To start I want to say that my time with Rodan + Fields and the friendships that I created through my time as an Independent Consultant are valuable to me. I loved my time in the business and I love the friends I made.
If I loved it, then why did I leave?
The short story is that it no longer suited who I was.
The long and twisted story…
Nothing in my life seemed to suit me. That was because I was so sick and depressed that I didn’t know what I wanted and it definitely meant that I was not working any of my side hustles. I have a master’s degree in business. I KNOW how important a side hustle is to building wealth. Not to mention, the sense of purpose it gives people when they succeed at something for themselves rather than for their employer.
Side note: Multi-level Marketing is NOT a pyramid scheme. In fact, it is actually the preferred method of business outside of the U.S., it is the fastest way to for a product to reach a market, and it accounts for a very large portion of the female population that make over $100,000 a year.
Back to the story:
I cannot recall a time in my life that I was as depressed as I was this last year. I tried to pull myself out of it. I spoke to friends and doctors and the very last thing I wanted to do was take anti-depressants and just be a zombie again. I just couldn’t shake my depression and now I was starting to have panic attacks and insomnia.
Insomnia is my breaking point.
I think we all have those little lies we tell ourselves, for example, when I am “sick” I refuse to admit I am sick unless I have a runny nose. Once the runny nose sets in and if you are near me when it happens you will hear me utter the phrase, “Damn, I am sick.” I don’t admit I have a mental health problem until I can’t sleep.
It was all downhill from there.
In an act of desperation I actually took on a new side business to try to force myself to be accountable and maybe my sheer willingness to hold myself accountable to others would get me through the funk and I would find some new connections- and I did but that wasn’t enough.
Unfortunately, I had, in all of this, triggered a flare of my Autoimmune Disease (which depression, anxiety, and insomnia are some of the early signs that the system is triggering, I just didn’t know).
Y’all, I can honestly say that Fall 2018 and through Winter 2018 were some of the scariest moments in my life as new symptoms of the disease popped up and my mental health declined. I was genuinely begging my husband to hospitalize me, not for the disease but for my mental health. I wanted him to commit me. I admit that I was afraid of what I was going to do. At times, I didn’t trust myself.
I declined.
I lost who I was.
I was drowning in my own negative thoughts about who I am.
I was a miserable person.
Each day was a fight to get out of bed both physically and mentally and it was a fight to continue through my day. At work, I was frequently crying in my car. At home, whenever I thought I had a spare second, I was crying in the closet, shower, toilet room, garage, and anywhere else I could avoid my daughter.
At the end of February 2019, I had started my AI protocol and almost immediately we knew part of it had failed. Desperate to treat my physical pain, I dosed myself with cannabis. Something unexpected happened, my depression, anxiety, and insomnia started to re-balance. After 2 weeks of dosing myself my coworker noticed a positive change in me.
I knew then that I had a new purpose. I wasn’t going to get better and just return to my old life. I was going to get better and advocate for medicinal cannabis for both physical and mental health. I had actually studied cannabis for the last decade to help my special needs daughter and now I was going to use my research and my voice and tell those who will listen about the healing powers of cannabis.
So, I said all of that to say this, I left my side hustles not because the products don’t work or the business model failed. No, I left my side hustles because I saw my purpose. I spoke to my husband and told him my ideas to open a cannabis bakery and to help people find tasty and fun ways to dose themselves and I knew that Texas was going to be changing laws over the next few years and I told my husband that this is what I wanted to focus on and when the time was right, I would tell everyone of my plans.
I literally said to my husband just days before I partnered with my new company, “If only I could find a legit CBD company to start at farmer’s markets.” I had a plan and CBD would be a perfect entrance into the cannabis industry. I could do farmer’s markets on the weekend and start talking to people about how cannabis heals and hopefully get my voice heard.
If only..
Then out of no where, the opportunity to partner with my new company presented itself to me. And not just ANY opportunity. A GROUND FLOOR OPPORTUNITY with a quality brand that represented EVERYTHING I WANTED IN A CBD PRODUCT!
I felt like this was a blessing from above. I know I have so much working against me and ignorance-based stigma to battle. I have always been the person on the outside so it doesn’t bother me to once again be against the popular belief.
I am an early adopter of mainstream cannabis. I promise you all, there will be a day, sooner rather than later, that CBD will be as normal as taking a Tylenol capsule.
Thank you for reading.
UnSocially Acceptable 
Published by