DOSE:		smoked	Tobacco
	3 bowls	smoked	Cannabis
		oral	Pharms - Citalopram	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

First the background. I'm 17, and have been smoking marijuana very infrequently (about 4 times total) for a little less than a year. I have a history of mental and emotional problems (to phrase it nicely), I have been suicidal for almost 4 years. As a result of this, I have the 'habit' of intentionally cutting and burning myself. I've currently been on celexa to treat the depression for about a month (without any effect other than insomnia).

On Saturday night, I was over at my best friend brad's house. Unfortunately I did not have my watch, and don't have the best memory of that night for reasons that are about to be explained, but I will try to recall everything as accurately as I can. Brad and I were sitting around in his garage smoking sheesha (tobacco) and waiting for his friend to come over with some weed. I've never smoked tobacco before, so I got a bit of a buzz from it. His friend came over and sold us a bag of about 8 g of marijuana for $20. A few hours passed rather uneventfully until we returned to the garage to smoke the weed.

After the first few hits I began to feel relaxed, good-natured and a bit euphoric. I remember starting to laugh for no reason. I wasn't highly intoxicated, I was able to speak clearly and what I said would make sense, but I probably spoke a little slower. Likewise, my motor control was a bit impaired, I could walk around and hold objects without dropping them, but I probably wouldn't have been able to do something more complex, such as play guitar without making lots of mistakes.

At this point I was feeling pretty good, although I wasn't high yet. After a little while (probably 10 minutes or so) we loaded up another bowl and I took some more hits off of the bong. Forgetting for a minute that weed was harsher than sheesha, I took a very large hit that made my lungs burn and left me coughing for a few minutes. Soon, the familiar high feeling crept over me. My hand was placed on the table in front of me, and I remember feeling like I could not move it at all, as if it was held in place with a powerful magnet. I was unable to move. What I felt could really only be described as the warm-fuzzy feeling rolling all over my body. I could talk, although slowly, and what I was saying may or may not have been making sense. I could move around, although I simply preferred not to. I found that I would be higher if I sat still, didn't talk, and basically went catatonic.

We heard the sound of breaking glass outside, it was either a bottle or a car window. I didn't really care what was happening, but brad insisted that we go outside and see what was happening. Simply moving around made me feel more sober, although I was still quite intoxicated. We walked around his cul-de-sac, but never found the source of the glass. I remember looking up to see the stars, but it was too cloudy. Eager to return to being high, I insisted that we go back inside. I wanted to know how the marijuana affected my sensation of pain, so I picked up the lighter, and held it to my arm. It hurt, but not near as much as it does when I am sober. The pain was also easy to dismiss, even though it hurt, I could be unconcerned with it. Like walking, burning detracted from my high. I stopped after a few seconds. Then brad asked 'what are you doing that for?'. I explained that I wanted to see if it hurt. I got a weird look for that (he is familiar with the fact that I burn). I decided not to do it again, since the weed was making me act fairly impulsively, it was possible that I would go way overboard and leave a lot of conspicuous looking marks on my arm.

Everything seemed so clear and beautiful to me, every thought seemed like a constant epiphany. I wasn't sure what universal truth I had uncovered, but it seemed that everything was so profound. I commented to brad that I was like this, I said 'You'll think you have discovered the meaning of life, but all you're saying is 'my dog eats cheetoes''. I told brad that we should kill god. Later, I felt as if I was god.

At some point I became too intoxicated to move, or even feel anything below my neck. My vision was blurry and I had to concentrate to not see two of brad. I was still laughing and staring blankly. Brad was smoking another bowl of sheesha. I remember him trying to get my attention. He said, 'Is there anyone in there? Say something. Hey! Wake up! Are you too fucked up to move? I'll take that as a yes.' I was able to hear everything that he said, but I simply couldn't respond in any way. I don't remember how long this lasted, but at some point when I was in the same slouched position because I couldn't move, I had another epiphany. That I should not exist. It took me a long time between when I decided to speak and when I actually managed to say something. It must have been 10 minutes, although it felt like hours. For all I know, it could have been longer, I had no way of telling time. Finally, the words came off of my lips. 'I want to die,' I said. I kept repeating it. I didn't feel depressed or in pain, but I simply knew that I should not exist. I asked Brad to get his stepfather's gun and shoot me, but needless to say he refused.

