Weed Turned My Best Friend Into a Gay Suicidal Homeless Drug Addict
When marijuana meets undiagnosed bipolar disorder
For the sake of anonymity, I’m going to call him Bryan.
Bryan and I lived next door to each other since we were 5. We were inseparable. We’d climb our shared fence just to talk to each other. We’d eat dinner at each other’s homes. I was part of his family and he was part of mine.
Bryan was always a bit unstable. Something would trigger him then he would throw a fit and start hitting people. Teachers would say “Bryan snapped again.”
Bryan and I used to fight a lot. We’d be playing normally, then out of nowhere he would snap and we’d start throwing fists. Our parents had to pull us apart. This was relatively normal given boys fight in elementary school, but his temper only got worse.
One time in middle school, he found out a girl he had a crush on started dating someone else. He got up, walked away from the cafeteria table, sat alone, then started screaming and ripping out his hair. Puberty or not, that’s pretty strange behavior for a 12 year old.
We ended up going to different high schools. Bryan was gifted. Something of a math prodigy. He skipped several grades in math at a young age and got a scholarship to an expensive all-boys private school. We didn’t see each other as often, but we’d still hang out from time to time. We started smoking weed around the same time at fifteen years old.
I didn’t have fun smoking weed with him. Everyone gets a little stupid when they smoke weed, but he turned into a vegetable. He could barely speak. When he tried, it was gibberish. He just wasn’t there. By the time he graduated, he was high 24/7. I started to hang out with him less.
He and I went to different colleges. After he first came home to visit, he told me he was gay. This was surprising, given we frequently talked about girls and he had several girlfriends. It was also strange given he was my best friend. We used to have sleepovers together.
I said “Okay. That’s fine. Just don’t hit on me or anything.” I was half-joking. I hoped he understood what I was saying, which was “Don’t make it weird.” Instead, he took it as a challenge.
