MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support - 7) [ALL LTC posts go here]

[ar223]

started supplementing with nsi-189 ill let you guys know how it goes, some ppl said theyre symptoms got alot better with it. but ill update my experience here

 

[Deep_Fried]

Drug Reverses Age-Related Mental Decline Within Days, Suggesting Lost Cognitive Ability is Not Permanent

ISRIB, a new drug that reboots protein production in cells can reverse aging declines in memory and cognition in mice, with no side effects.

www.goodnewsnetwork.org

Any folks smarter than me have any thoughts on this?

I highly doubt that I´m smarter than most people at the moment, but I am taking a similiar compound, that is commercially available: Centrophenoxin, which is the best supplement/medication I have taken so far.

 

[Jabberwocky]

"Overall mental capacity is below average" .Well I can say i fried my brains with all kind drugs also mdma

 

[ZeroLuck]

"Overall mental capacity is below average" .Well I can say i fried my brains with all kind drugs also mdma

Below average could be also refered if you're better than 49.99% of the people... It's not a good method to measure anything. Just stop all the poison and live quality

 

[Deep_Fried]

Yep I also just ordered a pack of 100 nsi-189 capsules.

Buy NSI-189 - NSI-189 Capsules online - Information and Sales

NSI-189 (phosphate) capsules at best price. EU and worldwide shipping. Fast delivery. Quality NSI-189 20mg.

www.intellimeds.net

 

[SpiderBro]

Hey guys,

It’s been a while since I’ve seen a positive post on here, so I figured I’d share a small one.

I just passed the 7 month mark and I’m happy to announce that my cognitive impairments are completely gone.

I hope this is encouraging to those suffering because I think I had one of the most extreme cognitive declines of anyone I’ve ever read about. I could watch a 20 minute TV show and when it was over not tell you hardly a single thing of what had happened. I could be holding a supplement bottle in my hand (with the water running) and have absolutely no idea if I had just taken the pill or not. I couldn’t think of relatives names, I could hardly talk, think of words, remember to perform basic life functions.... I could go on and on.

As I think I’ve stated here before, this scared the absolute living hell out of me. The anxiety is one thing, but to think I destroyed what I believe to be the crown jewel of planet earth, and living organisms, had me crushed beyond despair. I never had stopped to think what a miracle the human brain is and what it enables us to do. All of our thoughts, dreams, creativity, appreciation for art and music, our feelings of love, our nostalgia, our zest for life is all experienced through this amazing organ and the 1000s of miles of our nervous system. To think I had won the genetic lottery (and was decently smart to boot) and then had destroyed this gift from god, left me in the darkest pits of hell.

Well my friends, I have been given a second chance in life. Lucky to have had even experienced it in the first place and blessed beyond words to have it back again.

Wow, how cool, huh? Absolutely, but there’s something that’s so important to understand if you are in the hell phase right now. I remember being in your shoes and thinking, “why am I not hearing the recovered folks jumping for joy in their posts when they recover?” I remember thinking if I were to get my cognitive functions back I’d be kissing the ground and happily announcing it to anyone who’d listen.

The crazy thing is...

I’m here, and, it’s not like that.

What?!?!? How could it not be?

Couple reasons:

1 - state specific memory - You can google this if you’re interested but I have a section dedicated to it in chapter 2 of my recovery toolkit (which I promise I’m working on, I’ve just been extremely busy at work and enjoying non-LTC life). Basically, you identify and remember things much stronger in relation to how you feel in the moment. What this meant for me (and I’m assuming others who recovered cognitively) is that once you start feeling normal, you sort of pick up right where you left off. It’s kind of hard to even imagine or remember what it was like to not have it. And since recovery is non-linear, the first moments of my brain functioning properly were indeed blissful, but they were short lived. Eventually they became more and more frequent and then they just became my new reality again. And once back full time, I didn’t even really stop to think about it. Early on, I said if I got my brain back I’d post the longest most dramatic tale of how happy I was. And while, as I mentioned, I am eternally grateful, the more natural thing to do was to just get on with my life so that is what I did. That said, I made a promise to every energy form in existence that I’d help people if I ever felt better, so here I am trying to explain it to you, and even more importantly explain the lack of stories and the nonchalant attitude towards it. If any recovered folks that still lurk here can relate I think it would be helpful if you can share to reinforce this point.

