone in my apartment, spiraling, wondering what was wrong with me and how to fix it. In December, I got hit with a new diagnosis: acute psychosis. I felt completely defeated. I thought it was the end, that I was headed for something incurable like schizophrenia. Just to be clear, I still wasn't hanging out with smokers or using anything during this period. Everything reset on December 23, 2017. I spent a Friday night with that old crew and smoked again for the first time in almost seven months. That was the spark that lit the fire all over again. I started smoking regularly, and weirdly enough, I felt my mental health actually stabilize slightly at the start of 2018. As time went on, I drifted back to my old smoking buddies. By early February 2018, I thought I had beaten the depression because I wasn't feeling as low. I even tried some "self-therapy" to tackle my OCD, and for a moment, it worked. I felt like I'd conquered my fears. On February 15, 2018, I took my last pill, and I truly believed my mental illness was over. But I had turned back into a smoker. We were smoking almost every day in groups of four to seven people. On March 8, my uncle caught me smoking at home with my friends. It was total chaos. My family decided to give me one last shot if I promised to stop. I promised them, but I lied. I actually started smoking *more* out of pure rebellion. I’d sneak out during the day and come back late at night. I became a master at lying and manipulating the situation to hide where I was going. Now, as summer approaches, things are bad. I've been smoking like crazy—sometimes a week of daily use, a two-day break, then another stretch. I don't go overboard; maybe one to three joints per session, but it's constant. I've completely tanked my academics. Every time I plan to study, I get distracted searching for weed, or a friend calls me to smoke, or something else pulls me away. I feel stuck in this loop of mild to moderate depression. I get these tension headaches because I constantly beat myself up after I smoke. I'm so frustrated because I know this is holding me back from growing up. There is zero positive effect left—just the temporary high. Plus, when I'm high, I get these psychotic, dark thoughts. It's like my own brain turns against me, pumping me full of negativity and telling me my life is going to be a disaster. But that only happens when I'm stoned and alone; my head hurts, my veins feel like they're popping from stress, but it clears up once the high wears off. I can handle those thoughts when I'm sober because I know the techniques to neutralize them, but being high makes it much harder. I only passed 3.5 exams for the entire year. I'm going to have to pay for a third year now because I lost my financial aid/scholarship status. I'm incredibly frustrated. I'm not suicidal, just deeply unhappy. I actually have a huge capacity for learning—people at school tell me I'm gifted. I can learn incredibly fast; I can knock out 40 pages in two hours. The problem isn't the learning itself; it's starting and staying focused. Every time I sit down to work, my comfort zone calls me to chill, grab a coffee, smoke a cigarette, or listen to music. I do that, then my friends call me to smoke, I go out, stay out too long, come home wired, and lose all will to study. It's a vicious cycle. That's why I failed my second year. Just so you know, I don't touch alcohol; it's just cigarettes and weed for me.
I really need some honest takes on my situation. I’m wondering if anyone else out there feels stuck in a spot just like this, and I’d love some real, straight-up advice on how to fix this mess I've managed to make of my life. 😵😵😵