Can something work TOO well?

[bluebird]

Marijuana makes me a lot more passive than I'd normally be, I think. Part of why I use it is to calm the anxiety and the OCD tendencies I normally have, and it works quite well. However, as of last night, I think it might be working TOO well for me.

Last night, two of my clients started behaving completely inappropriately, in ways that were potentially harmful to me. It turns out that I was safe the entire time, but while it was happening I did NOT know that. So either I had really good intuition about the actual level of danger I was in or my sweet Mary J is dulling my senses/instincts.

I'm not sure if the marijuana is expanding my mind or numbing it. I think I'd going with the first explanation rather than the second. The entire time the incident was occurring, I was literally thinking "Why am I not reacting? Anyone else would be visibly reacting with fear and agression by now in an attempt to save their life." And everytime I would start to think that, something in my head would go "No, no, just watch. Just keep waiting, and you'll see that everything is okay."

In the time I've been smoking, I've not had a panic attack at all. Here, yes, I was safe and worrying might not have done me any good, BUT I think it was a situation where I *should* have worried, pot or no pot. I guess what I'm saying is.... are the panic attacks worth me being able to quickly react to dangerous circumstances? I felt like my animal instincts were being squashed, and I know that in the .00000000001% of the time when your reation time quite literally can affect whether you live or die, those are absolutely vital to have. If this had swung the other way around, then my not reacting could have ended with me dead.

I guess my other question would be........ how do ya'll deal with someone who is behaving in ways that are so far outside of social norms that you can't even begin to understand them? Is it better to be passive and let things work itself out or should I, as a worker, have attempted to make them end their inappropriate behaviors?

[psteve]

Congratulations. You obviously made the right choice.
It's hard not to be consumed by anxiety, but you controlled it and maintained control of your environment.
Another cannabis related success story!

[bluebird]

Lol, thank you. I know that this incident either means pot is working out great for me or it's working out awfully, but either answer could fit the circumstances, it seems!

Good to know someone agrees with me that it could possibly be a success!

[Coelho]

Well... i think you really did very well. Keeping the mind calm and dont panicking in any situation is a great virtue. If analysed cold-bloodedly, most situations are FAR less dangerous than we think. We all are far more fearing than we should. So, keeping the calm is always a great thing to do, as a calm mind can think properly what is the best thing to do, without being bothered by irrational emotions, fears, and whatever, which only impairs the reason.
And you did very well in listening to that part of your head that said to keep calm and only watch... as you could see, it was right. Listening to our inner feelings or what some people calls intuition can be very useful.
In the rare situations where we need to trust our animal instincts, the feeling is far more intense. Like, you dont stand debating "should i stay or should i go?"... your both minds agree in a split-secont that you must flee (or attack) as fast as possible... and you do it. So, if in some situation you can stop and deliberate, its because the situation dont need the use of your animal instincts.
And to this specific situation of troubles with people, the best thing to do is not to interfere. If you disagree with someone, they will argue with you to prove theyre right. And the "total" disagreement will only increase. For example, lets say there is two people discussing. So, there is one disagreement. If you meddle in the discussion trying to make them behave as you wish, each one will disagree with you, and thus two new disagreements will appear. So, after you interfered in the discussion, the number of disagreements increased from one to three. Its much like to throw wood in a fire in hope to extinguish it.
Yet, if you stay silent and only watch, you arent feeding the discussion (or the fire), and thus its easier to it end.
Or, like some old wise (dont remember his name) said:
"One can accomplish anything by just not-doing". :thumbsup::stoned:
So, keep smoking, keep peaceful and everything will be OK! :hippy::rastasmoke:

[dragonrider]

Jesus, clients behaving inappropriately... What line of work are you in!? lol...

What do you mean by that?

I was wondering this too. When I hear "clients behaving innappropiately," I think about a business client in a suit making an offensive off-color joke. But when you add the part about the personal danger and life being at risk, then when I hear "clients behaving innappropiately," I think about a couple of guys tying up a prostitute. What the hell was the situation?

