A Road To Healing Through Cannabis
Samantha Carlos wants sexual assault survivors to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
“I want to bring some hope into the world that there is recovery after sexual assault,” said Carlos, 30, a Patient Care Associate at Ethos Cannabis’ Allentown, PA location.
Carlos recalled the painful struggle to be heard and believed in the aftermath of her own assault, which took place when she was a teenager. She said being denied the ability to express her feelings honestly and process what happened to her intensified the trauma she experienced.
“I didn’t know what happened to me, and the people I did tell… made me feel like it was my fault,” Carlos said. “I was really struggling with these feelings.”
Several months after the assault, Carlos left home and ended up staying in a women’s shelter. Another woman staying there recognized Carlos’ pain and offered her cannabis to help her calm down.
“She looked at me and said, ‘you look like you’re struggling,’ and we went outside and smoked a joint together,” Carlos said. “That night was the first real decent night’s sleep I got since the assault.”
While it was clear to Carlos that cannabis helped her calm down, she did not know she was medicating.
“I just knew I felt better,” Carlos said. “I knew that my anxiety wasn’t bad when I consumed, being around men didn’t [trigger] me, and I overall just felt better. But consuming cannabis was still just ‘getting high’ to me. I didn’t know I was taking care of myself on a different level.”
Later on, Carlos was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), depression, and anxiety, as well as bipolar disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). She learned shortly after that she also had endometriosis, a painful reproductive system disorder where the uterine lining grows outside the uterus.
“The biggest thing I learned… is that cannabis is medicine and this helps people feel better,” Carlos said. “I wasn’t just ‘smoking weed’ all these years — I was treating myself.”
It took hearing a fellow survivor’s story to recognize what she was doing since that first joint years earlier. Until that point, Carlos was taking several pharmaceuticals to help with her PTSD, but none had truly been “the ticket” to healing she wanted and needed.
“Cannabis allowed [my friend] to get out of that fogginess and deal with the pain and hurt without masking the pain,” Carlos said. “I realized I was walking around in the same fog she described. One pharmaceutical was giving me this side effect, one was counteracting the other. When I had that realization, that’s when I really started diving into cannabis.”
Carlos traveled to Colorado to learn how to incorporate cannabis into her career as a licensed massage therapist (LMT). From 2016 until 2019, she learned the ins and outs of the cannabis industry, working as a budtender, trimmer, assistant to a master grower, and in a bakery manufacturing edibles, putting her formal training in the culinary arts to work.
“I wanted to dive in wherever anyone gave me the opportunity,” Carlos said.
Carlos returned to Pennsylvania in 2019, received her medical marijuana card from the Pennsylvania Department of Health, and was recruited by a friend to work as a supervisor in a dispensary. She joined the staff at Ethos Allentown in late 2020.
Carlos said that sharing her experience has built “mini bonds” between her and others who live daily with the emotional toll sexual assault takes on their mental health.
“I don’t know if it’s an aura or energy I give off, but people gravitate to me, even though I don’t go looking for them — they feel comfortable telling me their stories,” Carlos said. “We’re all wearing the same pair of socks without knowing it.”
Carlos credits cannabis for keeping her “calm, cool, and collected enough” to attend regression therapy to process her trauma.
“If I didn’t have cannabis to bring down the anxiety, I don’t know if I could allow myself to feel any of these things I’ve felt,” Carlos said. “Cannabis brings the anxiety down from a 10 to a 5, enough for me to take a step back and go, ‘I got this.’ Cannabis brings me out of the chaos and into the moment.”
Carlos said that other survivors say she carries her trauma well, which she hopes inspires them to take care of their mental health and put in the work necessary for a healthy future.
“I can talk about it without getting tears in my eyes; I can say the words ‘sexual assault’ and tell my story with a straight face,” Carlos said. “It’s taken me a long time and a lot of therapy to get here, but I think others see a better future for them through my story.”
Cannabis continues to be key to that story. Carlos said she’s found help with inhaling products with a balanced 2 to 1 THC to CBD ratio, transdermal patches for longer-term relief, and suppositories to help manage endometriosis symptoms. Along with Wellbutrin, Carlos can tackle each day with renewed strength and resolve.
“Thanks to cannabis, I’m living my life for the first time,” Carlos said. “I spent most of it surviving, and now I get to live.”