Brad kept trying to convince me to live, reminding me of things that I liked to do, 'Don't you want to go to college next year? Don't you want to finish your job's contract and get paid? Don't you want to find a girl?' 'No. I want to die'. 'Are you willing to die a virgin?', 'It doesn't matter, I want to die'. It went on like this for a while. He kept telling me that I /was/ dying. I didn't quite understand what he meant, I thought it had to do with the fact that we will all eventually die. I responded that it was not soon enough. I remember saying that my existence was a mistake that I needed to fix. I remember saying that if there was a god, he hated me, because if he simply created me the way I am by mistake he would have destroyed me by now. Brad continued to try to convince me to live. He reminded me that his girlfriend (who I'm good friends with) would be visiting us from out of state this summer. I told him that they didn't exist, that nothing was real. He said 'well, then it doesn't matter, does it? why not live?' I told him that even though nothing existed, it was a hallucination, which meant that I had a consciousness, and that was what must be destroyed.

I asked him to shoot me several more times during the night. In the back of my mind, I understood that he could not kill me for a number of reasons, there would be legal consequences, he would simply be unable to pull the trigger on one of his friends, and besides, his stepfather's gun was locked up, so he couldn't have shot me if he wanted to. While I understood that, I was still upset by his refusal. It was all so clear to me that I had to die as soon as possible, and he didn't understand why. After a while, I began repeating 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry,' over and over. I didn't know exactly what I was sorry for, but I knew that I was. I tried to cry, but tears were not forthcoming. At several points brad tried to get me to smoke some sheesha. He kept telling me 'You're too high, this will bring you down a bit,' but I refused.

Around this point, I was actually able to move again (yes, I was almost completely motionless since the beginning of the paragraph where I mentioned that I was too intoxicated to move). I'm not sure exactly what happened next, I was probably just talking to Brad. I remember at some point I did ask for some sheesha, and he handed me one of the hoses to his hookah. I'm again not sure exactly what happened after that, although I ended up coming down after that (I was unable to tell if it was as a result of the sheesha). I wasn't yet sober, but I wasn't high. I still felt intoxicated and was buzzing a little bit, but I had most of my motor control back. Brad told me not to worry, he said that I would probably forget all of this by tomorrow. 'No,' I said, 'I want to remember this'. I didn't know why, but it felt very important that I not forget this experience. The next day when we woke up, he asked me if I remembered anything, and I said that I did. The look on his face confirmed that he remembered the gist of what happened the night before as well. I tried to press him for details to help write this report, but he said he didn't remember much of what happened.

Looking back on all of this, I'm not quite sure what to think. The first time that I got high, I remember having thoughts about wanting to die. I never felt depressed, or in pain or anything. I was simply in a more introspective state of mind, and able to look at my life from what seemed like a more objective view. I'm not sure that it could be called a bad trip as I was not panicking or upset. It is very clear to me that I had too much weed that night. Using this experience I will probably be able to determine when I am too high and when I've had enough. It's not acutely unpleasant, although it does become annoying when I am unable to move at all for long periods of time, I like being high, but not being so screwed up that I cannot feel my body. I think that the social rituals of smoking marijuana might cause a problem in this regard. I remember at one point I didn't want any more, but Brad did. It was my turn to smoke, and the bong was in front of me, and Brad was insisting that I have another hit before he did. I did refuse, and he eventually smoked it on his own, but I can see how this might cause some people to get more stoned than they want to.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 22905
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 8, 2005	Views: 45,813
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Pharms - Citalopram (227) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Difficult Experiences (5)