Stop the assumptions Back at the very end of my senior year of high school I decided that I wanted to try smoking. I liked the idea of inhaling and exhaling smoke, it seemed like a visually beautiful and relaxing activity. I asked someone to try and get us marijuana since I knew he could probably get it fairly easily. I started smoking 3 or 4 times a week for a little over 2 months and stopped the week before going off to college. Now, during my senior year I also had quite a bit of stuff happen. Early in the year, my family found out that my father (whom had visitation rights for me and my older brother when we were young) had molested me more than a few times over the course of several years. I had gotten over it, but my family wanted me to go to counseling after they found out. A few months later I got news that my father had committed suicide. Although I was upset, I felt more at ease and not so bad for avoiding him. It didn't take me long to accept it. My father's death was about 2 months before I had the idea to smoke. I went to visit my councilor a little while into starting college and we ended up talking about how I had smoked marijuana. She seemed concerned and was hinting at the idea that I may have done it to "escape" or as a way of coping with the events of my senior year. I tried to explain to her that was not the reasoning, but she seemed doubtful. She's not the only one who thinks that I smoked to "escape" I'm not easily offended, but this is something that really gets to me. There is an assumption that "it was all too much" and that I felt the need to resort to a false sense of happiness. This isn't true at all and I wish people would stop viewing it that way. I understand that there are people who fall prey to this, but I am not that weak or pathetic. I smoked because I wanted to, not because I was depressed, stressed, or pressured into it. It was my own decision, be it not the smartest one, that I took action on.
Stop the assumptions Back at the very end of my senior year of high school I decided that I wanted to try smoking. I liked the idea of inhaling and exhaling smoke, it seemed like a visually beautiful and relaxing activity. I asked someone to try and get us marijuana since I knew he could probably get it fairly easily. I started smoking 3 or 4 times a week for a little over 2 months and stopped the week before going off to college. Now, during my senior year I also had quite a bit of stuff happen. Early in the year, my family found out that my father (whom had visitation rights for me and my older brother when we were young) had molested me more than a few times over the course of several years. I had gotten over it, but my family wanted me to go to counseling after they found out. A few months later I got news that my father had committed suicide. Although I was upset, I felt more at ease and not so bad for avoiding him. It didn't take me long to accept it. My father's death was about 2 months before I had the idea to smoke. I went to visit my councilor a little while into starting college and we ended up talking about how I had smoked marijuana. She seemed concerned and was hinting at the idea that I may have done it to "escape" or as a way of coping with the events of my senior year. I tried to explain to her that was not the reasoning, but she seemed doubtful. She's not the only one who thinks that I smoked to "escape" I'm not easily offended, but this is something that really gets to me. There is an assumption that "it was all too much" and that I felt the need to resort to a false sense of happiness. This isn't true at all and I wish people would stop viewing it that way. I understand that there are people who fall prey to this, but I am not that weak or pathetic. I smoked because I wanted to, not because I was depressed, stressed, or pressured into it. It was my own decision, be it not the smartest one, that I took action on.