A Poem

aka my first experience with nicotine (oh, the things I do for research).

Cause yeah, some of my characters smoke, and one of them starts smoking, so I kind of felt like I should do some proper research, like, have some basic experience to base my depictions off of, you know? Which is a terrible idea, because a lot of my characters have dangerous habits. And honestly, I don't want lung cancer, I can't stand the smell of cigarettes, and I've tried like, three puffs of one once before and that's enough for me thanks. I read about the right way to smoke afterwards, like techniques and shit, so I have experience in being a downright newb as well as the theoretics on how to smoke properly in addition to having talked to various people who smoke and learned a lot from their experiences with all the hows and whys.

But I was curious about what the effect of nicotine felt like.

A close friend of mine one evening offered me a portion of snus. Snus is kind of like a form of chewing tobacco and snuff, but also not really close to either of them. It's a Swedish thing, and the snus that my friend offered me does not have any documented health risks other than, you know, the risk of getting addicted to it because of the nicotine.

So after a lot of questioning and hesitation and scepticism, I tried one.

And for those of you who have experience with nicotine I think you already know what I went through, with  the body feeling heavy and your muscles sort of giving up on you for a while and all. Physically it just numbed the entire body ('cept vital organs of course), nicotine is a toxin after all, as far as I know. And that sort of had me panic the first time because I had no idea it would do that. Luckily my friend is a really chill and caring guy so he calmly explained what was going on and helped me relax properly.

What astounded me the most about the effect nicotine had on me however, was the silence.

Just.... silence.

So, this is kind of something I've been ashamed to say out loud for well over a decade but my therapist says I need to work on accepting that I have limitations and shit, so here goes... I am a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic - in partial denial on my part apparently - so while the diagnosis is not as huge of a handicap as it once was, now that I've lived with it for over fifteen years and kind of know what's up and how to cope more, what still is the "norm" for me is that my brain always makes noise. Fucking always. It's like having the buzzing of a shopping mall in your brain 24/7 with no ways of shutting it out or off.

So what astounded me about nicotine was how within a few seconds, my brain just went quiet. Like, there was not a single sound in there at all. Nothing. If I tried to think even, there was still just... silence.

So I just lay there, body feeling heavy and numb, and I just listened to this rare phenomena of a moment of absolute silence in my head.

When the nicotine subsided, the first thing I noticed was that I could hear my own thoughts, like a singular voice. Then some music came on, and pretty quickly all the noise rushed back and shit was back to "normal".

I think nicotine is something I would have gotten addicted  to in a heartbeat, cause the temptation of brain silence whenever I needed it was definitely there. Good thing snus tastes like shit and smells like death, and that I am hella hecking stubborn in how I am determined to manage on my own and fix shit myself. I am not medicated due to the same reason. I was, and my deviantart gallery shows when that was, cause my art just... idk, it was dumb. I notice it clearly, and I remember how the medication just made me feel apathetic and emotionally numb. It did not fix the actual problems though. What did help with the overthinking, the paranoia, depression, suicidal tendencies and crippling anxiety (yeah, hearing voices isn't the only thing schizophrenia does. I basically had a lovely little coctail of mental illnesses crammed together into one huge fucking chaotic mass, and still being expected to cope with every day life and holding a job and being in a relationship and smile at people and do small talk and not let it show that you're screaming in agony on the inside lol.
...You know, all of us who deal with mentall illnesses and still manage to hide it from the public and seem "normal", we all deserve Oscars for Best Acting. That shit's not easy.

Anyhoo...

I digress again lol. Ehrm....

OH yeah, nicotine, right? No wait.. We were done with that. Cognitive therapy I think was what my point was; cognitive therapy is what worked, medicines didn't. So I quit those and I haven't used any since, and cognitive therapy (srsly look it up, it is gold) has helped me a ton with coping and finding ways to function. I still have issues though, some will probably never go away and I guess that is why my new therapist is so on about wanting me to accept my diagnosis and not resist it.
I just... idk, I hate being treated differently, and I've always been stubborn with not wanting to use my diagnosis "as an excuse". But maybe she has a point though. Maybe it's time to stop acting like I'm normal, and just embrace the fact that I'm not.

