MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 2)

[Vikingdancer]

Ill have to disagree with you on the neuro damage side of things here. Most of us here got the ltc on a delayed fuse. some guy told us he got this months after his last use. Even me for instance, I got anxiety the day after my last use wich was also my first use, and then all other symptoms 3 days after. wich is alot. It has to be a snowball effect or anxiety or something else. Neurological damage has to be ruled out. 75-100mg on my first time and I get damage? Fuck that, no way.

75-100 mg on your first time and your here on BL? Are you stupid? Leave this forum and never come back please.

 

[ScaredFirstTimer]

Hi everyone im kind of new to this but came on for some advice about 3 months ago I took mdma on the sat night couldn't tell you how much but was pretty high followed by mdma all day Sunday I even passed out on the Sunday night there was a lot of alcohol involved aswell since then Its been hell my memory is so bad vision is all blurry tingling in arms and legs and other places even, My moods been crazy and just feel terrible I have took Zoloft for 1 month never helped, I'm so scared now keep thinking it could me neurotoxcity ? I genuinely don't know what to do got an appointment with psychiatrist next week and also neurologist not came through yet. Was such a mistake I'm so scared and don't think a can go on much longer ?

You're not alone man. Try to stay away from the psychiatric medication until you've tested your hormones man. Look at some of the suggestion from a guy in this thread with the user name "Strangestuff", or ask your doc to test you for adrenal insufficiency, at least get a test of morning cortisol/ACTH. The crazy mood swings and anxiety you're experiencing will normalize after a while. Believe it or not, 3 months isn't that long in this game.

75-100 mg on your first time and your here on BL? Are you stupid? Leave this forum and never come back please.

You'd be surprised at how many of us are first timers here man. I'm in the same boat, 18 months in. Actually, there's more minimal/moderate users in this thread than abusers.

 

[ryan23]

Okay I'm goina go to the doc and get that done, I just feel so confused And vision memory is so bad.... How long you think this will take ? And would you recommend ssri if the bloods come back normal

 

[Vikingdancer]

You'd be surprised at how many of us are first timers here man. I'm in the same boat, 18 months in. Actually, there's more minimal/moderate users in this thread than abusers.

With those minimal users there is absolutely NOTHING wrong. All they have is anxiety/depression like millions of other people that never used drugs. Your problems are NOT related in any way to MDMA(damage). Go see someone who deals with anxiety or depression. It's stupid.

 

[me2point0]

Well we have the same symptoms as the ones who did high dosage or the long term users, were in the same basket. We're all here to find what caused this and how to get rid of it. BL is the only place on the internet or in real life where I can communicate with people feeling the exact same why I am.

 

[Vikingdancer]

Have fun wasting your time.

 

[Tpchan85]

Me2point0 I remember you were taking prescribed Vysanse (amphetamine) at the time and for some time after. In my own personal case I think my amp usage in combination was what brought this on. I was taking MDMA for about 2 years relatively safely, I was on a break from MDMA and started taking around 30mg amphetamine every day to help me through college. The positive effects of the amp started to get less and less over a few months then it started to turn nasty making me feel anxious. The last time I took it when it kicked in I had a horrific panic attack which sent my heart rate to about 180 bpm and left me violently shivering. For a few days after that I was a little more on edge than usual. Stupidly I took a heroic dose of MDMA the next weekend. The come up was horrible, violent shivering again, but the night was great after I came up. Then about a week after this I started to have heart arrhythmia and cue months of endless panic attacks. 14 months later I feel like myself but with lingering issues.

I don't feel right in a neurological sense. My memory is great, my cognitive ability is absolutely fine blah blah but I have 3 major symptoms right now:
- Muscle twitching all the bloody time, literally every 5 seconds.
- Very sudden episodes of confusion / feeling fucking WEIRD that last maybe 5 minutes and subside (feels like a mini seizure), they are so acute that I can be sitting in a room and BOOM suddenly the room looks different and my brain feels jumbled.
- I get uncontrollably angry for little reason sometimes, feel like im actually gonna explode with anger sometimes but cant pinpoint why

 

[jusjenn21]

Hmmm anxiety is the worst fucking thing ever. Wish there was new success stories. i keep reading the same old threads of ppl getting over this completely & that makes me feel good. Maybe this thread could use some positive stuff or something.. I been in therapy for 5 months my god they thrive on being positive but its so fucking hard. I wanna throw in the towel and jus let my body panic or do whatever it wants but whats the use of that. Nothing it wont solve anything.. it gets on my nerves that ppl dont understand that i feel anxious every moment in my life. for no reason. Anxious for nothing. i mean i jus think my mind is anxious becuz of what kicked off this ltc but its been almost a year. plzzzzz i wanna move tf on.

