My Signature, and How I learned The Most Important Thing Ever

[OneUp]

Hey guys, OneUp here. Today I wanted to share a story about how my signature came about, and exactly just how much it means. It may seem like a really negative story in the beginning, but trust me, in the end its the exact opposite. This entire story is about what made me who I am today Now, I'm not going to explain anything, I'm just going to jump right in. Keep in mind though, this is a real story about me, and everything I say actually happened. Here it is: Its the second weekend of summer 2014, and me and my closest friends all decided to spend the night at my friend Patrick's house. Now I'm not going to mention any names, because I don't want to get anyone into trouble, but all of us are really close friends, we're like brothers to each other. As we all arrived at Pat's house that night, we just chilled. Suddenly an idea popped into one of my friends head, "Hey guys, we should get high tonight. I know a guy we can buy from who sells for 15 dollars a gram." Immediately we all got excited and we all agreed that we needed to buy from this guy tonight. "Hey, I got 20 bucks, I can put in some money" I tell everyone. My friend D then says, "Yeah I have 20 bucks too, I'll put it all in." We sorted everything out and decided that we were going to buy 3 grams from this guy, and we got him to take 5 dollars off of the 3rd gram so we had just enough money. I then called the guy and he hooked us up 2 hours later, which kind of pissed me off because he lived in the neighborhood but yet took forever. Once our guy pulled up to Patrick's house we did the exchange and the guy gave us an empty Gatorade bottle with 3 nugs inside. I brought it into Pat's house and we immediately broke it down since it was already really late at night. As my friend was breaking it up, the first thing we all noticed was that this guy gave us old, dried up crap. I stayed chill, but inside of my mind I was pretty mad that me and D had just spent 40 bucks for this low quality stuff. It's not like we could get a refund or anything, so we decided it wasn't a big deal and we were going to smoke it anyways. After my friend A broke it all down, he packed the first bowl. Then, everyone besides Patrick came outside and we made a circle around his patio table. Once we were all situated and ready to get it going, A took the first hit and then passed it around. Not long after he hit it, it was passed to me. I looked at the bowl, I was really happy that I was about to get high tonight. "Come on Cory, hit it up bro" my friend T said. I put the pipe up to my lips and lit the weed. It was really dry and had a bitter taste to it, but I didn't care anymore as long as it got me high. After I took 2 hits I passed it along. Before I knew it, we had finished all 3 grams of the stuff and were now just kicking back and relaxing. As usual, me and D started listening to music on our phones. Suddenly D gets a call from his mom, and she tells him that he can't spend the night at Patrick's and needs to come home now. Quickly Patrick got D some cologne and covered him in it and made sure he smelled as good as new. We weren't to worried about D getting caught because he's pretty smart when it comes to dealing with this kind of stuff, and after all, he did talk to his mom high and pulled it off so it was all good. D then left Pat's house and went home. We didn't hear from him the rest of the night so we assumed it all went well with him. Only minutes after D left the weed hit me, and it hit me hard. As it did, and I started getting the high, everything started slowing down. My vision slowed down so much that everything seemed as though it was a picture, and every second or so that picture would refresh. My vision was like I was looking out of a camera and somebody was taking flutter shots every second. It was horrible, and along with that time slowed down so much that it seemed like minutes were hours. I sat down on Patrick's couch and everyone watched t.v. I tried not focusing on the negative stuff of my high, but it was too much. Soon I was consumed in my thoughts and I became majorly depressed. At the time I didn't know it was depression because I had never experienced anything like it before. I remember thinking as I sat on the couch motionless, "I just want to run outside and kill myself." It was that bad. Suddenly a felt an extreme terror build up inside of me. I was so terrified, but of what I have no idea. This was the most scared I have ever been in my life, and I don't even know what I was scared of. As I continued sitting there on the couch my friend T looked at me. "Holy crap Cory, your entire face is as white as a ghost". This made me realize just how bad it was getting. I'm pretty tan, so for my face to be white as a ghost; that's really bad. I immediately went into the restroom, but I didn't look at myself, I just went straight to the toilet and sat down. "Whats going on?" I thought to myself, "This has never happened before." I sat in the restroom for a while, constantly being bombarded with negative thoughts. I would see inside my mind the most depressing places you could think of. I felt like I was the only person on Earth, and trust me, this is one of the worst feelings ever when you're in this state of mind. I got up off of the toilet eventually and went into Patrick's dad's room and lied down. His dad was in another country right now, so it wasn't a big deal and we usually sleep on his bed whenever we spend the night. As I lied in the bed, I looked around. I was extremely aware of everything. As I looked around the house at the walls, the floor, the pictures hanging everywhere, it all looked depressing. This perspective was like nothing I have ever seen before. After a while, my friends all came into the room and checked on me. "Cory, you all right man?". "Nah man I feel horrible, I just want to be alone right now." Even as I said this my friends still jumped in