2 - the process is slow and very painful - if I were to have gone directly from day 20 to day 200, then yes, I would have cried tears of joy, but that’s not how it works. You don’t wake up with your mind back, you very slowly get it with tiny victories and major setbacks along the way. This process is so disturbing you kind of feel more like a combat veteran on a ship slowly returning from war than a sprinter breaking across the finish line. Yes, you’ve made it back, but you’ve seen too much shit along the way. You have scar tissue and that’s all there is to it.

I’ve posted previously on helpful supplements/regimens so I won’t go into detail on that again. However, since I last discussed this topic, when I was sitting at about 80% cognition, my opinion about this has evolved some.

1 I know it’s been said a million times, but I believe now that even more of the cognitive impairments are directly influenced by the anxiety. I’m not one of the guys who thinks it’s 100% anxiety as initially there is (in my opinion) a very real disturbance (you can call it damage, neurotoxicity, chemical imbalance, I don’t really care). That said, the overwhelming evidence (and I’ll have this point laid out in great detail in the future as it’s not a short explanation why) points to the initial cognitive trauma being 100% repairable for almost everyone and it takes usually 8 or 9 months. I say almost everyone as there are just too many factors at play to make a catch all statement. I don’t think it gets discussed here enough, but the LTC portion is what we have in common, but it’s only a part of the complete mental and physical health picture that looks very different for each and every one of us. The main reason I think anxiety is the primary culprit, is that I really made the final jump when I started taking escitalopram a few weeks ago. I was feeling really good but knew something was still off chemically and this really gave me the final push I needed and was surprisingly helpful in the cognitive department. I have a bunch more reasons why anxiety is a factor but I’ll have to save those for another post. My last quick thought on this is how important time was as a factor. Those of you early in the process, just be patient. Feeling retarded is miserable, but you just gotta know this doesn’t resolve fast. Quit testing it every day, just go about your business as best you can.

OK, that’s all for now! Stay strong guys!!

 

[Tea&toast.x]

Hello again,



I had written a post a few weeks ago that some of yous may remember. I had ended up in a coma in 2013 due to MDMA. I showed the post to one of my friends recently, and they thought it was a bit too raw; apparently you shouldn’t talk about death and tell people to move on when they have acute stress disorder (who’d of thought it).



I thought I would write another post with some clarification and also just rant a little bit in general. Everything that I write about is just purely my take on what has happened to some of you, why it has happened, and what some of you could do to get better. Given what happened to me, I’m quite emotionally involved in the topic and I also feel like given the right information everyone who is suffering due to MDMA can get better.



Firstly, to get better you need to know what has actually happened to you. I recognise and I understand that what a lot of you are experiencing is very real and very scary, but I think that for most of you (if not all of you) it is a psychological issue and not a physical one. Obviously, after being broken down mentally, overtime, you will start to experience physical issues, but I feel like the route is psychological.



Most people on here will have seen the famous PSA of the guy at the rave who is dancing and having fun and then things go horizontal; he becomes scared and paranoid. I don’t know if this PSA was about MDMA per say, but it was definitely about stimulants in general. What a lot of you are experiencing is not a new thing; it is as old as stimulants themselves. What goes up must go down or sideways in some instances. I feel like the ‘LTC’ is not a result of MDMA abuse, but rather the result of one bad drug experience. Granted, if you take MDMA everyday you are going to experience problems the same way a drinker would, but I feel like what a lot of you are experiencing is psychological trauma.



I also don’t think that what some of yous are experiencing is an uncommon thing; yous probably all know someone who has clearly been affected by stimulants, but the only difference between you and them is that they don’t think that there is anything wrong with them or at least they lack insight and don’t necessarily attribute their issues to stimulant abuse. They think that they are on a journey of self-discovery.



