Let's Talk About Weed, Baby

Photo by Rob Warner on Unsplash

Let’s talk about you and me. Let’s talk about all the good things and the bad things weed may bring

Crohn’s disease, menopause, nervous systems, insomnia, emotional regulation, and the complicated art of figuring out what the hell actually helps.

I have a medical marijuana card which still feels weirdly funny to say out loud because I grew up during the era where weed was presented as the thing that would absolutely destroy your future after one questionable decision behind a Taco Bell.

Meanwhile now my gastroenterologist was basically like: “You should probably try this.”

And it helped me more than a lot of medications ever did.

Within about a year of getting my card, I was off all my Crohn’s medications completely. Which was huge because at one point my life felt like a giant pharmaceutical relay race.

Crohn’s meds. Stomach meds. Sleep meds. Psych meds. More stomach meds to handle what the psych meds were doing to my stomach. More meds to help with side effects from the other meds.

At some point I stopped feeling treated and started feeling chemically negotiated.

One medication helps inflammation but wrecks your digestion. One helps sleep but slows your gut down. One helps emotional regulation but leaves you emotionally flattened. One helps anxiety but disconnects you from yourself so thoroughly you barely recognize your own personality anymore.

At one point I was taking Seroquel and Trazodone every night just to knock myself out because my nervous system refused to shut off naturally.

And yes, they helped me sleep, but over time I also started realizing how much they seemed to worsen my gastro issues, my digestion, my energy levels, and honestly my connection to myself.

What’s interesting is that even after I stopped my Crohn’s medications, I was still dealing with lingering stomach and digestive issues for a while.

At first I assumed it was just my body still struggling with Crohn’s or adjusting to everything.

Once I eventually came off some of the psychiatric medications too, I started realizing how many of those symptoms may have actually been connected to those medications instead.

That was a huge realization for me because when you’re on multiple medications at the same time, it can become incredibly difficult to untangle what symptom belongs to what cause anymore.

The worst part wasn’t even the exhaustion. It was the numbness.

People talk a lot about emotional stability, but nobody talks enough about emotional flattening. There’s a difference between peace and feeling like your entire personality got wrapped in moving blankets and stored in a basement somewhere.

The highs disappeared, but so did the creativity. The inspiration, the spark, the feeling of actually being connected to my own life.

For me personally, weed affected my system completely differently. It helped my pain, appetite, sleep, nervous system, and inflammation.

It also gave me something back that I didn’t realize I missed so badly: my creativity.

I started writing more. Thinking more. Feeling inspired again. Laughing harder. Feeling emotionally connected again instead of emotionally padded for shipping.

Yes, there’s euphoria sometimes, and after years of feeling emotionally dulled, the experience of feeling genuinely alive again can itself feel healing.

Now before the internet loses its collective mind, let me be clear: I’m not saying weed is magic. I’m not saying medications are evil. I’m not saying everyone should throw their prescriptions into a bonfire and move into the woods.

Some medications absolutely help stabilize people during periods where they genuinely need support. I know that because some of them helped me survive difficult periods too.

And I want to be careful here because I know some people genuinely need medication long term, and some medications absolutely save lives.

Everyone in my house still uses different forms of support, including mental health medications when needed.

This isn’t about judgment.

It’s about philosophy.

For us, we try to think about mental health medications more like bridges than permanent destinations whenever possible.

Sometimes people need stabilization before they can even begin working on nervous system regulation, trauma, sleep, movement, hormones, coping skills, environment, or the deeper layers underneath what’s happening.

There’s no shame in that.

Sometimes survival comes first.

But I also think our culture sometimes stops at stabilization instead of continuing toward healing, self-awareness, regulation, and long-term quality of life.

That’s the part I struggle with because I don’t think humans were meant to feel emotionally disconnected from themselves forever if there are other ways to support the system more holistically too.

For me personally, marijuana became one of the things that helped reconnect me to myself instead of disconnecting me from myself.

That said, weed is also not one universal experience at all.

My body apparently never received the official cannabis instruction manual.

Most people say sativa gives them energy and anxiety while indica helps them relax and sleep. Me? Sativa relaxes me and relieves my pain. Indica is the one that can absolutely betray me. Sure, it can help me sleep. But if my nervous system is already dysregulated, indica can also make me paranoid enough to suddenly wonder if the lights in my garage have always sounded that aggressive.

Apparently this is backwards according to half the internet, but I think that’s the point. Human nervous systems are weird, and weed doesn’t just interact with your body. It interacts with whatever is already happening underneath the surface.

If I’m regulated? Great experience. Food tastes amazing, my pain decreases, and music becomes spiritual.

