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?

bluebird Reviewed by bluebird on 02-28-2008. Can something work TOO well? 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 Rating: 5

[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.