[Coelho]

I was wondering this too. When I hear "clients behaving innappropiately," I think about a business client in a suit making an offensive off-color joke. But when you add the part about the personal danger and life being at risk, then when I hear "clients behaving innappropiately," I think about a couple of guys tying up a prostitute. What the hell was the situation?

LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!! :S2::S2::S2:

[stinkyattic]

What you describe in the first post is actually why I got off Celexa and turned to cannabis for my own panic/anxiety issues. Even a very low dose of Celexa made me so non-confrontational that I ended up not making issues of things that should have been discussed.
The thing that I like about cannabis as a replacement for my pharmaceutical anxiety med is that it is very simple to dose myself to a level that I would consider to be sub-recreational but definitely keeps the anxiety level down. As other posters have said, keeping a cool head can actually PROTECT you in many situations, so finding the point at which you are not likely to OVER-react, yet still can REACT, is the key.

[jagarr]

ive been super stoned and still got the fck out of dodge when i felt bad things were going to happen. more than once.

my friends make fun of me cuz i have 'trouble-dar' and i disappear with a roadrunner-esque puff of cartoony spinning leg smoke at the first sign of threatening people, undercover cops, etc.

one of my roomates was the master of it too. he called it 'apache'ing out'

adverb - to quickly and stealthily make yourself gone so that nobody even realizes you were missing for the whole ordeal until months after its over.

'heyyyyyy waitaminute i didnt even realize you weren't there until just now? wtf?'

[bluebird]

BuzzUK: I work as a housekeeper. Tuesday night was my first time working for a couple, and the husband was supposed to be at work and I was being shown what my new duties were with them. Halfway through scrubbing the floors of the Master bathroom, I heard footsteps behind me, and I thought it was the wife, but it was the guy. He put his hand over my mouth so I couldn't speak and started........... um....... I guess the best way to say it would be he started spanking me?

Then his wife came back in, and (how do I say this on a canncom forum without getting my post deleted?) they started engaging in "marital" activities. Sometime during that, he moved his hands and started asphyxiating me. In my head, the whole time, a factual report was playing, going something along the lines of, "He's cutting off my ability to inhale. I'm not able to breathe. This is not conducive to my continued existence." but I never panicked. I tried telling him to stop, but I never, you know, punched or kicked or any of the other things I should have. *shrugs* Then after he and his wife were done, he just gave me a weird kiss on the forehead and went back to work and I went back to cleaning the bathroom.

The acts themselves I don't have that much of a problem with. My roommate likes getting choked during sex, and whatever, I don't have a problem with it. That's fine. I understand everyone has their own thing they enjoy. What I really minded is that they did not ask me if it was okay or give me a chance to excuse myself from the incident. I'd never met this guy before and it was more than inappropriate for this STRANGER to just assume that he had the right to do to me whatever he wanted.

I know that I should call the police, but once again, I feel so passive. He didn't do any lasting harm, and as I said, I don't feel traumatized by the experience. Yes, he needs to learn where boundaries are, but I think dragging the law into it would be unnecessary.

Needless to say, at the least, I'm not working for them ever again.

[dragonrider]

Ok, yeah, maybe the weed is making you too passive. I definitely would not have gone back to cleaning the bathroom after that.

[bluebird]

StinkyAttic: Yes, I agree, there has to be a balance. I'm really glad that not freaking out was the RIGHT choice in this case, and that everything turned out okay.

Also, I know it wasn't just the pot that inhibited my ability to react. I was NOT high at the time, I had come down from the marijuana about an hour beforehand. I know it was still having its anti-anxiety affects (I can smoke at noon, go to class at one, and still have the anit-anxiety affects well into 6pm as very low levels of THC are still floating through my bloodstream). Another part of it was probably the lack of good sleep the night before and I guess the shock I felt at being treated like that.

Parts of me are still really confused about what happened, and I'll probably end up talking to my therapist about it to see how to better handle things.

[bluebird]

Dragonrider: Yeah, it wasn't just the weed, probably tiredness/exhaustion too. But......... that was just too much passiveness, I agree.

[jagarr]

@ bluebird:

holy. fcking. shit.
holy shit.
i am so creeped out i am frozen in my chair.
i dont think it was the weed - i think it was just how completely ass-backwards unbelievable that situation was. i'd blame raw shock.
don't ever go back to that house again =(

[bluebird]

Yeah, "ass-backwards" situation sounds about right, Jagarr. And no, I'm not planning on ever going back. They're crazy.