 

[Strangestuff]

Okay I'm goina go to the doc and get that done, I just feel so confused And vision memory is so bad.... How long you think this will take ? And would you recommend ssri if the bloods come back normal

Nobody can say a real time its guna take. But regarding the blood tests, I've said it before and will say it again--if your results are in the "normal" range your doctor will most likely be like its all normal nothing is wrong. However, a bunch of people here probably have stuff that is not "optimal" which is what you need. eg) Having a Testosterone in the 300s or 400s when you are like 20-30 years old will be regarded by the doctor as "normal" yet its totally not and can cause/contribute to all the LTC symptoms like head pressure, anxiety, palpitations (not directly due to Testosterone but due to anxiety created by low T), etc. Normally, 20-30 year olds will have levels near 700.

Some people probably even have partial subclinical hypothyroid which cannot cause the entire LTC but everything counts and adds up.

 

[ryan23]

Nobody can say a real time its guna take. But regarding the blood tests, I've said it before and will say it again--if your results are in the "normal" range your doctor will most likely be like its all normal nothing is wrong. However, a bunch of people here probably have stuff that is not "optimal" which is what you need. eg) Having a Testosterone in the 300s or 400s when you are like 20-30 years old will be regarded by the doctor as "normal" yet its totally not and can cause/contribute to all the LTC symptoms like head pressure, anxiety, palpitations (not directly due to Testosterone but due to anxiety created by low T), etc. Normally, 20-30 year olds will have levels near 700.

Some people probably even have partial subclinical hypothyroid which cannot cause the entire LTC but everything counts and adds up.

Thanks for the reply ? I'm just so scared I keep on thinking I've damaged my brain or nervous system with the amount of alcohol and mdma my mood and behaviour has been crazy m tearing my family apart ? ..my mum keeps saying its anxiety but I doubt that could change my vision memory and pins and needles everywhere

 

[me2point0]

tpchan85 yeah i totally feel you. For me it was the opposite. I started from vyvanse and then thook mdma. I was a trashcan In school and ahad no other option to start on vyvanse otherwise I woulda gotten thrown out of school. But the amp vibe kept getting dirtier as I would sleep 20 hours a week at best. I thook a small mdma pill 2 days after my last amp and as you may remember, the comeup was nothing like anythibg i ever found on the internet. It was like someone was pushing me to the ground. Like the rollercoaster sensation dragging me to the floor. It was my first time so my bpm was around the maximum my body could handle. next day I had some chest needles. 2 days later I had vertigo and all that shit. My most annoying symptom motion sickness. I cant do a 360 and loo straight after. I get twitches but they come and go at different places. Currently in my fingers. Im convinced vyvanse was the root to this. i miss it.

 

[nyancloud]

It's good to hear some stories. I've experimented with MD for 3 years now.. But I did it mostly on weekends for a year. Then it was terrible - depression, severe anxiety, crying for no reason etc.. After that I rolled with breaks - maybe once in 2 months, maybe 2 weeks in a row.
Now I've been sober for 3 months. Mostly I feel fine but some days I could still feel it. Anxiety without any reason, like you are afraid of something but don't know what. It usually happens bad before something important. Crying to every sentimental shit (Ok, now it's not so bad, I'm just emotional, I used to cry at the end of the TV show episode, when something sad was happening).. As I said now it's better. Now anxiety is just for minutes, it used to be for hours. I plan to take a small amount of MD on my upcoming birthday but after that I will avoid it anyways. I know my situation isn't so bad but maybe that's because I try to eat super-healthy, exercise and shit like that.. You feel more better, not sitting at home, eating pizza and drinking beer. Then you will get more worse, believe me.
At least MD has given me empathy.. I used to not care what anybody thinks and did everything my way, now I listen more and reason.
For everyone that is writing here, I hope that you will get better soon. When I was on 5-HTP it actually helped me a lot with anxiety. Try to avoid MD at all costs as time heals.. The best option would be eating healthy, exercising, not drinking etc. Of course, it's not possible to cut out everything but that would be the fastest recovery. For example, I'm always getting worse if I smoke weed a lot. I don't know if it's just me ( I have heard some people get better from it) but yeah.. the next day I feel really anxious.

