MDMA or rather an antidepressant for socialising?

[mb-909]

I stumbled over this well written article by cell recently and was thinking of medicating myself with MDMA again after abstaining for 20 months. I had been diagnosed with F 33.3 and I was diagnosed with F 33.1 a year ago.

I have been trying to fight off my social anxiety but I have not been able to do so. Doing everyday tasks while being around a lot of people stresses me out too much and I can't study nor concentrate as much as I would like to. Ironically the best days of my life had been the days after use were everything was a little bit foggy, but were I could simply live in a state of homeostasis.

The biggest problem speaking against its use is the last time I took it after taperring off aripiprazole. I was in a state of severe anxiety, which lasted around half a year till I took psilocybin for the first time.... Actually psilocybin is the best anti-anxiety drug I ever ingested. The fear of such a long lasting anxiety (maybe/probably the result of aripiprazole) coupled with the unknown long term risks have prevented me of taking such an incredible "medication" again.

I have been reading a lot of arcticles about its effect on memory, but there seems to be conflicting evidence of the severity of psychological damage done. My memory is getting better and better from day to day, which might be a result of regular psilocybin use (once every 2-3 weeks) and I don't want to lose too much of it. On the other side I can't handle the stress of living as a human being anymore and SSRI's, which often times seem to be not better than placebo are not an option for me. Maybe somebody can give me some more inside or an alternative idea (meditation, sports and a healthy diet have been done for years with very little effect). Thanks in regard.

 

[palmanita]

To make your decision, you have to remember that while you are on a SSRI and several weeks after long-time use, you won't be able to enjoy psilocybin anymore because of receptor down-regulation. While aripiprazole indeed can trigger or intensify anxiety (as antipsychotics aka dopamine antagonists in general tend to do for me), it's interesting that psilocybin exhibits such prominent anti-anxiety effects for you (psychedelics also tend to be anxiogenic, for me and part of the people- maybe it's a matter of correct dosing, because I indeed remember two or three low-dose psilocybin "trips" that were anxiolytic- but long-term SSRI use somehow destroyed my ability for this effect).

A consideration might be to use a dissociative in very low dosage. If you should happen to have a decent source for K (straight out of vials is the best, avoid that cut shit sold on the streets by any means) then it might be worth to give it a try, somewhere here on bluelight is an excellent thread about the correct procedure for depression / anxiety treatment.

Otherwise 2'-Oxo-PCM is, at least in my eyes, a good one and maybe even better than K (again, if you can get hold of it in reasonable purity. Deep web sellers sometimes mix up PCM and PCE and there's a horribly psychotic impure batch of 2'-Oxo-PCE in circulation.) I've never done real MDMA but what I get out of low-dosed dissociatives isn't unlike the effect from serotonin releasers / MDMA-alike substances. At first you have the dissociation with the ability to look neutrally and from a different angle at yourself, the situations and problems and the world. Then comes the sometimes a week long lasting antidepressant and anxiolytic effect where you can experiment with yourself and gain experience that, ideally, you could integrate into your everyday life. That's what I'm trying at the moment. But especially the short acting ones (K, 2'-Oxo-PCM) also have a somewhat addictive edge.

If you decide to do MDMA again, I'd recommend you to have a few benzodiazepine or clonidine pills around as a hedge if the anxiety should become too unbearable.

Some also get good anxiolytic effects from CBD, doesn't work for me but everyone's different.

Out of the SSRIs, depending on what's available in your country the new vortioxetine sounds promising (on the paper, that is). Otherwise I can recommend venlafaxine but seemingly really everybody reacts differently to them.

 

[MeDieViL]

sero releasers like mdma or psychedelics can technically be safely taken in treshold doses.

A chem thats like a combo of the 2 amt has been used for depression with high succes for decades in the sovjet union, sero releasers will lack most side effects associated with ssris, and show more effectivenes, a med for tolerance is definatly adviced to take with sero, da releasers or treshold psychedelics.

a potemtial issue is cardiac fibrosis after long term use but thats extremely rare

 

[Jonneh]

OP, if you do decide to experiment with MDMA (or 5/6-APB, AMT or other empathogens) you're going to need to find a way to translate the liberation from social anxiety into your sober state. None of these compounds are viable long-term 'medications', so you're best off treating them as sacraments and focusing on learning as much as possible from each occasional experience. As for your memory, good mental performance is often about balance - it's no good having a super duper memory if you can't put it to good use (in social contexts, for example). That said, it is likely to suffer if you use MDMA regularly, and MDMA's stimulant qualities will eventually take their toll and mean you have to stop. I'm not sure microdosing will help you out here - you probably won't get above the threshold for relief of social anxiety.

Psilocybin (which, like most other psychedelics, is a serotonin agonist, and not a releaser) is another animal altogether, and you can probably keep using it fairly long-term without physical ill-effects. It will lose a lot of its magic, but perhaps that isn't required for the social benefits you get from it. At the end of the day, though, you can't be tripping all the time, so you need to work hard on getting the most out of each occasional experience. Those will be the gains that last.

P.S. Nice review, and fascinating that that is what Rob Malenka is up to these days. I spoke to him over a beer or five a couple of years ago, and he was leaving the world of synaptic plasticity (which he made a huge splash in) for that of addiction. I was disappointed at the time, but perhaps it's a good direction after all.

 

[mb-909]

Thank you all for your input. I have been trying to get an appointment with a psychologist, but wasn't able to do so (restrictions and "Aufnahmestop").

It seems to me that the best chance of changing my behavior is to take part in a CBT, while taking a single dose of MDMA between the sessions. Ketamine would be really helpful, too, but I have no resources at the moment. Right now I am on a longer psychedelic break, because my behavior changed for the worse after taking it too often. Hopefully everything turns for the better during the next weeks.