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MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 5)

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MYH1234 said:
I'm at this stage at the moment, in those 12 months did you drink at all or anything? The dizziness is horrible, it gives me anxiety and makes me feel nauseous and feel as if I'm going to faint, also weird sensations in my head! Had this for about 4 months now.

Reason I ask is because I've been sober 5 months and I drank on the weekend (a lot!) and hope I haven't set myself back.
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I only tried drinking a few times during the first 12 months. This applies to the first 24 months actually. I was basically sober for two years as I noticed a (temporary) increase in symptoms after drinking, and immediate symptoms when drinking. I got heart palpitations, an immense increase of DP/DR and hot flashes as immediate symptoms when drinking alcohol.

Miraculously I recovered to a point where I could drink without any weird symptoms or negative after effects. I now drink regularly and if I drink moderately I may actually feel better than normal for a few days after.

I don't think you've set yourself back at all, but you may experience an increased severity of symptoms for a few days, maybe even weeks. Periods of increased severity of symptoms due to something like this is just a part of recovery...
 
I'm generally fine with drinking or coffee now (even though this somehow started due to drinking a few weeks after the MDMA) and sometimes coffee helps me but its been over 12 months (probably 1.5 years though I did drink alcohol/coffee around the 10-12 month mark). My symptoms were not as severe to begin with as some other ppl cause I didn't have the trailing/afterimages/etc and I also didn't have full blown DP/DR. That probably makes a difference.

I still limit the drinking cause I don't want to experience hangovers that intensify the symptoms.

Anyways, I've said it before but I'm truly sick of this and the whole "waiting" crap. All CBT, mindfulness, etc is to me it just feels like a way to wait it all out. I don't like it. I want to actively target the LTC and beat it to the ground such that I am back to my old self. I'm simply not making as much progress with my CBT on that. I have some good days randomly but the bad days also randomly happen. I expected CBT to essentially STOP the bad days from even occuring. As in, ideally me doing CBT should prevent a low mood from even occuring in the first place when I get out of bed in the morning. But for some reason that still happens.

I don't know what I am doing wrong. How can I be doing CBT and also still have the low mood occur anyways??? Isn't this supposed to theoretically cause recovery? Sorry just venting here and I understand maybe my expectations are really high for it but I don't see much of the point if I cannot expect to effectively cure the symptoms.
 
socrilus said:
I don't know what I am doing wrong. How can I be doing CBT and also still have the low mood occur anyways??? Isn't this supposed to theoretically cause recovery? Sorry just venting here and I understand maybe my expectations are really high for it but I don't see much of the point if I cannot expect to effectively cure the symptoms.
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I haven't done CBT specifically, but I did meditation diligently during the first part of the LTC.

What I've found during 3 years and 4 months of recovery is that recovery happens seemingly regardless of what I do. I've actually noticed the most recovery in periods where I have not done what I was supposed to, for instance drinking coffee regularly despite symptom increase, eating junk/no supps, alcohol, etc. I have only experienced real recovery long after quitting meditation.

I'm not saying that these things doesn't influence recovery in a positive way, but I've yet to read someone suddenly getting real sustained recovery from something else than SSRI/benzos/etc. The meditation I did in the beginning may be part of the reason I've recovered greatly over the last 10 months. Staying sober for 2 years obviously must have been conducive for whatever recovery was taking place. Still, it was not until I started drinking regularly that I really noticed recovery taking place...

If you haven't recovered in 6 months it seems like recovery takes 2-5 years.
I find it hard to subscribe to a particular theory anymore, but if some of this is indeed due to axonal loss you are looking at a multiple year recovery period no matter how diligently you practice CBT.

p.s. I regret not doing meditation. I was very familiar with it before the LTC and I'm convinced that it saved me from losing it and fucking up my life completely. I just find it hard getting into it again. I agree with Cotcha that it may be the most important thing you can get into as a LTC sufferer.
 
ScaredFirstTimer said:
I haven't done CBT specifically, but I did meditation diligently during the first part of the LTC.

What I've found during 3 years and 4 months of recovery is that recovery happens seemingly regardless of what I do. I've actually noticed the most recovery in periods where I have not done what I was supposed to, for instance drinking coffee regularly despite symptom increase, eating junk/no supps, alcohol, etc. I have only experienced real recovery long after quitting meditation.

I'm not saying that these things doesn't influence recovery in a positive way, but I've yet to read someone suddenly getting real sustained recovery from something else than SSRI/benzos/etc. The meditation I did in the beginning may be part of the reason I've recovered greatly over the last 10 months. Staying sober for 2 years obviously must have been conducive for whatever recovery was taking place. Still, it was not until I started drinking regularly that I really noticed recovery taking place...

