Dear Digital Diary

Dear Digital Diary,

I didn’t find Ottessa Moshfegh’s book boring because I smoked too much weed.

I have a few reader friends who said they started reading the book and then had to put it down because they just couldn’t get into it. But that’s just the thing. The book wasn’t titled “My Year of Alertness and Chaos.” It was written to be mundane. And the other thing? It’s not for the mentally well.

The Day I Met Miss Mary Jane

Just before I turned nineteen, I smoked weed for the first time. It was a good high, a brief high, and the type that made me happy-go-lucky and nonchalant. I liked it. And as a girl who was raised very Mormon and rather conservative (not politically, don’t fret), I felt rebellious. And the coolest thing about it is that it didn’t have consequences. No hangover. I didn’t make a fool of myself.

It was pure bliss. By the end of that year (say about three months), I was smoking at least twice per week. It’s not a lot, and that’s probably why my tolerance was relitively low. I didn’t know that of course.

I Kind of Blame George Minor

It was the third week of September of 2023. I was a junior and my sister just started her first year at the same college. I hadn’t seen her since move in, and in those first two weeks of that school year, I spent most of my time decorating my new apartment, hanging with friends, and yes, lighting up.

There was one night in particular, a few days before I was set to travel to Charleston to see Noah Kahan with my sister, where I was at my friend’s house, smoking around the table. This was nothing new. It was just as chill as the various times I’d smoked before.

That was, of course, until my sister texted me that she had a boyfriend. She met George Minor across the hall within the first few days of living in her dorm and two weeks later they were official. Whereas I, a junior, had entertained zero potential suitors in the two full years of college that I’d been through.

For context, I went to an art school where a majority of the students are women, and the few men are bi or gay. And unfortunately for me, I swing 98% straight. So that left a very small portion of people at my school.

So my sister having a boyfriend before recieving her first homework assignment? Brutal.

It all felt very unfair. So with the phone in my hand, I stared at that green text in the family groupchat while taking a deep inhale from the joint in my other hand. It was a fat hit, but I didn’t cough. I was so fine…until I wasn’t.

God Bless Don and Maybe God Himself

Weed doesn’t cause a black out or a hangover. But smoke too much and you might experience something worse.

I’d loosely heard of the term “greening out” — probably from a book somewhere or maybe it was a guy I’d been talking to on Tinder — either way, I didn’t think it was real until I felt like I was losing my mind.

It all happened in a rush, no later than ten minutes after my sister texted the group chat. All of the sudden I felt like I hit my forehead, and my friend — we’ll call him Don — started talking to me but I wasn’t processing a thing. He would speak and I would hear him, but it’s like the pathways in my brain weren’t connected properly and I couldn’t put together the sounds to form words.

I was losing it. I couldn’t breathe. I felt like I needed to throw up (and I’ve got a huge fear of it, mind you), but my throat wasn’t working. Everything was lagging, including trying to cough, trying to breathe, trying to blink. But unlike overdosing on alcohol, I couldn’t purge my body of what I’d smoked. I just had to exist in that space until it was over.

By this time, I was 20 and hadn’t attended church in four years. But that night, in between three panic attacks and the nape of my neck resting on the back of Don’s dining room chair, I prayed to God at least fifty times. I honestly think that’s the only thing keeping me conscious.

Luckily, Don slightly knew what was happening, and when I started nodding off (and waking up in a panic), he told me to lay down and explained that I’d be okay once the high had chilled out.

It took two hours of me drifting in and out of a nauseous sleep with Don’s cat lying next to me before it wore off. 

And then it was fine. 

Riiiight up until February.

Me, Myself, and I

Now, several factors could’ve led to the ultimate diagnosis of psychosis.

At the time, my roommate was studying abroad for ten weeks, and I was living alone in my apartment. A family member of mine was going through deep depression and suicidal behaviors. My sister was still dating George Minor. My grandfather was admitted to the hospital for emergency surgery. Everything was falling apart around me, including myself.

I felt like I was going insane. I was having panic attacks on the daily and I felt extremely disconnected from my surroundings. I couldn’t sleep at night and I couldn’t wake up in the morning which turned into a viscous cycle of using Benadryl to sleep and then drinking two Celsius to wake up. I didn’t know what was real anymore. I started talking to myself and became severly depressed because I was afraid to leave my apartment.

My mother was extremely anti-medication so I didn’t feel the need to set up any sort of psychiatric appointment until I really felt I needed it. I had googled it — it being psychosis — and I was confident that’s what I had developed, but I still felt as though it were manageable.

Manageable until I nearly passed out in the middle of one of my classes, to which I immediately left and made my way to the psychiatrist. There, they diagnosed me with psychosis (which I knew), anxiety (which I’d had for years), and OCD (that one was new, actually). Then I was put on hydroxyzine and Prozac with a side of Zofran. The trifecta. 

And these three drugs made me just as loopy as psychosis did until just after my birthday in April.

By the start of senior year, the psychosis had platued and I was starting to feel less anxious, too.

Moshfegh, You Slayed

Late 2023 into 2024 was, in fact, my year of feeling numb to most things. Hardly rest, hardly relaxation. I’d lost a whole year of my life until one day I felt like I woke up.

Just as Moshfegh’s unnamed protagonist attempted to sleep for a whole year until finally waking up and accepting what life has to offer, I did the same. And I did it with vigor and vitality — something I hadn’t had since I was younger.

Will I read the book again? Probably not. It reminded me too much of that whole year of my life. But I understood the novel in a way that those who claimed it was “boring” just didn’t understand. And for that, I thank Moshfegh.

And will I smoke again? Definitely not.

I do have herbal joints, though. And I have less depressing books on my shelves.

– Mia