This leads me to why I don’t think anyone on this forum is brain damaged, and that actually the ‘LTC’ is something that happens to intelligent people. If you were dumb, you would just be like ‘that was crazy, it’s over’, and you would go back to being your usual drugged up self and not learn from your mistakes or dwell on your experience. Most of yous know deep down what’s wrong with you and that valium could cure this in the short-term, but hardly anyone is choosing that route. There is something to be said for that. Valium addiction will ruin your life. Most of you are taking the hard route and just know that ultimately you will be a stronger, smarter and better person as a result of this experience.



People who are brain damaged are not able to articulate themselves and, based on the posts that I have read, a lot of you appear very smart and can converse with people with ease. Also, people who are brain damaged tend to not worry about how brain damaged they are. I have read over some of the posts here, and some people have had every medical test going which have all came back fine.



Furthermore, this may sting, but yous are all functional; yous are all able to engage in activities of daily living. There is very little evidence that MDMA causes physical issues, but it does affect emotions; therefore, logically what you are experiencing is most likely psychological. I think that what a lot of you are experiencing is chemically induced PTSD or depersonalization/derealization disorder. You should watch the derealization manual on YouTube as I think this would help a lot of you.



For the first in your life, you became so overwhelmed that you could not psychologically cope. Whether you panicked during your roll, directly after your roll, or a week after, two weeks etc. The moment you thought your life was in danger or that you had permanently damaged yourself, a chain of events unfolded that lead to the ‘LTC’. On the surface, you know that the event is over and that you are ok, but your unconscious mind did not get the memo.



Your unconscious mind believes that this event was the worst thing that has ever happened to you or that it is still happening. To prevent the same thing from happening to you again, your unconscious is fighting to make sure that you are constantly aware of this life threatening event that it thinks has happened or is always happening. This is why you keep focusing on it, because you are always receiving information telling you that something is wrong. Your flight or fight response is keeping you in or throwing you back into the experience.



The moment you thought that you had fucked it, you created a paradox in which every negative experience after the MDMA event leads back to the MDMA event. It’s human self-preservation at its finest, but it can be problematic. If you had been in a car crash, you would understand why you are panicking every time you see or hear a car or get in a car, and you could actively work towards getting better. However, when the cause of trauma is unclear it’s difficult to recognise the route and work towards overcoming it.



Everyone on this forum has been through experiences in their lives that have changed them. I feel like a lot of people on this forum turned a bad experience into a bad day, into a bad week, into a bad month, into a bad year, and so forth. For the first time in your life, you realised you had limits and an expiration date. You became aware of your own mortality on a scale that you had never experienced before. Your sense of self and your reality crumbled.



It’s easier to believe that there is something physically wrong and to keep yourself in an anxious yet manageable state where you feel as if you are working towards something, than it is to learn the art of letting go. How many people have irreversible brain damage one day and then anxiety the next? Have you ever wondered why you seem to recover one week and then are back at square one the next? It’s because you are not recovering from a physical issue.



If you keep waiting for recovery, you will be left disappointed. Why so few recovery stories? This is because the day you recover is the day that you let go. It’s the day that you realise that nothing has changed and that you were being ridiculous. They say that it normally takes people 6 months to 24 months to recover. Coincidentally, this is roughly how long it takes to get over a traumatic event.



Forums like this one can be helpful in the short term. There is something soothing about someone else telling you ‘I know how it feels, believe me, I’ve been there’. But the only problem is that everyone on them is experiencing a similar thing. It becomes anxious people helping other anxious people.



You had a bad experience and before you know it your balls deep in a ‘LTC’ and on a recovery program that involves a cocktail of supplements that can be dangerous if you take too many of the wrong ones, exercising to the point of exhaustion, fasting, treating yourself for mercury poisoning and doing all sorts of ridiculous things to ‘recover’. Some poor 18 year old may read a post from someone who says that they have been experiencing the ‘LTC’ for 20 years, but this person may fail to mention that they are 50, unemployed, divorced, and that they are a recovering heroin addict. Then that 18 year old will get themselves into a panic, believing that they will never recover from the dreaded ‘LTC’.



