I can see my younger self sitting with my mother and siblings on the church pew. My father was standing behind the pulpit as he preached from the Kings James version of the Bible. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die -Genesis 2:17. The child me pondered long on Eve’s choice to risk death by succumbing to the forbidden fruit. I was thirty-eight when I took my first hit of marijuana, the so called gateway fruit of the forbidden tree.
I remember it as clearly as I recall losing my virginity.
I was upstairs in this very house feeling wildly and desperately restless. Codeine had only made me feel worse and Ibuprofen was barely able to touch my pain. I inhaled only once before a tidal wave of relief hit me. My lover, Tyrone, the serpent who gave me the fruit, helped me down onto my special pillow where I sat on my thighs instead of my butt. The pain in my body washed away instantly.
I no longer felt the desperate urge to take off my skin.
Before then, it had felt like a weighted blanket restricting my movement and respirations. Over and over, after my initial fit of coughing, I asked, “Why is this wrong?!” Somehow, I can imagine Eve asking the same thing as her third eye began twitching and fluttering. Since I was on leave at that time from both of my nursing jobs, I immediately obtained my medical marijuana card. I was in an acute on chronic state which was the worst of my life thus far.
My qualifying diagnosis was chronic and severe pain secondary to Marfan Syndrome. That is a genetic connective disorder with which I was diagnosed at seven years of age. It is not widely known although many have heard of a similar syndrome, Ehler Danlos. One thing I never considered before lying down on the “plastic” surgeon’s table, was just how bad my already hyper inflammatory response might get. And so like a serrated knife, the liposuction cannula ripped through my tender connective tissues collecting fat for my BBL.
As I smoked and healed during the following post-surgical weeks, I began researching the state laws about workplace discrimination related to medical marijuana just in case I was randomly drug tested or decided to start a new job. Though much later, I even went to the office of the board of nursing in downtown Phoenix just to double check in person. I stood in line at the window until it was my turn and then asked,
“What is the board’s stance on a nurse obtaining a medical marijuana card?”
You could’ve heard a pin drop as the nurses beside and behind me waited for the answer too. Eventually, I was a read a script which essentially said it was treated the same as a nurse who was prescribed narcotics or consumed alcohol. Don’t work under the influence of anything including sleep deprivation. That last part surprised me. Even though I was medicating myself legally, I feared retribution, if discovered, from my peers. Since I observed and overheard stigma and bias within the healthcare field, I continued living in a heightened state of secrecy and fear.
As a child, born into the IFB cult, I was brought up in fear.
They say hindsight is 20/20 and I can see clearly now how my entire life has been ruled by fear. I was afraid of the world, suffering for Christ’s sake, the last days and perilous times. At twenty, after my first pregnancy ended in miscarriage, I was afraid that I couldn’t have children. In my mid-twenties, in fear of making the wrong move, I spent hours pouring over the concordance and Bible as I searched for proof that my inevitable divorce would be Biblically justified.
In my twenties and thirties, I lived in fear of when would be the next knock at the door from child protective services. Those same years, I lived in constant fear of my stalkers while anticipating the next thing they would damage in my house or car. And of course, I always feared my genetic disorder. My lifetime of fear and victimization made me the perfect candidate or susceptible host in what I call the chain of invasion. Now let me rewind back to the part of my story where I first realized the potential consequences of living in chronic fear.