[dragonrider]

I can see how maybe the shock at the surreal nature of the whole thing may have shut down your normal responses. I think that not freaking out during the whole thing may hae been the safest thing to do, but the fact that you didn't just run out as fast as you could immediately aftarward may mean you were having trouble processing it at the time. I'm not psychologist, so I really have no idea, but that part seems odd.

[Coelho]

^^^^ agree... and Bluebird, i didnt thought the situation youve passed was SO weird... im very glad that everything went OK to you, and no harm was done. And i hope you dont be too worried about it. :thumbsup:

[NextLineIsMine]

can you just tell us the situation without being all cryptic man, im all curious now, I just want to know!

[stinkyattic]

You know, if you work for an agency you should DEFINITELY let the agency know. That is completely unacceptable behaviour and IS SEXUAL ASSAULT. No doubt you're not the first, and no doubt you won't be the last if they aren't made to know that what they are doing is ILLEGAL. What if you had been raped in the past, or molested- how horribly traumatic an experience would it have been THEN? And with the very high percentage of women who do have some sort of unwanted sexual experience in their pasts, no doubt some poor chick going unsuspectingly to work for those disgusting people will be spending a little extra time on the therapist's sofa as a result. Please, for the sake of the other women who have/will work for them, DO SOMETHING.

[bluebird]

Stinky: Yes, I understand everything you've just said. No, I don't work for an agency. I'm a college student, and I basically run my own personal business. If I were with an agency, of course I'd tell them what happened. As it is, I don't.

I know what you mean about how this would have been very traumatizing to other people. I have been sexually assaulted before in the past and that was *very* traumatic. I've dealt with some very awful people before, and part of why I'm not as upset as I should be is that I know that what he did could have been so much worse. He could have raped me in addition to just inflicting pain. He could have not let go of my neck and seriously injured or killed me. He could have, but he didn't, and I'm not permanently damaged. (Permanence of damage is kind of how I measure how bad situations really were afterwards.) There have been many people who have done much worse to me, and at some point you start judging things differently. Nothing about this experience was good at all, but at the same time, I'm thankful it wasn't worse. I know how easily it could have been.

I DO know that it is within everyone's best interest if I go to the police, and I've been thinking about it since I read your response. It is the best thing for me to do, I think.

[stinkyattic]

At the very least, the couple WILL get a visit and be interviewed by the authorities. You may decline to press charges, but they will get a wake-up call that they can NEVER do that again.

Just to be a bit cynical... NOTHING against you, but to put it in perspective: They could have paid a prostitute the same amount of money to do the sexual asphixyating/watching to her, but they wouldn't have gotten their china dusted now, would they?

And also remember that in a fetish situation like that, there is a distinct chance that it will progress/escalate; what happens when just a little choking of a stranger simply doesn't turn them on any more... how long before their little game gets more serious?

[smokealot123]

i was a spiled little shit that argued and faught evry day untill i found a joint.. wasnt too long either lol like when i was 13 or 12 i found it smoked it now im almost 19 and i inprove evryday :) there is 1 downside to marijuana i think and it's memory loss

i forgot to mention there are things that work even better but most of them all have worse downsides, i would reccomend for the stress of evryday encounters ex.kids use 1 medication marijuana, and it dont stop there, for someone interested in this marijuana is like a prescription (sp) drug store, you can get it for pain, stress, eating dissorders and the list goes on.... just go to a seedbank and reed up on there differnt strains ! you will be shocked !

i loves my draw i do :p

[SFGurrilla]

BuzzUK: I work as a housekeeper. Tuesday night was my first time working for a couple, and the husband was supposed to be at work and I was being shown what my new duties were with them. Halfway through scrubbing the floors of the Master bathroom, I heard footsteps behind me, and I thought it was the wife, but it was the guy. He put his hand over my mouth so I couldn't speak and started........... um....... I guess the best way to say it would be he started spanking me?

