Feeling ridiculed by anti-drug campaigns and supporters

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I would love to stay alive and continue my volunteer work, but I'm still feeling the same pinch in my heart, I'm hearing the same voices, and I'm considering suicide. (I hope the mods will let me talk about this the way they let other people.)

To recap, I spent a year using almost every drug there was beginning in 2003. After that, I quit all of them and set foot back into the world to get on with my life. I was instantly 'punished' with a rap song chanting Stop Tryin', n***a. A few months later, I had a nightmare in which my heart exploded. I began smoking marijuana again (after I was put on Haldol against my will) and continued smoking heavily for about two years. I then finally quit and began volunteering.

I hoped that my volunteer experience would be more pleasant than it turned out. Not only do I find it difficult to get back on track, I have to deal with voices that repeat the same insults over and over, seemingly representing human stupidity and intolerance in its basest form.

I'm also getting sick of the way that campaigns like Above the Influence are handling drug education. The symbolism of a black kid sitting with his legs out and a basketball in his hands is too much to bear after all that I've endured.

There seem to be two ways of handling the war on drugs (assuming we even continue this 'war'):

1. Help users overcome the problems caused by drug use.
2. Discourage drug use even further by stigmatizing and punishing the user.

One might even take (2) to an extreme and throw drug users into concentration camps (no offense, Above the Influence). An idiot might believe that after a user is stigmatized and punished, his or her subsequent problems result entirely from the drugs, an instance of the Fallacy of the Single Cause, and when the idiots get overwhelming, they could even stir the drug user into violence.

What seems particularly striking about my case is that not only was I punished as in (2), I was only punished after I stopped using drugs, not while I was using them. A moron might have wanted to do this to discourage me from making an effort in life, even after all that I have learned, so that he could have further excuses to blame my problems on drug use.

What the stupid people might not understand is that I was using drugs partly to investigate the nature of human consciousness. I had read several theories of consciousness including Dennett's at age 19 before I began using them (and before you ask, I was lonely).

After I finish my new essay, Christianity as a Tool of Oppression Against the Romantically Unsuccessful, I will have written seven essays. Because of my present suffering and how poorly I have been treated, I am considering drowning myself. In coming to a decision about whether or not I should, I must ask myself two questions:

1. Am I valuable enough a contributer to society, even with all my rage, that I would not hurt our fallen economy by staying alive?
2. If so, is it even personally worth it to stay alive? Can I be happy, or am I doomed to suffering servitude?

I will start by listing some of my 'negative' qualities that Above the Influence might draw undue attention to and then some of my positive ones:

1. I tend to be very forgetful.
2. In the past, I have had an explosive temper.
3. I tend to be reckless and make mistakes.
4. I tend to lie down a lot.
5. My mother still pays most of my bills.

Now the positive:

1. My agency has told me that they consider me a valuable member of their team, to a degree that they even brag about me (!).
2. I devote time to helping people with their calculus homework online, and do so more politely than many of the other tutors.
3. I bought my own personal trash stick and pick up road trash as a hobby.
4. I occasionally donate to charity and the homeless.
5. I can play a few songs on the piano well.
6. I'm a good housekeeper.
7. I can write good essays.
8. I have some programming knowledge.
9. I have devoted nearly half my life to the study of undecidable propositions in mathematics after teaching myself calculus at age 13, and if allowed, I could make some contribution on this subject for the benefit of humanity. (And that's if a stupid person doesn't punish me for drug use.)
10. I'm half-vegan and nice to animals.
11. I write poetry.
12. The world needs less jerks.

So, what do you say? Do you think I should stay alive? Am I worthy of happiness? Should Above the Influence stop hounding me with their sickening commercials?

As long as we are not a species of sadists, I don't want to be a burden to society.

It sounds to me like you have a medical condition that needs to be treated. Hearing voices is often the start of intense psychotic episodes that can spiral out of control unless you put a stop to them early.

I agree with you about the discrimination in advertising and in our communities. It really is unfair. I think you are a very good person, with loads of positive attributes and accomplishments and that you are definitely worthwhile to society.

It's your illness that tells you that you're not. So, don't listen to that. Get help to tell the voices to shut up.

No way. I'm not taking dopamine blockers.

Thanks for your encouragement, though.

You are who you are, you just have to figure out who that is. Everybody has a vital function to society, it's just that some people take longer to figure out what that function is than others. Einstein wasn't out to change the world, he was just a guy that was really interested in math, and came up with some really interesting equations. Tesla was just a guy that liked to play with electricity and had a few ideas that he put into use.

Don't worry about what society thinks of you, society isn't important, what's important is what's important to you. Is there anything you've always wanted to do? Ever wanted to go to Hawaii? How about Europe? Hell, even Hartford Connecticut can be interesting. Pick something somewhere in the world that you want to see with your own eyes, and go see it. Make it a goal, and achieve it.