After my bad MDMA experience, I had a lot of physical symptoms that went away quite quickly, but I also had psychological issues that went on for much longer. Because I had taken physically unwell due to MDMA, it was easy for me to distinguish between what was physical and what was psychological.



Before the ‘LTC’, how many of you got so drunk that you passed out/had to be hospitalised? How many of you didn’t care? Can you imagine if you put the same effort into researching alcohol poisoning? You would have diagnosed yourself with all sorts, e.g. hepatic encephalopathy. The only reason that yous didn’t put the same effort into researching alcohol is because yous didn’t feel like anything was wrong. When you have severe anxiety you can’t see the woods for the trees. If you take a step back and ask yourselves what’s really different, you will realise that it’s just a feeling.



This whole thing reminds of the Scooby Doo movie.



Velma : What's the problem, exactly?

Mondavarious : I believe somebody is casting a spell on the students. Now listen and look around. Can you notice any difference between those arriving and those departing?

Daphne : They look like sober, well-behaved college kids.

Mondavarious : Precisely. And they didn't before they came. They've changed. In other words, a magic spell.



We need to find the Daemon Ritus.



Baby, you’re going to be just fine.

 

[FugTheFog]

@Tea&toast.x
I'm going to address some of the survivor bias in your feel-good post as I'm waiting for fentanyl delivery.

Firstly, to get better you need to know what has actually happened to you. I recognise and I understand that what a lot of you are experiencing is very real and very scary, but I think that for most of you (if not all of you) it is a psychological issue and not a physical one. Obviously, after being broken down mentally, overtime, you will start to experience physical issues, but I feel like the route is psychological.

In a lot of the stories, including mine, the physical symptoms are immediate and persistent in the long term. The fact that a lot of them coincide with symptoms of anxiety disorders point in the direction of brain chemicals being off. The cycle might self-perpetuate, but it starts with perceptible abnormalities like your muscles spasming or your nose being stuffed for months.

I also don’t think that what some of yous are experiencing is an uncommon thing; yous probably all know someone who has clearly been affected by stimulants, but the only difference between you and them is that they don’t think that there is anything wrong with them or at least they lack insight and don’t necessarily attribute their issues to stimulant abuse. They think that they are on a journey of self-discovery.

Things like tinnitus don't require any insight to notice or in any way relate to a self-discovery journey. It's an undesirable condition.

This leads me to why I don’t think anyone on this forum is brain damaged, and that actually the ‘LTC’ is something that happens to intelligent people. If you were dumb, you would just be like ‘that was crazy, it’s over’, and you would go back to being your usual drugged up self and not learn from your mistakes or dwell on your experience. Most of yous know deep down what’s wrong with you and that valium could cure this in the short-term, but hardly anyone is choosing that route. There is something to be said for that. Valium addiction will ruin your life. Most of you are taking the hard route and just know that ultimately you will be a stronger, smarter and better person as a result of this experience.

I'd be happy to say "that was crazy, it's over" if it would be over at some point. It's also only a mistake in retrospect. I didn't abuse MDMA, I tried it once. I didn't choose the hard route, and by the end of it I won't be smarter. I'll be dead. And if I puss out, I'll be 30 with no memory of the last decade.

People who are brain damaged are not able to articulate themselves and, based on the posts that I have read, a lot of you appear very smart and can converse with people with ease. Also, people who are brain damaged tend to not worry about how brain damaged they are. I have read over some of the posts here, and some people have had every medical test going which have all came back fine.

Phineas Gage, who got his frontal lobe demolished by an iron rod in the 18th century could articulate himself. It's just that he went about it very differently since the accident, it changed his personality profoundly. About medical tests, we can't even determine how exactly neurotransmitters affect different areas of our brains, much less their interactions and appropriate levels. That's the reason pharmaceutical treatment of mental disorders is a crapshoot with dozens of meds to try and combine at different doses. Psychiatrists ain't shit. Therapists are worse.