If you haven't recovered in 6 months it seems like recovery takes 2-5 years.
I find it hard to subscribe to a particular theory anymore, but if some of this is indeed due to axonal loss you are looking at a multiple year recovery period no matter how diligently you practice CBT.

p.s. I regret not doing meditation. I was very familiar with it before the LTC and I'm convinced that it saved me from losing it and fucking up my life completely. I just find it hard getting into it again. I agree with Cotcha that it may be the most important thing you can get into as a LTC sufferer.
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Im kind of confused--you are saying meditation which you did in the beginning is a potential reason you recovered in the last 10 months although you don't meditate now?

Im just kind of frustrated that for whatever reason CBT works for so many people and for some reason I don't really feel the improvement right now. There are people out there for whom it works and really feel better after 2 months of it. Its meant to be a short term thing. As you can tell, it itself becomes another thing to ruminate about lol
 
My therapist told me today that in this scenario it shouldn't be viewed as a cure but more as a coping mechanism or plan of what to do when these feelings arise. Still disappointing to me since at the end of the day I'm looking for a true cure (and who isn't right?). But still...

Its not permanent I guess but still holy hell I wanna know what I can do to speed the recovery up actively! I want to be seeing something like 0.5% improvement a day ideally!

The speed of recovery has been and remains a MAJOR problem.
 
socrilus said:
My therapist told me today that in this scenario it shouldn't be viewed as a cure but more as a coping mechanism or plan of what to do when these feelings arise. Still disappointing to me since at the end of the day I'm looking for a true cure (and who isn't right?). But still...

Its not permanent I guess but still holy hell I wanna know what I can do to speed the recovery up actively! I want to be seeing something like 0.5% improvement a day ideally!

The speed of recovery has been and remains a MAJOR problem.
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yeah man..... I'm getting real impatient as well. It seems no matter how healthy I live it doesn't make a dam difference. My eyes are so full of debris it's ridiculous.
 
My concern is more the mental symptoms.

It doesn't help telling me that my expectations about not feeling anxious or depressed again are unrealistic. I did not even feel a *drop* of anxiety/depression prior to the LTC and thus expect no less. Maybe im overexaggerating a bit but thats just to get my point across.

Warning this is negative but I also absolutely hate the whole crap about rewarding yourself for small things like "getting out of bed". That aint an accomplishment for me. Thats what one calls "normality". Ie I am not one to reward myself for something that I could do regardless.

It could very well be that somehow my personality is just not meshing well with the therapist or form of therapies. Telling me my expectations are too high is one surefire way to piss me off. Cause in reality they are not that high. Im not asking to be 200%--I am asking to return to the same state as before which is NOT a very high expectation to me its a reasonable one. The thing is I haven't found a therapist who doesn't say this kind of stuff. Only my doctor agrees with me and says saying that my expectations are too high is unhelpful for somebody with my personality.

The other thing I wonder is if CBT didn't work because I didnt believe in it enough but then my dr said that stuff is all placebo tested so can't be the case. But then I'd like to know why it didn't actually improve the symptoms. Therapist thinks there is improvement but imo its very minor and I don't notice anything and therefore. I will say there is improvement if my social skills came back full force.

Tinnitus I am just dealing with it not the primary concern. I do think it is possible to recover mentally before recovering from that.
 
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socrilus said:
It doesn't help telling me that my expectations about not feeling anxious or depressed again are unrealistic. I did not even feel a *drop* of anxiety/depression prior to the LTC and thus expect no less.

The other thing I wonder is if CBT didn't work because I didnt believe in it enough
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Imagine going to CBT for resentment when resentment reduced the effectiveness of CBT ;)

But seriously though, I have gotten a big resentment vibe off of a lot of people with various issues (not just LTCs) and I promise you guys that the resentment never helps them. It takes a long time to learn to "let go", as cheesy as that sounds. While it may be something that ultimately happens "overnight" for some people, it's usually years in the making.

There is also a lot to be said for being grateful for whatever function/health/quality of life we have left, but there is a strange learning curve to losing things and being grateful for what we have left.

For example, people with mental health issues typically lament their mental health issues without realizing they should appreciate their physical health every moment of every day, then they lose their physical health and they'll say "I would give anything to go back to just mental health issues".

If you lose both your mental and physical health, then it usually becomes a matter of appreciating just how much mental and physical health you have left (actively improving health aside).

Socrilus, I know you would like a very active way to participate in recovery, something like going to physical therapy to recover from an injury or something. You just have to lift the weights if you will, in that physical scenario. But mental health recovery can sometimes be very passive.

It may not be as much about what you do as much as it may be about what you don't do. Letting go of resentment and regret for example, that's something that's hard to do actively.

If it was "thinking" that got somebody into regret and resentment mode, then it may not be thinking that gets them out of it. The answer may be a change in attitude rather than gaining new knowledge.
 
What do you mean by resentment? I don't ruminate at all about having taken MDMA. If anything I am solution focused at this point about how I can actively get out of this with a step by step plan as if this was a science experiment.

