Mossy Hits

My Journey with Cannabis

Content Warning

This post contains references to SA, DV, assault, SI and SH

I share these experiences honestly to break silence and challenge stigma – but your wellbeing comes first. Please take care as you read. It’s okay to step away or skip this post entirely if it feels too much right now.

If you’re struggling, know that you are not alone. Support is out there and you deserve to access it.

My relationship with cannabis has been complex, to say the least — but ultimately, it’s been one of the most stabilising forces in my life. I’ve used it during some of my lowest moments, and it’s played a huge role in helping me manage trauma, CPTSD, depression, and the aftershocks of abuse. In this post, I want to share my story: the good, the messy, and the healing.

First Encounters

Like many people, my journey started with that classic stoner milestone — the first time I ever smoked weed.

I was 15, hanging out with two girls a year above me. One day at school, one of the girls brought some flower and led us down to the bush behind the sports field at lunch. There was no fence, and hidden under a rock just a hundred metres from the field was the infamous Gator-Bong — a Gatorade bottle bong, a high school staple.

I smoked maybe half a bowl and didn’t feel much (thankfully — because when we came back up the hill, a teacher was standing right there). He just raised an eyebrow and said, “Have a nice trip, girls?” and let us walk past. My first time smoking was mild. My second? Not so much.

Trauma, Isolation and My Second “First Time”

To understand that next experience, I need to explain what my life looked like then.

I had recently dropped out of school in Year 11 after a devastating trauma — I was raped by someone I knew and trusted, someone I had even been seeing casually. When I finally told someone, word spread through school fast. People decided I was lying. “He’s not like that,” they said. “I’ve known him since Year 7.”

I lost everything. That night, my rapist and his parents showed up at my house at midnight to confront my parents about the “lies” I was spreading.

I’d struggled with self-harm and suicidal thoughts before, but this sent me into a spiral that culminated into two failed suicide attempts. I had no support at school and eventually left. My parents, trying to help, enrolled me in a nursing course instead.

That brings me to my next real cannabis experience. I was 17, deeply depressed and feeling incredibly alone. I reached out to someone I barely knew — let’s call him Tom — and he invited me over. I ended up smoking a lot in a very short time: joints, bongs, gravity bongs. It hit me all at once — and then I realised I had to drive home.

I didn’t make it. I crashed the car. Thankfully, no one else was hurt, but that was a terrifying wake-up call. Weed wasn’t the issue — my pain was.

Coping in an Abusive Relationship

At 18, I started dating someone who smoked regularly. Ironically, I’d begged him to quit when we first got together because I thought cannabis made him a jerk. (Spoiler: it wasn’t the weed.)

On our first holiday together, I smoked with him on a beach walk. That moment marks the beginning of cannabis becoming a more normal part of my life. I started keeping my own stash — until my parents found it. (Yikes.)

But I also began using cannabis to constantly numb myself. I was in a horrifically abusive relationship — verbally, emotionally, and physically. I was gaslit, called names by his family, and eventually raped by him. I got away and locked myself in the bathroom, crying, while he screamed and pounded on the door. That night still haunts me.

The Breaking Point at Work

During this time, I was also beginning my career as an Enrolled Nurse in the public hospital system — thrown straight into the deep end during a global pandemic.

My first six months were spent in a high-acuity ward with patients experiencing dementia, delirium, and other cognitive impairments. It was physically and emotionally demanding, but the team was supportive. We had each other’s backs. Help was given freely, and I was learning and growing despite the challenges.

Then came my second rotation — and it was a complete culture shift.

The new ward was toxic. I was frequently left to fend for myself, denied help even for simple, legally required tasks like double-signing medications. It created constant stress and delayed patient care, leaving me feeling unsafe and unsupported in a high-pressure environment.

In February 2022, everything came to a head.

I was assigned to the HOBS (High Observation) bay — a room designated for patients who required constant monitoring due to aggression, confusion, or high personal care needs. You’re meant to stay in that room 1:4, without leaving unless another nurse relieves you.

That night, one of my patients — a man with a documented history of violence — began pulling out his urinary catheter. For context: male catheters have a balloon inside the bladder to keep them in place. Pulling it out while inflated can cause significant trauma.

I approached calmly and tried to redirect him. Without warning, he snapped. He grabbed my arm, began punching me repeatedly, and tried to bite me. I broke free, but as I turned to leave, he grabbed my scrub top and yanked it tight around my throat until it tore open.

I fled the room, gasping for air, shaken, and went straight to the nurse in charge.

His response?

“He’s not that bad.”

That was it. No urgency. No incident report. No action to prevent it happening again — to me or someone else.

Later that same shift, after I’d gone on break, they finally called the doctor to review the patient — only once the nurse in charge had taken over and experienced the aggression for himself.

I reported the incident. I followed procedure. But it became clear very quickly that the system wasn’t built to protect staff — especially not junior ones.