The moment you thought that you had fucked it, you created a paradox in which every negative experience after the MDMA event leads back to the MDMA event. It’s human self-preservation at its finest, but it can be problematic. If you had been in a car crash, you would understand why you are panicking every time you see or hear a car or get in a car, and you could actively work towards getting better. However, when the cause of trauma is unclear it’s difficult to recognise the route and work towards overcoming it.

For me, the cause is pretty clear. It was MDMA usage.

Everyone on this forum has been through experiences in their lives that have changed them. I feel like a lot of people on this forum turned a bad experience into a bad day, into a bad week, into a bad month, into a bad year, and so forth. For the first time in your life, you realised you had limits and an expiration date. You became aware of your own mortality on a scale that you had never experienced before. Your sense of self and your reality crumbled

I've had plenty of bad experiences, near death even. Panic attacks off spice like you wouldn't believe, thought I was dead for sure. None of them lingered for years. It has nothing to do with sense of mortality or self.

It’s easier to believe that there is something physically wrong and to keep yourself in an anxious yet manageable state where you feel as if you are working towards something, than it is to learn the art of letting go. How many people have irreversible brain damage one day and then anxiety the next? Have you ever wondered why you seem to recover one week and then are back at square one the next? It’s because you are not recovering from a physical issue.

Letting go of what? Your cognitive abilities or clear vision? I've never felt close to recovery in the last 6 years.

If you keep waiting for recovery, you will be left disappointed. Why so few recovery stories? This is because the day you recover is the day that you let go. It’s the day that you realise that nothing has changed and that you were being ridiculous. They say that it normally takes people 6 months to 24 months to recover. Coincidentally, this is roughly how long it takes to get over a traumatic event.

That just reads like a big "fuck you". Nothing has changed? Being ridiculous? I've lost jobs, relationships and most of my twenties to this. I'll likely lose my life to it as well and some already have. Silly geese, huh.

You had a bad experience and before you know it your balls deep in a ‘LTC’ and on a recovery program that involves a cocktail of supplements that can be dangerous if you take too many of the wrong ones, exercising to the point of exhaustion, fasting, treating yourself for mercury poisoning and doing all sorts of ridiculous things to ‘recover’. Some poor 18 year old may read a post from someone who says that they have been experiencing the ‘LTC’ for 20 years, but this person may fail to mention that they are 50, unemployed, divorced, and that they are a recovering heroin addict. Then that 18 year old will get themselves into a panic, believing that they will never recover from the dreaded ‘LTC’.

People get pretty detailed about their circumstances while searching for answers. Age and other substance experiences being in most of the posts. Mentally unstable divorced fucking 50 year old losers and poor 18 year olds in a panic having the same lists of symptoms is something to worry about already. Which of them needs to try diets and exercise? Who needs to chill out, let go and just accept being an e-tard for the rest of their lives?

After my bad MDMA experience, I had a lot of physical symptoms that went away quite quickly, but I also had psychological issues that went on for much longer. Because I had taken physically unwell due to MDMA, it was easy for me to distinguish between what was physical and what was psychological

Good for you.

Before the ‘LTC’, how many of you got so drunk that you passed out/had to be hospitalised? How many of you didn’t care? Can you imagine if you put the same effort into researching alcohol poisoning? You would have diagnosed yourself with all sorts, e.g. hepatic encephalopathy. The only reason that yous didn’t put the same effort into researching alcohol is because yous didn’t feel like anything was wrong. When you have severe anxiety you can’t see the woods for the trees. If you take a step back and ask yourselves what’s really different, you will realise that it’s just a feeling.

I didn't have to put any research into alcohol poisoning because it is quickly diagnosable due to alcohol being legal for centuries. There are effective treatments for alcohol poisoning.

This whole thing reminds of the Scooby Doo movie.

