It’s two years since Isiah found himself on the roof of a south London shopping centre, about to jump. “I was very done,” he says of that night in November 2023. “It felt there was no other route or option. First, I did a walk around everywhere important to me: primary school, secondary, college.” Then he headed to Lewisham shopping centre. “I remember my head was telling me: ‘You’re probably better off doing this.’”
He was exhausted by his paranoia, which had grown in tandem with a cannabis habit. Now 29, he first tried marijuana at 14, becoming a daily user by 17. At university, studying event management during the pandemic, he smoked more “because this is how you meet people”, but remembers growing “feelings of suspiciousness”, first towards his housemates, then to his workmates at a part-time office job. He struggled to sleep, “started to isolate”, and cannabis became a way to cope. In the end, smoking three joints a day, he felt he could trust no one.
