Posted on March 13, 2024 View all news
I started using marijuana because I thought it was a safe alternative to alcohol. I had been prone to depression and anxiety in the past, and at first, I thought weed was the ticket to a solution. I also found out it helped me with sleep. Unfortunately, marijuana became my lifestyle and a crutch.
Within the first year, I started to develop a tolerance to marijuana flower and
made tinctures and vape concentrates. Over time, I began to enter into a psychosis.
For me, the psychosis came on slowly, and the psychosis gave me a newfound confidence. I began to talk fast, became argumentative, and started doing things that were out of the ordinary for me. For example, when I was driving on the highway, I would try to race people and challenge them to a race on my way home from work. I started
telling my work manager how he was doing his job wrong, among other things. I soon found myself placed on administrative leave and eventually lost my job. It was all downhill from there.
I started paying and hanging out with escorts who I was supporting financially. I started busting scammers online. I posted my entire life unfiltered on social media while I was starting to have visual and audible hallucinations. I thought I was in the Illuminati that I was running for president of the US, and at times, I believed I was Michael the Arch Angel and other prophets. I started verbally calling people out online, including my family and friends. I ripped up the floorboards of my attic, looking for the promised money from the Illuminati. All the while, I never filed my appeal for unemployment, didn’t pay my mortgage, and eventually, I lost all my savings and maxed out several credit cards.
My life spiraled out of control.
My family had me sectioned, but I convinced the lawyer, psychiatrist, and judge that I was not a danger to myself or others, so they released me from the jail cell.
When I started to come out of the manic part of my psychosis, I managed to sell my house and began the process of starting my life over. However, the depression side of the psychosis was beyond anything I had ever experienced before. It became so bad that I picked up the bottle (alcohol), something I had not done in five years. Later, I was placed in a psych ward after taking pills with vodka in attempted suicide because I was very depressed.
From that point, I have been to five detox centers, a psyche ward, and spent three months in an Adult Teen challenge program. I am just about one year clean from marijuana and 90 days clean from alcohol. I am now on medication for depression and a mood stabilizer. The medication has helped me to a point, but I am still struggling to get a job and continue my life. I hope that with the medication and God’s help, I can once again be a
contributing member of society.
Michael D’Onfro
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