*shrug*

I think my point is that I didn't get addicted to nicotine because I am a stubborn fuck who refuses to use any sort of medicines or substances to "fix" her mental issues lol.. But I learned a lot from it. I learned to locate the part of my brain that creates silence, and I learned to activate that in brief periods of time if I concentrate hard enough.

So yeah, it was valuable research in a lot of ways.

And thinking back on it makes me smile, cause aside from all the deep emotional stuff, in hindsight getting high on nicotine was fucking hilarious. But also uncanny enough for me to not want to use it.

I also got drunk to the point where I was totally wasted once, and that too was purely for research purposes. I was at a small party in an apartment with people I knew well so there was no danger. I can't stand the taste of beer though, but several shots of vodka wasn't really an issue. Until the effect of them kicked in lol.

What I learned from that experience is that I am really glad I only did it once, and that I was surrounded by people I trusted. Because goddamn, it is terrifying to think of how easily things could have gone terribly wrong if I had been with the wrong crowd. I had no control of my body; my muscles where all limp, kind of like with nicotine, I blacked out frequently, my head was a mess, and literally anyone could have taken advantage of me without me having the slightest chance to resist, at some point I was literally not even  able so say no or speak much at all, so thank goodness I was inside a house and with friends whom I trusted.

So uhm... piece of advice: don't get drunk. If you feel like you have to drink, then at least stop when you get to the point of being tipsy. And to be fair, if you fake being drunk most drunk people will buy it and you can be drunk without even having had anything else than water the whole evening. I've tried (research + social experiment), people seriously don't notice the difference. Enjoying a drink with friends can be fun, and some alcohol is fine. Like, I still enjoy a rare / occational (more like annual lol) shot of vodka - cause I like the burning sensation in my veins that vodka, rum, whiskey and other strong liquors give - but getting drunk is no fun, and it is potentially dangerous. Drink safely if you have to.

And don't drink and drive you idiot. That goes without saying.

Also smoking can and probably will kill you. Quitting is tough, but quitting rapidly increases your health. I'm not gonna lecture anyone though, you do you, but I just want to make it clear that - .. hang on I should have a separate paragraph for this:

Even though some of my characters smoke, get drunk, or do a lot of poor choices, that does not mean I think it's okay or cool or that I support it in any way. I am not encouraging my characters' negative behaviour in any way, I am merely depicting them. We've all made some bad choices in our lives, but usually we learn from them. If anything then maybe my characters' bad choices can teach you not to do the same? Idk, you do you. But I've seen some comments on the drawings I have of Spike or Ray smoking where someone says it looks cool that they are smoking and some have even expressed a contemplation for picking up smoking as well. Please don't. Okay I agree that sometimes smoking can look cool, but that is not a good reason to start smoking. Like, piercings are cool, get a piercing instead. Piercings won't kill you (make sure to clean them right though, or the infection might lol). It is the association of smoking I think some people find cool, like it gives certain people that certain sort of rebellish devil-may-care vibe that assumes a high level of confidence. But for fuck's sake, there are tons of better ways to show those things without having to smoke. I'm not gonna talk shit about those of you who are smoking, I'm just trying to make it clear that I don't want to encourage anyone to start smoking, regardless of how cool one may think it looks. Hell, even weed is less dangerous than cigarettes, but you know, don't go smoking weed either, at least wait until you're an adult when your brain is done developing, and read up on the side effects first, cause yes there are some. Heck you can even see it one some avid users, so be careful. Smoking weed supposedly poses a risk of triggering schizophrenia in people who might be inherently predisposed for it but have thus far not shown any symptoms. In short, it can trigger dormant schizoid illnesses. I've never done or even tried weed though, I got my schizophrenia triggered from childhood traumas in addittion to being inherently predisposed, but trust me; you do not want schizophrenia.

I wouldn't wish it on Charles, and that's saying something.

So, you know... Don't copy my characters' bad habits; learn from them instead I guess.

And pardon my ramblings :p But I guess most of you already know by now that I have an unstoppable tendency of going off on a tangent and digressing unstoppably about random bullshit XD

Gonna post another post quickly after this though, to distract myself from the embarrassment and worry and overthinking over actually having posted this post :p And also because I feel like posting some more on topic, SPIKE related stuff :) 

Stay tuned yo *dabs sarcastically*