I’m emotionally overloaded, hormonal, overstimulated, exhausted, or dysregulated? Oh no. That’s when weed becomes less “healing plant medicine” and more: Congratulations. You are now emotionally barefoot inside your own subconscious.

So over time, I learned something important. Weed works best for me when it’s part of regulation, not a replacement for it. I don’t immediately reach for it every time I feel awful.

First I ask: What’s actually happening today?

Is it pain? Hormones? Insomnia? Emotional overload? Sensory overwhelm? Nervous system dysregulation? Have I moved my body today? Have I been staring at my phone too long? What week is it? Where am I in my cycle? How bad is my sleep?

Leading up to the full moon especially, my insomnia tends to ramp up hard. During those weeks I usually smoke more because once sleep disappears, everything else starts getting louder too.

Pain gets louder. Hot flashes get louder. Emotions get louder. My nervous system basically becomes a smoke detector with low batteries.

So first I try my other tools. I go for the walk. I move my body. I quiet the house. Phone off. Lower stimulation. No chaos. No forcing myself into public when my nervous system already feels one inconvenience away from mutiny.

Then I decide what I actually need. Sometimes it’s sleep. Sometimes pain relief. Sometimes nervous system regulation. Sometimes honestly I just need my body to stop fighting itself long enough for me to exist peacefully for one evening.

And yes, I smoke almost daily now. Not because I’m trying to escape my life; because I’m trying to function inside my body.

People ask if that means I’m dependent on it. Maybe. But how is that fundamentally different from depending on medications to stop my intestines from destroying themselves?

Nobody questioned dependence when I was taking prescriptions every day. That was considered responsible. Necessary. Medical.

Cannabis entered the picture, suddenly the conversation became moral instead of practical. That fascinates me because I’m functioning better now than I was when I felt sedated, disconnected, exhausted, and emotionally numb all the time.

Could I survive without THC and just use CBD? Honestly, yes.

During the day I often lean more toward CBD anyway because it helps take the edge off pain and inflammation without making me feel mentally altered.

But I’m also 50 years old now.

If I want to get a little high at night after decades of raising kids, navigating chronic illness, surviving hormonal chaos, and trying to hold together a nervous system that occasionally behaves like a raccoon trapped in a dumpster, I feel like I’ve earned that right.

That doesn’t mean I think everyone should be smoking weed freely at every age. I feel very differently about young brains. I didn’t start using marijuana until my forties, and I’m grateful for that because the brain is complicated and still developing for a long time.

I’ve seen teenagers use weed heavily in ways that didn’t seem harmless at all. Sometimes it felt like emotional growth just… stalled. Like certain coping skills never fully developed because numbness became easier than learning regulation.

And as a parent, that part scares me. Not just with weed. With everything. Anxiety medications, sleep medications, psych medications, THC, anything that alters a developing brain carries weight.

At the same time, I’ve also seen very small doses help people I love tremendously.

What’s interesting is how differently all three of us react to cannabis in the same house.

For me, it can increase creativity, help my pain, calm my body, and honestly make me feel more emotionally connected to myself.

For my husband, who lives with PTSD and TBIs, it’s completely different. Tiny amounts can help him tremendously. Sometimes just 5 milligrams at night is enough to finally let his nervous system settle down enough for real sleep. 

Anything beyond that? Absolutely not. Too much and he either becomes anxious, paranoid, or completely knocked out in a way that doesn’t feel therapeutic at all.

My daughter is similar. A very small amount can sometimes help bring down sensory overload and nervous system intensity when the house feels too chaotic or overwhelming for her.

But higher amounts? Same thing. Too intense, too dysregulating, too much.

Neither one of them enjoys actually feeling high, and I think that says something important about how complex human brains and nervous systems really are.

People love simple narratives about weed lie it relaxes you, it makes you creative, it helps anxiety, it causes anxiety, but the reality is that cannabis seems to interact with whatever nervous system it’s being introduced to.

Every nervous system carries different wiring, trauma, hormones, sensitivities, inflammation, coping patterns, sleep issues, and thresholds. Which is why one person becomes calm while another suddenly thinks the refrigerator sounds emotionally threatening.

Do I know marijuana is completely harmless? No.

I hear the warnings too. Memory issues, long-term effects, mental health risks, dependency concerns, and dementia fears. Maybe some of those risks are real, but almost every long-term medical decision involves some kind of gamble.

Sometimes people aren’t choosing between healthy and unhealthy. Sometimes they’re choosing between suffering levels.

That’s the conversation I wish people were more honest about because not everybody uses weed to escape reality.

Some of us are just trying to navigate chronic pain, hormones, insomnia, inflammation, emotional regulation, nervous system chaos, menopause, and the general absurdity of existing in bodies that don’t always cooperate.

It is incredible that any of us are functioning at all.