 

[ryan23]

It's good to hear some stories. I've experimented with MD for 3 years now.. But I did it mostly on weekends for a year. Then it was terrible - depression, severe anxiety, crying for no reason etc.. After that I rolled with breaks - maybe once in 2 months, maybe 2 weeks in a row.
Now I've been sober for 3 months. Mostly I feel fine but some days I could still feel it. Anxiety without any reason, like you are afraid of something but don't know what. It usually happens bad before something important. Crying to every sentimental shit (Ok, now it's not so bad, I'm just emotional, I used to cry at the end of the TV show episode, when something sad was happening).. As I said now it's better. Now anxiety is just for minutes, it used to be for hours. I plan to take a small amount of MD on my upcoming birthday but after that I will avoid it anyways. I know my situation isn't so bad but maybe that's because I try to eat super-healthy, exercise and shit like that.. You feel more better, not sitting at home, eating pizza and drinking beer. Then you will get more worse, believe me.
At least MD has given me empathy.. I used to not care what anybody thinks and did everything my way, now I listen more and reason.
For everyone that is writing here, I hope that you will get better soon. When I was on 5-HTP it actually helped me a lot with anxiety. Try to avoid MD at all costs as time heals.. The best option would be eating healthy, exercising, not drinking etc. Of course, it's not possible to cut out everything but that would be the fastest recovery. For example, I'm always getting worse if I smoke weed a lot. I don't know if it's just me ( I have heard some people get better from it) but yeah.. the next day I feel really anxious.

do you think an ssri will help with mdma depression ? I'm seeing psychologist next week and I know he's goina put me on an ssri will this help. Am actually so depressed it's unreal ? and a cant answer simple things or even read I just want to be back to normal

 

[CloudIX]

Hmmm anxiety is the worst fucking thing ever. Wish there was new success stories. i keep reading the same old threads of ppl getting over this completely & that makes me feel good. Maybe this thread could use some positive stuff or something.. I been in therapy for 5 months my god they thrive on being positive but its so fucking hard. I wanna throw in the towel and jus let my body panic or do whatever it wants but whats the use of that. Nothing it wont solve anything.. it gets on my nerves that ppl dont understand that i feel anxious every moment in my life. for no reason. Anxious for nothing. i mean i jus think my mind is anxious becuz of what kicked off this ltc but its been almost a year. plzzzzz i wanna move tf on.

Hey man, I know what you are going through and I can definitely assure you there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In the past few months I have made HUGE progress in my recovery. Like night and day difference. Like everyone else said, there is unfortunately no set time frame for this, but I think it really depends on the experience and how much it has effected you. Eventually, you will stop dwelling on how you feel and forget to even have the negative thoughts you have been having. Feel free to message me man!

 

[nyancloud]

SSRI is bunch of chemical compounds, right? I would recommend what is natural, as I know 5-htp is made from a plant. I don't know much about SSRI. You should just find out what is in there. But probably it will help your anxiety in moderate doses, so you should be fine. At least you can use it for the beginning, after that you can switch to something else.

 

[Tpchan85]

Hey man, I know what you are going through and I can definitely assure you there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In the past few months I have made HUGE progress in my recovery. Like night and day difference. Like everyone else said, there is unfortunately no set time frame for this, but I think it really depends on the experience and how much it has effected you. Eventually, you will stop dwelling on how you feel and forget to even have the negative thoughts you have been having. Feel free to message me man!