the bed and lied next to me. "Whats wrong dude?". I told them how I was really depressed and everything, but they didn't understand why. Eventually I got out of the bed and went back into the living and sat down on the couch. I put in some music and tried relaxing. I thought that I was going to be like this for the rest of my life, and that thought alone terrified me. I thought about killing myself again, but I was too cowardly to do that. I sat there for the next few hours just suffering through all the negativity and what I found out later to be anxiety attacks. Later in the night I cooled down and my heartbeat lowered, but it never went back to normal that night. Somehow I fell asleep and got a few hours of rest from life. When I woke up the next morning I still felt the exact same, but my heartbeat was back to normal. I decided that I wanted to go home. I put on my shoes and walked out of Patrick's back door. Everyone was still passed out except for my friend T who saw me leaving. As I walked home I tried to figure out what was going on. What was happening to me? I've never felt like this before. As I got home I took of my clothes and hopped into my bed and went to sleep again. I woke up a few hours later and tried again to figure out what was happening to me. I turned on my computer and researched what I was feeling. I found out that I was feeling major depression and anxiety attacks. It was a bit comforting to know that I was not alone. But that still didn't help. I was not myself anymore. Now I had turned into some kind of pessimistic , depressed, and anxious person. This is nothing like me. I thought to myself, "If this is how the rest of my life is going to be, I don't want to live it." It was getting so bad to the point that I felt that I was going insane, and that feeling is the worst feeling ever. I pray that you never have to feel it, ever. I wanted to tell my parents, but I knew that if I did, my life would be ruined forever. My dad is an ex-cop, so I would be screwed. As I laid there in my bed, it got too much too handle. I started crying for a long time, and I really thought that my life was over. I thought I would never be the same again. This person that I became, full of depression, anxiety, and negativity, stayed with me for a month after that night that I smoked. Finally one night I prayed to God, and at the time I wasn't really Christian at all, and still now I'm really not. I am Christian, but I don't really practice the religion. Anyways, that night as I prayed to God I prayed that he make me the person I was before and take away all the crap that was inside of me. Little did I know, I would never be the same again. However, as I finished that prayer I felt my depression leave me immediately. Days after this I still had a little depression and I still had the anxiety attacks, but things were getting a little better. One day, I decided that I had had enough. No longer did I want to be this horrible person anymore, and I was going to fight to go back to the normal, always positive and relaxed person I was before. I researched for hours upon hours about the brain and how to change your perspective on life. I learned that the brain is extremely malleable and just by practice you can change your thought patterns. That was the day I made a huge change in my life. I started fighting every negativity with positive thoughts. I was not going to give up, and I was prepared to fight for as long as I had to to go back to normal. Deep inside of me I felt a part of me change, a part of me that I have learned to love. I knew that deep down, something inside of my spirit was telling me to never give up. Every day I would fight against anything negative. Any bad thoughts I would fight to destroy. Eventually the depression stopped all together and I have never felt it since. Not long after I also stopped the anxiety attacks. After that I stopped all negative thoughts. After a month or so of doing this, and after a few more prayers to God, I fixed myself. The day that I finally came back to reality and sanity, I cried for a long time. It felt so amazing to be clear of all of that negative crap. Never before had I ever thought that it would be so amazing to be normal ever again. I never smoked weed again and I stopped doing any drugs and I never drank again either. Ever since then something changed inside of my brain where I love being sober now, and I love the clarity of my thinking. Sometimes I think back to what life would have been like if I didn't fight to become normal again, and I know that down there in the negativity, it is a dark and lonely world. My mere existence was like a living hell with all the depression and anxiety and everything else. But now there's something I realized. If you ever find yourself in a troubling situation in any matter, you can beat it. Your brain is designed to change to the way you want it to be, and you can change the way you think just by training your brain. One of the most important things I've learned in life, probably even the most important thing, is to believe in yourself. If you do that, you can do anything. It's exactly like the famous quote, "If it is to be, it is up to me." You decide how your life is going to be. You decide if its positive, filled with joy, stress-free and anything else. Its all perspective in a way. Never give into your fears, because they won't give in to you. You have to destroy your fears and realize that they stand no chance against you. And that's why my signature means so much to me. It applies to anything and everything in life. Never doubt yourself and your abilities. Because I won this entire battle mentally, I feel that this can tie in exactly to Lucid Dreaming. All you have to do is teach your brain how to do it, and soon you'll be lucid dreaming effortlessly, and it all comes from intention and how far you think you can go. If there is one thing I want you to take away from this story: Believe In Yourself.

