Your baked brain.

If you're coming here, suffering from Marijuana PAWS, first and foremost, you have to accept you're brain damaged right now. Yep, terrifying, but it's true. You pumped your brain full of a foreign substance, and to counteract that substance your brain had to go against its natural order to come to a level of homeostasis with what you were doing to it. The brain is not meant to feel that much pleasure at the flick of a lighter over, and over, and over again. And now, you've made the right move and have stepped away from weed, but Oh no!, now you're suffering.

Why? Because you've made your brain suffer for so long and now it's getting back at you? No, the suffering you're going through now is healing. Just as when you get a virus or a stomach bug, your body reacts violently to right itself and to protect you.

Don't freak out, just because you're brain damaged doesn't mean that you can't/won't heal, you absolutely can and will (and I write this with total confidence, deep, deep within the hellish grip of PAWS) heal.

People who come out of a coma and can't walk (you can) heal.
People who come out of a coma and can't recognize their loved ones (you can) heal.
They can't speak (you can), write (you can), or read (you can) and they heal.

So, what in the hell is going on then? Why are you so depressed, anxious, racing thoughts, crying spells, suffering from depersonalization, headaches, cold spells, sweating, and all the fun things our brain puts us through during this process? You are healing. Your mind and body are trying to find a balance within themselves in an attempt to intrinsically heal themselves, and now you're along for the ride.

Let's look at the bits of your brain that are freaking out right now, trying to balance themselves out after the trauma you caused by this so-called innocent, harmless and non-addictive drug.

Amygdala
Fear, this is the bit of your brain that creates fear to protect you from a tiger in the brush, a bear in the woods, or a snake in the jungle. It, when working properly, is there to protect you. Now, you're sitting in front of your computer, maybe right now you're afraid of the moon, afraid to leave your house, afraid of your own shadow, afraid you'll never get better and you can't shake that fear. I know, I've felt it pretty much everyday since I've started on this journey. It's important to realise that this fear isn't generated in your mind, it's in your brain. You're in constant fear because your amygdala is healing. It may be like this for a while, it may pass and then come on stronger when a bad wave hits you. It's okay, this is healing and sooner or later this piece of your brain will get its chemistry in order and the fear will go away.

Hippocampus
The memory part of your brain. Why do you keep having these racing thoughts, and strange memoires pop up out of nowhere? This bit of your brain ties in old memories to emotions, and it's going haywire right now. These thoughts, emotions and memories that bubble up can be disturbing and mentally painful to re-live but it can't hurt you. Just like the amygdala it's in a state of shock right now, but it'll settle itself, and restore itself to a steady state.

Hypothalamus
Body temperature. Getting hot, or cold? Sweating in bed a lot? No, that sweating isn't your body 'flushing' toxins, it has other ways to get rid of the THC. Your hypothalamus is trying to figure out what's going on and is righting itself.

Frontal lobe
This bit is for planning things, making decisions, and inhibiting emotions appropriately. Why are you freaking out because you can't focus on a task and crying all the time? Frontal lobe is chemically screwy right now. This will calm down, and things will come back.

Occipital lobe
World looks screwed up right now? Seeing floaters? Lights too bright? Maybe even catching a visual hallucination from time to time? Occipital lobe is healing, working its way back to stasis.

Vestibular system
Dizzy? Feeling like your on a boat from time to time? Well, combine this with the occipital lobe and it's like you're in some kind of crazy funhouse. None of this is dangerous (as long as you're not driving at the worst of it) and is just chemically righting itself from the loss of the obscene amount of chemicals you've been dumping into your brain.

Temporal Lobe
This is where auditory information is processed, but also where your brain picks up on the meaning of what you're hearing, how it interprets it and bounces it to the other parts of your brain. Having a hard time with conversations? Not following along and feeling like you're some kind of space alien pretending to be you? Also, are you hearing weird things, maybe playing a song over and over and over in your head?

Alright, so that's, in a simplistic way, what's going on. These things all work together to make your brain function. But it's important to distinguish between your mind and your brain here. You brain is doing a lot of crazy stuff to right the ship right now and your mind is caught in the middle of all this construction work. Would you stand in the middle of a large building being built? Well, you wouldn't but in this case you are and have to. That's why it is all so distressing, why it all feels so crazy and you don't feel like you. It's not because you're going crazy, it's not because you are crazy. It's because your brain is trying to do everything it can to come to some sort of a baseline level of functionality, and one way it does that is by firing off and receiving chemicals. You've deprived it of a chemical and so therefore it's working around that, bringing you back to a level of intrinsic health. But your brain doesn't care about your mind, and what it's going through during all this. It's just trying to protect you by healing itself.

But your brain doesn't recognize your mind as something it needs to heal, that's your job, so you need to put any dark and scary thoughts (perhaps even suicidal thoughts) here into their proper perspective. Your brain isn't responsible for your mind, you are. So whatever your brain throws at you right now, it's your mind that has to put that stuff in proper perspective. Which is, "My brains messed up right now, sorting itself out and it's scary, strange, and weird but I need to let it do its thing, while protecting my mind. I must realise this will take time, a good amount of time, and be patient and kind to myself. And know it will end."

Realise that thoughts are just thoughts, and as distressing and painful as they can be you are still in control of your actions. Your mind controls, your brain does the rest.

To go back to my coma patient talk of earlier though, you have to understand that these people don't heal by just sitting there waiting to heal, they have to work for it, and so do we. How? Push yourself to do the things you used to do, no matter how uncomfortable. Walk, talk, socialize, clean your room, cook dinner, do everything you used to do before this nightmare to retrain your brain, to let it know it still can do these things, even without tons of THC running rampant through your grey matter.

Look, it sucks where we are. It's going to take your brain a lot of time to right itself, but understand it does get better and it does get worse. Your brain has to function while it's repairing itself and your mind is caught in the middle of this. Put that into perspective, keep your focus on your mind and let the brain do it's own healing. Sooner, or later, the two will sync back up.

You need to be patient, kind to yourself but also need to push yourself. You need to be strong, you need to protect your mind from your brain right now. It will get easier as time goes on, but that's going to be your ally and your enemy right now. Time.

Stay strong, you (and I) will get through this and you will be stronger because of it as long as you work to find yourself (your whole self) throughout this process. You need to retrain your mind, but you also need to go easy on yourself. Rest when you need to rest and don't push yourself too hard too fast. You're brain-damaged, but not mind-damaged and you will heal.

I know it. This isn't withdrawal, this is recovery.