I went on workers’ compensation after that and didn’t return for a year.

It wasn’t just the injury — it was the betrayal. I’d been assaulted at work while trying to care for a vulnerable patient, and the people who were meant to protect me decided to pretend it hadn’t happened.

I didn’t just leave nursing after that night. I left because staying would’ve meant telling myself I didn’t matter — and I couldn’t do that anymore.

Alcohol, Collapse and Cannabis as a Lifeline 

Eventually, I found a new job helping first responders navigate their own medical retirements. I loved it — until I attended a “victims’ rights” seminar. It happened to fall on the two-year anniversary of my assault at work, and it broke me.

That month, I drank 20–40 standard drinks every night, it depended on how far through the bottle I got before I passed out.

Cannabis was what helped me stop. It wasn’t perfect or healthy yet, but it saved my life. It gave me something else to reach for. 

Medicinal Use and Finding the Right Support 

After leaving my abusive partner (who regularly withheld weed to manipulate me), I went a month without using cannabis. My mental health collapsed. I started looking into medicinal cannabis.

My first clinic was Greencare — expensive and dismissive. I didn’t feel heard or supported. But then I found TranquiliT HC, a bulk-billing service. The Nurse Practitioner there actually listened. He worked with me to develop a treatment plan. It was a total shift — from trying to survive to actually healing. 

Trying to Heal (and Being Failed Again)

I returned to nursing briefly, working in a sexual and reproductive health clinic — a job I genuinely loved. I helped women through some of the most vulnerable and pivotal moments of their lives. Some hugged me. Others cried. Many told me I had changed — or even saved — their lives. That part of the job was soul-affirming.

But behind the scenes, there were serious and repeated breaches of ethical and patient-centred care. The clinic’s anaesthetist routinely administered sedatives without informing patients beforehand — a clear violation of consent and basic medical ethics. This wasn’t a one-off or a grey area. Patients would come in for procedures and be drugged without warning, causing significant distress, especially in cases involving trauma or assault history. Nurses like myself were often left to clean up the emotional aftermath, comforting confused and frightened patients who had been denied the right to know what was happening to their bodies.

It didn’t stop there. This same anaesthetist regularly made inappropriate and degrading comments about patients — often while they were under sedation. Jokes about their bodies. Remarks about the procedures. It was repulsive and dehumanising, and it happened more than once.

We raised concerns. We made formal complaints. Multiple nurses did. But nothing changed. Management dismissed it or quietly swept it under the rug.

I tried to stay. I tried to believe the system would do the right thing. But when a workplace actively enables the violation of consent and disrespects patient autonomy — especially in a setting meant to support vulnerable people — it becomes complicit.

I couldn’t be a part of that. I left.

The system failed me again — but worse, it failed the patients. 

Inpatient Stays and Rediscovering Control

Eventually, my psychologist convinced me to admit myself for inpatient mental health treatment. It was cannabis that helped me reflect enough to finally agree.

During that first 3-week stay, I didn’t use cannabis at all. I felt like I was in a bubble — safe from the outside world. I went 46 days without it, and while my thoughts felt only slightly sharper, my emotions were more volatile.

Three months later, I was back in hospital for six weeks. This time, I understood that cannabis helps me — when I need it. I focused on other aspects of healing while in the bubble. I also started TMS treatment (Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation), which for me felt like light tapping on the head. It helped more than I expected.

During that stay, I received my Victim Services compensation, access to trauma-specific therapy, and — most importantly — a letter of recognition. Reading that letter made me feel like I had power again. Like I was real.

Unfortunately, I also experienced sexual harassment from another patient, who masturbated next to me in the smoking area at the hospital. I reported it immediately, but nothing happened. When I pushed for action, I was told reporting it to police could result in my discharge due to other “complaints” I had never heard of. I had to choose: report the predator or stay and get the treatment I needed. I stayed. 

Where I Am Now 

When I left hospital, I had nowhere to go. I lived in a tent with my cat, then emergency accommodation, then a caravan, then a motel, and eventually back to my parents — briefly.

I’m currently in a supportive living situation that gives me some stability while I focus on building my van, continuing TMS, and maintaining my mental health with medicinal cannabis.

Cannabis helps regulate my emotions, manage PTSD symptoms, prevent suicidal ideation, ease chronic pain, and let me sleep through the night without nightmares. It is essential to my daily functioning. 

The Power (and Stigma) of Cannabis 

My healing journey isn’t finished — but cannabis has helped me more than most professionals ever have. And yet, it’s still severely stigmatised.

That stigma made it harder for me to access the help I needed. I was judged, dismissed, and pushed aside because I used a plant that was actually helping me survive. I hope by sharing my story, I can help change some of that perception.

Cannabis isn’t for everyone. But for some of us, it’s the reason we’re still here.

Thanks for reading — and welcome to the journey.

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