[fogelbise]

Good on ya OneUp turning that situation around and going sober!

[snoop]

Hey man, I'm in a similar situation myself, I just wanted to say that it's impressive how well you've handled things and decided to do the right thing for yourself. I am on the same path, good on you man, I'm glad you're a better person now.

[Serious]

Hey man how long did your depression last? Weeks, months, years? And how old are you? Don't worry panic attacks can have long lasting effects but they aren't permanent. You will only come out stronger then before. You should actually be gratefull for this experience cause it might have saved you from the addiction disease Congrats on going Straight Edge dude! I'm on the same journey right now been clean since new year and the state of clarity is indeed awesome. I love being on top of my shit. I was way further down the rabbit hole than you though (I was combining drugs normal people have never even heard of :s). I have seen the afterlife/been reincarnated thousands of times, I was infinity and all this is fucking awesome until... The fear kicks in followed by the confusion! Who am I, why am I so lost?? Want to go back to these crazy looper times every weekend cause real life seems so fucking dull.. Or the damned horrible depression from abusing these chemicals (well some of them at least).. And your body and mind getting disconnected more and more. The funny thing is you think there is enlightnment somewhere in that blissfull infinity. But trying to find god through chemicals is like using a sledge hammer to build a fucking house Did you fear being sober for ever? To me it's very difficult but I just do it one day at time. I also felt like I lost a part of my identity, but now I realized I just get a better one instead P.S. Try meditating it helps so much against anxiety and trains your discipline

[OneUp]

Hey man how long did your depression last? Weeks, months, years? And how old are you? Don't worry panic attacks can have long lasting effects but they aren't permanent. You will only come out stronger then before. You should actually be gratefull for this experience cause it might have saved you from the addiction disease Congrats on going Straight Edge dude! I'm on the same journey right now been clean since new year and the state of clarity is indeed awesome. I love being on top of my shit. I was way further down the rabbit hole than you though (I was combining drugs normal people have never even heard of :s). I have seen the afterlife/been reincarnated thousands of times, I was infinity and all this is fucking awesome until... The fear kicks in followed by the confusion! Who am I, why am I so lost?? Want to go back to these crazy looper times every weekend cause real life seems so fucking dull.. Or the damned horrible depression from abusing these chemicals (well some of them at least).. And your body and mind getting disconnected more and more. The funny thing is you think there is enlightnment somewhere in that blissfull infinity. But trying to find god through chemicals is like using a sledge hammer to build a fucking house Did you fear being sober for ever? To me it's very difficult but I just do it one day at time. I also felt like I lost a part of my identity, but now I realized I just get a better one instead P.S. Try meditating it helps so much against anxiety and trains your discipline Hey man, nice to see that I wasn't alone in my journey. As for my depression, it lasted a few months. I would go to bed every night and just look around my room and it would depress me. I remember even thinking about asking my dad for new furniture because Of how depressing my brown dresser looked. It was bad. I started thinking that I was going insane, and I thought I would be that way for the rest of my life. Of course that all changed when I learned one simple yet powerful message: Rule your mind or it will rule you. I am 17 right now, and this thing started in the middle of summer last year. I am totally grateful for this experience because it led me to discover the power of the mind and also opened a ton of opportunities to me. I don't have panic attacks anymore or anxiety at all. That all stopped when I prayed to God one day I read a quote that said, "Actually, I just woke up one day and decided that I didn't want to feel like that anymore, or ever again. So I changed. Just like that." I do think that some drugs have opened my mind to enlightenment a bit; meaning, they just made me realize some things about life. I never feared being sober, in fact, I actually love it. Every now and then I get tempted to do lsd again, but I stop myself. Now, because of that experience I am totally positive in everything I do. I trained myself to be that way. I also learned that if you want to succeed in anything you do, you have to take on that, "I Can and I Will" mindset. Its amazing how easily you can change your mind to fit your preferences. "The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts". I wish you the best man.