I absolutely agree. We tend to focus on the negative when we post but 14 months down the road I would say I really feel like myself. Before I was like "where the fuck am i and who the fuck am i" the anxiety was so crippling. I literally felt like I was tripping my nut off questioning reality all the time. Now I'm just me again but with anxiety / physical symptoms caused by the trauma. The most important step in this was not allowing my symptoms to impede my life! I can not stress enough that withdrawing from life, sitting at home waiting for my symptoms to pass probably tripled the duration of them and made me utterly depressed. I remember telling myself "i cant go out, i might have a panic attack, what if i have heart palpitations?" etc etc but I was wrong.

As far as SSRIs are concerned, I really don't understand why everyone here is so afraid of them. If I could go back 10 months I would beg the doctor to give me them. Chronic untreated anxiety causes damaging changes in your brain on its own. If an SSRI can put your brain back into neutral mode for some time and let it calm the fuck down and learn how to behave normally again then that's what we should be doing. We were willing to shove untested neurotoxic chemicals down our throats so why not highly tested proven medicine?

What you need to bare in mind is that if you stop giving a fuck anxiety wont just disappear like that. It takes a long time to train your brain. I believe that our brains were set into panic mode by a traumatic event (for me horrible panic attack caused by daily stimulant abuse) and the way to undo that is to basically chill the fuck out for a couple of months be it through distraction, cbt, medication or whatever. I also have to say I think meditation and other mental strategies are bullshit, to me there was nothing worse than sitting in the dark with nothing but my own thoughts. It's like if you try not to think about something you WILL think about it.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

 

[ryan23]

I absolutely agree. We tend to focus on the negative when we post but 14 months down the road I would say I really feel like myself. Before I was like "where the fuck am i and who the fuck am i" the anxiety was so crippling. I literally felt like I was tripping my nut off questioning reality all the time. Now I'm just me again but with anxiety / physical symptoms caused by the trauma. The most important step in this was not allowing my symptoms to impede my life! I can not stress enough that withdrawing from life, sitting at home waiting for my symptoms to pass probably tripled the duration of them and made me utterly depressed. I remember telling myself "i cant go out, i might have a panic attack, what if i have heart palpitations?" etc etc but I was wrong.

As far as SSRIs are concerned, I really don't understand why everyone here is so afraid of them. If I could go back 10 months I would beg the doctor to give me them. Chronic untreated anxiety causes damaging changes in your brain on its own. If an SSRI can put your brain back into neutral mode for some time and let it calm the fuck down and learn how to behave normally again then that's what we should be doing. We were willing to shove untested neurotoxic chemicals down our throats so why not highly tested proven medicine?

What you need to bare in mind is that if you stop giving a fuck anxiety wont just disappear like that. It takes a long time to train your brain. I believe that our brains were set into panic mode by a traumatic event (for me horrible panic attack caused by daily stimulant abuse) and the way to undo that is to basically chill the fuck out for a couple of months be it through distraction, cbt, medication or whatever. I also have to say I think meditation and other mental strategies are bullshit, to me there was nothing worse than sitting in the dark with nothing but my own thoughts. It's like if you try not to think about something you WILL think about it.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

I agree with you %100 .the only thing is ssri only help when your on them but coming off them you end up back to square one or even worse that's what happens to me anyway. I also keep thinking I've got neurotoxcity cause of the symptoms I'm having surely that all couldn't be down to anxiety, is it possible to have anxiety and not even know ?

 

[ScaredFirstTimer]

I also have to say I think meditation and other mental strategies are bullshit, to me there was nothing worse than sitting in the dark with nothing but my own thoughts.

I partly agree with your sentiment. Sitting at home wallowing in your symptoms is probably the worst thing you can do, unless you are able to immerse yourself in something, a series, computer games, books etc. In the beginning of my LTC (others have described this also) this was impossible for me, and I know that what saved me was my job and forcing myself to be social in the weekends, or going for late night walks in the city.

What I want to chip in on is what you said about meditation.

It's like if you try not to think about something you WILL think about it.

This is exactly why real meditation is about accepting what is. Accepting the now. Not violently forcing your mind to be silent. It's ridiculous how much it helped me from around month 3 to month 6.

