The winter was cold and I was 21 when I had my nervous breakdown.  I debated about calling it a nervous breakdown for sometime, personally I felt like I had died.  But the truth is I never did die, I was simply in a lot of pain.  I made the decision to start calling it a nervous breakdown so that I could relate it to something in the outside world, and this way it would no longer be something that only existed inside of me. 

When i happened I was living with seven extremely insensitive college-aged males.  I chose not to tell them.  While I am certain they observed my change in mood, behavior and appearance, I don't believe they knew exactly what had happened to me.  I was very young and naive.  I did not believe that I would get any sympathy or credence or help from them at all, even from my best friend, whom I also kept in the dark.  Thinking back I suppose someone would have helped me, at the very least listened to me.  My fear was that I would be ridiculed and mocked for what I was going through and labeled and judged as that condition I was going through, as opposed to being seen for who I really was.  I never got along with those people very well anyway, and thinking back it did not occur to me often that perhaps I should not be living with these people who are so different from myself. 

I had played with fire by their standards.  I was into pot, not just socially.  I loved smoking it on my own and feeling my body relax, every session was not positive, but it helped my insomnia and in time I began to realize that I was holding on to irrational fears and anxieties and limitations that were not necessary.  I began to smoke more. 

Christmas break of 2003 almost every one of my rommates was gone except for my best friend and I.  I don't remember the time period or the exact days very well but I do know that there were about two weeks in that old boarding house where it was just me and my best friend way down the hallway in this big building together.  My days went like this, wake up walk around, run some errands, sit in my chair at around seven pm, get very high and listen to music all night, getting higher and higher.  I really began to enjoy it.  I experienced new parts of my mind and of myself that I had not understood or been in contact with in a long time.  I began to regain a sense of hope for the future.  I was reminded that I hadn't had many meaningful reltionships with people, mine were limited to beer drinking and political activism.  The most exiciting thing was that I began to see new possibilites in my life that suddenly became possible. 

It was the best time of my life that I can remember, in the inner sense anyway.  I began to feel myself really grow and I felt negative energy that was blocking my thinking be let go of and gone.  I also began to feel more sexually arousable.

It was a good time to say the least, but the tragedy of it all was that it did not last.  I thought it would be like this forever.  Me in my room, plotting out my life and then going out into the world and doing it.  I know it was not just some fantasy or dream in my head because while I was feeling well I did spend some time with some people and go to parties and I felt a new sense of self control and bonding with the people I was communicating with.  I really began to feel that I would change aferall.

The tragedy of it all is that it never worked out.  My sessions on pot began to take a turn for the worse and I never could figure out why.  It seemed like I began going in the other direction when I got high, as opposed to upwards into this euphoric state I started going down into this hole of negative emotions and disarry.  It truely shattered my dreams.  If ever there was a time that I wanted to die, it was surely that period.  I did not know what to do. I kept right on smoking, thinking that at some point I would regain what I had lost.  The problem was I had no idea what I was doing really, I didn't know what was on the line or about the consequences of error, experimenting with one's own mind is delicate thing to experiment with.  Things got worse and I began to feel a deep profound sense of hopelessess and the revelation that I would never get back the sense of peace I had for that period of two or so weeks before.

My skin would get cold during these episodes, cold even indoors in the heat with heavy clothes on, it did not matter.  I learned this is something called Raynaud's Phenomena.  It really did seem like there was some absolute force that was destroying me.  I would take hot showers and get out only to feel cold again.  There was nothing I could do.  I went to see an Alternative Health Doctor and she told me to eat more essential oils and gave me some supplements.  They barely softened the blow.  That winter was the worst period of my life.

Gradually I stabilized and my body temperature began to even out as spring began, I still would suffer bouts with that cold feeling for at least a year and a half.  This story is so shitty to tell but I never really understood it competely.  I am 24 now and I'm trying to come to grips with everything and understand what I have gone through and what I need to do for myself.  I have gone through most of this alone, and I have been trying to learn to ask for help and trust other people.