CBT theoretically is supposed to work regardless of if I believed it enough or not cause its been tested against placebo. Maybe I should just give it all a break. Whenever I try to actively do something like CBT I just get dissapointed.

I don't think people with physical issues would want to go back to mental health issues though. Mental health issues are just far worse.

I just feel like having a good mood and feeling good is the #1 most important thing. Once my mood is restored to normal I won't have any problems in my life. So actually in reality I only have 1 problem: mood. No other real problems in my life just 1, not much.
 
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Yo mdmaregret....i don't know if you have depersonalisation/derealisation (im not a doctor!), but you should have a look at DP Self Help. I have the mind blank thing. There's q few people on there who have it as well.

Please don't fucking wait - get the help that you need and deserve. It probably won't get better JUST by posting to random people on bluelight.
 
socrilus said:
What do you mean by resentment? I don't ruminate at all about having taken MDMA. If anything I am solution focused at this point about how I can actively get out of this with a step by step plan as if this was a science experiment.

CBT theoretically is supposed to work regardless of if I believed it enough or not cause its been tested against placebo. Maybe I should just give it all a break. Whenever I try to actively do something like CBT I just get dissapointed.

I don't think people with physical issues would want to go back to mental health issues though. Mental health issues are just far worse.

I just feel like having a good mood and feeling good is the #1 most important thing. Once my mood is restored to normal I won't have any problems in my life. So actually in reality I only have 1 problem: mood.
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What is wrong with your mood? Wouldn't your mood be low because of you're physical symptoms? Tinnitus and VS would have me feeling pretty shitty. What else is there to be low mood about? Not trying to be a dick, just curious.
 
ADubbs said:
What is wrong with your mood? Wouldn't your mood be low because of you're physical symptoms? Tinnitus and VS would have me feeling pretty shitty. What else is there to be low mood about? Not trying to be a dick, just curious.
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No offense taken. Nah actually VS/tinnitus isnt causing my mood to be low lol we are like opposites.

Nothing is causing my mood to be low-- thats just the mental side of the LTC for ya! The LTC is causing the low mood lol nothing else. Probably hormones and other complicated LTC shit playing some role for it. But otherwise besides the low mood my life is fine. Problem is I cannot really do much if my mood is low I just get by. Im not able to have a gf or pursue relationships because my mood is low and so my social skills become low from the LTC. So that goes out the window. The low mood just affects so many other aspects and snowballs and gets better randomly here and there.

I am able to cope fine with. VS/tinnitus. VS I hardly notice and for tinnitus I have a fan running in the background 24/7 which helps me habituate. Sometimes I do get annoyed by it but its not the main reason for my low mood. Neuroadaptation has worked to mitigate the effects of VS/tinnitus on my life.
 
socrilus said:
What do you mean by resentment? I don't ruminate at all about having taken MDMA. If anything I am solution focused at this point about how I can actively get out of this with a step by step plan as if this was a science experiment.

CBT theoretically is supposed to work regardless of if I believed it enough or not cause its been tested against placebo. Maybe I should just give it all a break. Whenever I try to actively do something like CBT I just get dissapointed.

I don't think people with physical issues would want to go back to mental health issues though. Mental health issues are just far worse.

I just feel like having a good mood and feeling good is the #1 most important thing. Once my mood is restored to normal I won't have any problems in my life. So actually in reality I only have 1 problem: mood. No other real problems in my life just 1, not much.
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Being solution focused is great for a lot of things but I don't know how helpful it will be for depression and anxiety. Neurofeedback would be interesting for you try because I don't know if I would really call it that "active".

I wouldn't necessarily say "CBT is supposed to work", I'd rather say that it's going to on average work better than "placebo" which in this case is probably some sort of mood journal. But there can often be delayed fuses to various treatments, so it's important that studies do long term follow ups.

RE: physical vs. mental health issues, it's hard to say because physical health issues can get pretty bad and also then lead to mental health issues, whereas its relatively harder for mental health issues to cause physical health issues.

To be bed ridden with pain for a year because of a spinal injury or to have a severe LTC that lasts a year... Interesting dilemma I suppose.
 
I mean being solution focused is a component of CBT. The only issue is when you cannot really do anything right now about the problem like mood whereas for somebody who has more general stress related issues they can be solution focused and probably be fine.

I guess what I mean is for example referring to those who get well on meds they see a gradual improvement week by week.

Thats the kind of thing I expected to see with CBT but I didnt seeit so it makes me feel as if I did it wrong.
 
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I could be wrong but I think the solution focused bit is partially intended with the end goal of altering behavior, although you would think that you could also alter attitude with CBT (to help one be content/patient et cetera).

I guess it seems like the frustration and hopelessness et cetera of not seeing fast improvement in and of itself is causing some people distress.
 
Looking for anyone out there who has recovered from mdma induced hppd or LTC right about now...
 
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