 

[Deltronpedro]

I absolutely agree. We tend to focus on the negative when we post but 14 months down the road I would say I really feel like myself. Before I was like "where the fuck am i and who the fuck am i" the anxiety was so crippling. I literally felt like I was tripping my nut off questioning reality all the time. Now I'm just me again but with anxiety / physical symptoms caused by the trauma. The most important step in this was not allowing my symptoms to impede my life! I can not stress enough that withdrawing from life, sitting at home waiting for my symptoms to pass probably tripled the duration of them and made me utterly depressed. I remember telling myself "i cant go out, i might have a panic attack, what if i have heart palpitations?" etc etc but I was wrong.

As far as SSRIs are concerned, I really don't understand why everyone here is so afraid of them. If I could go back 10 months I would beg the doctor to give me them. Chronic untreated anxiety causes damaging changes in your brain on its own. If an SSRI can put your brain back into neutral mode for some time and let it calm the fuck down and learn how to behave normally again then that's what we should be doing. We were willing to shove untested neurotoxic chemicals down our throats so why not highly tested proven medicine?

What you need to bare in mind is that if you stop giving a fuck anxiety wont just disappear like that. It takes a long time to train your brain. I believe that our brains were set into panic mode by a traumatic event (for me horrible panic attack caused by daily stimulant abuse) and the way to undo that is to basically chill the fuck out for a couple of months be it through distraction, cbt, medication or whatever. I also have to say I think meditation and other mental strategies are bullshit, to me there was nothing worse than sitting in the dark with nothing but my own thoughts. It's like if you try not to think about something you WILL think about it.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

True words!

 

[CloudIX]

I absolutely agree. We tend to focus on the negative when we post but 14 months down the road I would say I really feel like myself. Before I was like "where the fuck am i and who the fuck am i" the anxiety was so crippling. I literally felt like I was tripping my nut off questioning reality all the time. Now I'm just me again but with anxiety / physical symptoms caused by the trauma. The most important step in this was not allowing my symptoms to impede my life! I can not stress enough that withdrawing from life, sitting at home waiting for my symptoms to pass probably tripled the duration of them and made me utterly depressed. I remember telling myself "i cant go out, i might have a panic attack, what if i have heart palpitations?" etc etc but I was wrong.

As far as SSRIs are concerned, I really don't understand why everyone here is so afraid of them. If I could go back 10 months I would beg the doctor to give me them. Chronic untreated anxiety causes damaging changes in your brain on its own. If an SSRI can put your brain back into neutral mode for some time and let it calm the fuck down and learn how to behave normally again then that's what we should be doing. We were willing to shove untested neurotoxic chemicals down our throats so why not highly tested proven medicine?

What you need to bare in mind is that if you stop giving a fuck anxiety wont just disappear like that. It takes a long time to train your brain. I believe that our brains were set into panic mode by a traumatic event (for me horrible panic attack caused by daily stimulant abuse) and the way to undo that is to basically chill the fuck out for a couple of months be it through distraction, cbt, medication or whatever. I also have to say I think meditation and other mental strategies are bullshit, to me there was nothing worse than sitting in the dark with nothing but my own thoughts. It's like if you try not to think about something you WILL think about it.

Anyway, that's my take on it.

Definitely agree with you man! The negative thoughts are technically whats been driving this rollercoaster of an experience. I mean fuck, if I had as many positive thoughts as I did negatives, I would have cancelled out this shit a long time ago. But like you said, ALL OF US focus on who we USED to be or the life before this crippling experience and that in itself is negative, which eventually leads to a snowball of negativity. But we are in fact the same damn person, but just being affected by something short term that is out of our control for right now. In the grand scheme of things, if it takes 2-3 years to get COMPLETELY back to normal, and obviously learn from our mistakes which is not bad at all. I mean fuck, people jump out of trees hammered drunk and break their leg and can't run for 3 years. Or someone may drive drunk and get a DUI, they are fucked for years as well. All we have is a life experience to learn from and get over just like anything else in life.

You will eventually stop thinking about that night of the panic attack or the regret you have from doing whatever you did. I mean, yes I still have physical symptoms but I'm at the point to where im so used to them that I dont even know they are there....and when i dont know they are there they are legitimately not happening if that makes sense. The worst part of this whole experience for me was PVC's (heart palpitations) I dont wish this shit on anyone. It's annoying and is probably the scariest symptom even though they dont mean anything.

As far as taking an SSRI, I have battled through this without one and only take the occasional klonopin. Maybe twice a moth.