Then his wife came back in, and (how do I say this on a canncom forum without getting my post deleted?) they started engaging in "marital" activities. Sometime during that, he moved his hands and started asphyxiating me. In my head, the whole time, a factual report was playing, going something along the lines of, "He's cutting off my ability to inhale. I'm not able to breathe. This is not conducive to my continued existence." but I never panicked. I tried telling him to stop, but I never, you know, punched or kicked or any of the other things I should have. *shrugs* Then after he and his wife were done, he just gave me a weird kiss on the forehead and went back to work and I went back to cleaning the bathroom.

The acts themselves I don't have that much of a problem with. My roommate likes getting choked during sex, and whatever, I don't have a problem with it. That's fine. I understand everyone has their own thing they enjoy. What I really minded is that they did not ask me if it was okay or give me a chance to excuse myself from the incident. I'd never met this guy before and it was more than inappropriate for this STRANGER to just assume that he had the right to do to me whatever he wanted.

I know that I should call the police, but once again, I feel so passive. He didn't do any lasting harm, and as I said, I don't feel traumatized by the experience. Yes, he needs to learn where boundaries are, but I think dragging the law into it would be unnecessary.

Needless to say, at the least, I'm not working for them ever again.

wtf?

[TheSmokingMonkey]

Perhaps you "should" have fought him off, but it's very very normal for people, all people, to freeze in a situation like that and not know what to do or how to feel.

It's just totally abnormal and your mind like short-circuits. It doesn't have anything to do with the weed.

If you feel like you have a problem, then stop. It's that simple.

But I wouldn't take your behavior in this situation as too much of a factor - it's just too bizarro to go on.

[THClord]

Maybe my firecrackers worked too well. I had firecrackers with 2 girls yesterday and one of them is still high, and she has to study for a midterm.

[Weedhound]

Do NOT go back there.....EVER. I didn't read this entire thread but I don't need to....Weed my ass....you are in shock and denial. You have had a life and death experience and your mind is blocking the horror of it out. Trust me. I'm positive.

You need to tell the police.....no excuses, no nothing. If what you say is true then somebody tried to kill you....or at least hurt you VERY badly. That needs to be stopped. How would you feel if you read in the paper tomorrow that he hurt and/or killed someone else?

I repeat: This situation has absolutely NOTHING to do with marijuana. Call the police. immediately.

Yes its easier to close your eyes and pretend nothing happened. But I can guarantee that is not the last time something like that will happen in that family. He will do it again.

It's up to you. Good luck and best wishes.

[bluebird]

Weedhound: I went to the campus police on Friday and they brought someone in from the county to talk about it with me. They got the names, address, and description of both people along with what happened. They said they would have a talk with them and, depending on a lot of things, I can choose whether or not to press charges.

*takes a deep breath* That wasn't an easy thing to do, explaining what happened to them (cops just terrify me, even when I know they're on my side of things).

Thank you so much for your response, and yeah, the whole situation was just SO weird. I didn't know if it was the pot or the insanity, but since I'm normally fine with pot, it must just be the situation was so bad.

*hugs* And yes, I did make a huge note to never take their business again.

[Weedhound]

Good job! Things like that are so abnormal....and out our of every day experiences that sometimes its very hard for the mind to process them.......especially in any logical way because the actions are so damn illogical. It takes time to come to grips with that kind of thing and I'll say again.....I seriously don't think marijuana had anything to do with the situation. Stay safe always!

Good luck.

[silverspring07]

I was in shock reading that. I am glad you decided to go to the police - what they did was horrible and very wrong. This type of thing has nothing to do with weed - you were in shock and needed time to process what happened. When I am high I am usually more paranoid/aware of strange situations & people around me - being dead tired is what really gets my guard down and makes me feel like I have no control. Regardless, I hope they aren't able to do this to anyone again:mad:

[stinkyattic]

iTokethings (http://boards.cannabis.com/members/itokethings.html), that was tasteless and insensitive. Grow up. We don't need comments like that about serious situations.

bluebird, GOOD. I am very glad you went to the fuzz and had a chance to talk to someone else about it who is both sympathetic, and in a position to do something.

[SMOKIN A WHILE]

Always listen to your inner voice, your instints were correct.