I Was in the Room but Not Really There

There's a particular kind of parenting guilt that doesn't show up in parenting books: being physically there and mentally gone.

Weed didn't make you a monster. For a lot of women, it made the repetitive parts of evening parenting tolerable, bath time on loop, one more story, the noise that never quite stops. It took the edge off being needed when you were already empty.

Quitting weed can feel like the opposite at first: too much input, too little buffer. Colors are louder. Questions feel endless. You notice details you used to float above, and it can feel like regression before it feels like presence.

But presence, even when uncomfortable, is different from numbness. Numbness asks nothing of you. Presence lets you catch the small things, a new word, a laugh you would have missed, the way your kid looks at you when they're not performing for an audience.

This shift isn't instant. Week one can feel like sensory overload. Week three, many women describe a clearer evening arc, tired, yes, but not erased.

If you're mourning the soft blur while also wanting to be more here: both can be true. You're not quitting weed because you're a bad mom. You're quitting weed because some part of you wanted back in the room.