Self Acquired Brain Damage

The mad cap's laugh isn't so funny when it's directed at yourself.

For the last year I have been stressing over the issue of self acquired brain damage. If you didn't know or if I haven't told you, I did a fair amount of drugs (like, BIG ones) when I was a teenager and a little when I was in my early twenties. As we all know, drugs are bad. Drugs have been proven to cause physical and mental harm within all ages, sex, and demographics.

By researching the brain and the affects of illicit drugs for the last two weeks, I have surmised that it is highly possible that I may have damaged a few areas of myself. Notable areas of damage may be the hippocamus region (know as memory) and the limbic region. The Limbic Region governs reward, craving, and emotions. Additionally, I think that these substances may have produced some strange temporary behavioral changes that I may have not noticed at the time.

I have been thinking about theses thoughts more recently because the 27th of December marks my first one year anniversary clean from drugs. Good for me right? I feel great!

To say whether I significantly damaged myself or not is an odd question because there really isn't a way to know if I did, if I can heal, or if the damage is complete. the average adult's brain does not stop forming until they are 25 and the brain is one genius of a machine. Surely some minor drug experimentation can't cause that damage. but then again, if you read science journal reports about drugs you might find yourself thinking that they really can do damage. and a lot of it at that.

But to fear the unknown is a waste of time, so I'll just keep going like everything is fine.