My Quarantine Hobby

I’m sure the day will come when we are all telling our children, grandchildren, nieces & nephews not to take SH*T for granted. We’ll be talking to them about COVID-19 until we go blue in the face. How people lost their minds but also found themselves and forgot how to act human or be the most human they’d ever been in their lives.

My experience has brought me to all those things.

HUH. Maybe I really am bipolar...

If you’re reading this, and are still living the exact same life you lived once we go back to “normal” then I’m sorry, but the pandemic was a waste on you. -Damn that’s harsh-

WAKE UP- I feel as though everyone’s been telling me that my whole life. It’s almost like a curse to have a need & desire to hold space for love & compassion for myself & others but also not knowing what those things truly felt like.

That alone should tell you the dynamics of my family house hold growing up.

How many plans did you have for 2020? How many times did you tell yourself. “This is MY year.” I know I had a handful of concerts that I was looking forward to. As soon as 2020 came I said “FU*K IT. LETS DO IT UP.”

Did I ever.

Before the hospital, I had never even known what Psychosis was. If someone would’ve told me. “Andrea, you’re gonna end up in the psych ward if you keep smoking that sh*t.” I would’ve put it down right away. But then again, everything happens for a reason. No mistakes, no coincidences. Plus, I ended up with a hell of a story to tell. The irony, she’s been living in hell for so long that she thought she could just splash some white paint on everything and call it heaven.

Getting paid to stay at home. Believe me I was thriving, or I thought I was. Especially with bong hit after bong hit, made me feel like I was the missing link to Cheech & Chong. “It’s all about the vibes, man.”

I would smoke up to feel things intensely. To get in that really, what I considered to be “special” mindset. Something I could only achieve while I was stoned. I’d smoke up, go in my room & listen to music. Harmless, right?

That’s always how it starts.

I got to a point where being sober, was anything but of interest to me. Getting stoned was something I was excited to do as soon as I woke up.

“WAKE AND BAKE” I thought to myself, pretty well every morning.

I happily spent over $100 on a two piece bong that I named Lafawnduh. *Brownie points for you if you caught that Napoleon Dynamite reference

She was mighty. Even looking at it now I still miss it. Lord, why am I like this..? I was getting SERIOUS about my new found hobby. I was spending upwards $200-$300 every few weeks on weed. Not that I’d smoke through all of it by then, but I’d always get anxious at the very thought of running out or getting low.

Based off of what I’d heard & what others had said, I agreed. “You can’t get addicted to weed, or overdose on it, so therefore it’s harmless.”

I kept hitting the bong & being a happy hermit in my scantuary of a room. Never even thinking to create a scantuary with in myself first.

Things started happening though at a certain point. My hands would hover & start moving, all on their own. The more and more I smoked, the longer they’d go for and eventually with more energy. It was as if I was discovering something, I thought to myself “this is really cool, where else can this go?”

To the psych ward Andrea. To the psych ward.

It eventually got to a point where I was doing tai-chi in my room, even though I’d never done it in my life. It was as if it was pre-programmed in my brain. I believed and felt intensely that I was on a spiritual journey. It then got to a point where my hands would move with more force, I was making numbers on and around my face. My boyfriend at the time, eventually helped me figure this out.

But wait

There’s more. Big surprise.

All of this eventually led to me having repressed memories resurface. Very specific ones, traumatizing ones. The amount of times I questioned my sanity - countless. I feel like anyone would, especially when all of the sudden you reexperience memories of sexual abuse of all things, by your own family. These traumatic experiences were & have been so incredibly specific to the point of discomfort & uncertainty.

The first couple of times I brought it up, I was entirely denied by my family.

My brother

Was shook to his core by my words, I could see how angry he was, how heavy he was breathing.

He said, “If you keep talking like this, you’re going to end up in a straight jacket in the hospital.”

There were multiple times of smoking up that I had reexperiences, all incredibly specific dealing with sexual abuse. Moments that I’d be getting intimate while stoned & a partners face changing from my fathers to my brothers. The abuse & hurt so deep, that these memories startled me - but yet I would keep going. Pretty much ignored it.

That’s what it was like growing up, can’t deal with the issue at hand - so just ignore it, put it on a shelf until you can’t even see it anymore with the rest of the clutter.