Don't take medical advice from WP members, take it from licensed qualified doctors, people that know what to look for, and what will give you the best results. You might have to try a few different doctors before you find the right one. Nobody ever said this was going to be easy, life can be hell, but since you only get 75 or so years anyway, why shorten it? You'd be crazy not to ride this strange torpedo all the way to the end. Life is short, and once it's over, that's it, do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Take it slow, ignore what society tells you. Don't confuse society with what you see on TV. Those anti-drug PSAs aren't made for you, they're made for parents who fear that their kids will try something that society deems as a taboo. If a kid is going to try a joint, a poorly drawn talking dog isn't going to stop him. When you were smoking pot, did you have absolutely no control on your life whatsoever? Those PSAs are completely inaccurate, so ignore them.

Pick something you've always wanted to do, and do it, ignore people who tell you you can't, just do it. Ever wanted to go to Hawaii? Either work hard and do it, or figure out a way to do it without working hard, either way, do what you have to do it. Hawaii, Europe, Jamaica, Connecticut, whatever, pick a geographical location that you've never been but always wanted to, and go.

Nobody's that important to society, we're all just another brick in the wall, another drop of water in an endless stream. There's plenty of people who are already a burden on society who don't have a legitimate reason, look at the Meth heads, living off food stamps and welfare, spending their welfare checks on Meth, are you better than that? I would say yes based on what you've said, so if you're better than that, show it.

The way I see it, suicide is for cowards.

Oh, god... I think I'm going to be sick of these voices... they're just saying I hate this person and I hate that person, and some of these are the people I like the most!

You say that suicide is for cowards, but if this f****** voice doesn't shut up, it might be my only way out. No dopamine blockers.

The sad thing is, I think a lot of mathematicians would be disappointed to see me leave my investigations in response to stupid people.

Is there a reason one of these female voices hates Charlie Brown so much? What's wrong with Charlie Brown?

get your but to natureopath and as well a cognitive psychologist
look into zen and biofeedback and accupunture it should calm them down.

At least I think it's a female voice. I even created a whole new avatar for it:



Imagine my killing myself over something as childish as this. After all my hard work in the study of undecidable propositions and Kantian philosophy, I would drown myself, leaving my hard-won essays behind in a glass box, all because some intolerant fool of a voice in my head 'hated Charlie Brown.'

Why can't 'Lucy' see that I want to make important advancements in human knowledge? Why don't I get the peace and quiet a philosopher deserves?

I almost lost it today at work.

Why won't this voice let me live in peace? Why does it hate Charlie Brown so much? Why does it think I'm a freak? Why can't I just be happy serving women? Why must I suspect that they're all sadists? What if the only purpose of humanity is to torture ret*d babies? I CAN'T LET THAT HAPPEN -- so what should I do? It seems like nothing works. Voluntary euthanasia? So I have to stay alive and write another essay? While those jerks out there give us their bad arguments against it?

I bet all the proponents of voluntary euthanasia are dead. Most, I mean. And I have to go to work feeling like someone hates Charlie Brown -- I can't bear this. THERE'S NOTHING WRONG WITH POOR OLD CHARLIE BROWN. And to think that Jesus advocated doctrines of torture. Who did he think he was? I just keep picturing him in my mind as a bully.

So I have to be in pain. Why? Because I took a few pictures? So now I have to suffer for five years straight? Was it the necro? I just kept saying 'Nice fight' -- what's the problem with that? So I bullied people when I was a kid. I can't believe I did that. I wish there were a way to let them know that I care about them. Anything to stop this awful, wretched, tormenting voice -- oh God, I can't stand it. It's just every day I wake up and start hearing voices...

Can I just know that women are good people? That they don't hate me? Oh, but I have to trust them when they say they don't. They never show me any real love, do they? At least not the kind I think I needed.

I just remembered Nietzsche. Please, I don't want anyone to jump to conclusions about Nietzsche. The logical form of his statements is so ambiguous. What if there are fallacies hidden in that bombast? He lumps so many things together in his definition of the ascetic ideal that it raises suspicion.

Why can't I just be a nice, good person? A good person who does good work and doesn't get mad or do anything violent? Who doesn't feel like... wait-I-can't-say-that... is it so hard to realize that pleasure is a good thing, whether it's your own or someone else's?! Why do I have to feel so jealous? If anyone's making fun of me, I want to... wait, I can't say that... f******* alpha male jock sadists.

Is that all I can say? Why can't I respect other people? If they get to have it all, then why bother? Why must I feel so angry and destructive? Oh God, now I'm thinking about women again...

I'm going to finish that essay soon. I hope you'll like it.