Furthest thing from a cartoon to me personally. It's nice that you recovered. However, there might be more to it than simply anxiety. Consider this possibility, unless it causes some anxiety you're so in favor of avoiding. Then some on this forum can catch the good vibes and recover, and others search for answers for a few more years and then die in agony and desperation, all ridiculous.

 

[anon1644]

I'll reiterate the above poster that i'm also 30 and going on 3+ years of head and neck pressure/pain, ringing in ears, cognitive issues, sexual dysfunction (which i've never had before in my life, even when i had panic attacks/anxiety from weed in high school 10+ years ago), and other symptoms. the only things that have improved since being on max dose of effexor for over a year now, as well as a little amitriptyline, is DP/DR (which was so severe i didn't feel safe driving for about a year), sleep, and muscle twitching. i still go through the same cycle every month of fluctuating head/neck pressure that presses down into abdomen. klonopin/benzos didn't do shit. there was no "bad experience" to recover from. i ate a little mdma crystal, probably not even enough to get high, when i was drunk at a bar, then woke up at 5am the next day after horrible sleep, with all of the above symptoms that haven't gone away since. it's definitely not just a psychological anxiety syndrome. something likely changed biochemically to cause some of these symptoms. in my case i had a bad reaction to an antibiotic years ago that caused headaches and ringing ears in an eerily somewhat similar way and took 6-12mo to resolve. maybe my body reacted to a foreign substance (mdma) in a way that effected this previous damage, or maybe the symptoms are solely from the mdma. i realize and accept that i'm probably never gonna know. we barely know how the brain works. but it's not something i need to just "get over." i will continue to try different medications, but you really don't know what you're talking about when you conflate your single experience and knowledge of the issue with things that are very much not what you dealt with.

 

[Tea&toast.x]

I had rhabdomyolysis (absolute hell on Earth) and kidney failure because of MDMA. I was in a coma for 5 days and on airvo (ventilator). All my family were round my bedside waiting to see if I would wake up, but you’re so right; what you are going through is much much worse.



Maybe the way I write things is not very sensitive, but I feel like a lot of you need to wake up.



If you want to believe you’re permanently fucked because of MDMA then that’s up to you, but this will not lead to you getting better due to the permanent nature of this belief.



Millions of young people all over the world take MDMA. It’s part of our culture. We have been taught that it’s safe, that it’s something that people do at parties, and that’s something that can heal. As we have all found, this just isn’t true. My IQ is well above average, but in the words of Stephen Hawking- IQ is for losers. However, it’s not permanently damaged you. You are suffering because you made the ‘LTC’ your religion.



This will be the last post I write because I feel like a lot of people on here don’t actually want to get better and just want to vent.



I’m sorry that all of you are suffering so much because of this drug and I understand that your symptoms are very real. A lot of you are channelling your energy in the wrong direction. I really hope that you all recover.



All my love, coma girl.

 

[ZeroLuck]

We should really give positive posts more highlights, especially when nothing is proven for sure... Why focus on negativity?;

We have anecdotal chronology of people who recovered and many of them had positive outlook of the world. It's very possible that this positive mechanism is the only thing that can cut this weird chemical brain cyclone!

Talked with many people and tried to help the ones in worst pain, and there's a strong correlation between desperation and severity of symptoms. Don't wanna argue about cause and causality, but never met anyone who had horrible symptoms and being mentally strong.

But regardless the worst we can do is push away positive people with recovery stories. ESPECIALLY when they're the living evidence what we need.

 

[anon1644]

I had rhabdomyolysis (absolute hell on Earth) and kidney failure because of MDMA. I was in a coma for 5 days and on airvo (ventilator). All my family were round my bedside waiting to see if I would wake up, but you’re so right; what you are going through is much much worse.



Maybe the way I write things is not very sensitive, but I feel like a lot of you need to wake up.



If you want to believe you’re permanently fucked because of MDMA then that’s up to you, but this will not lead to you getting better due to the permanent nature of this belief.



Millions of young people all over the world take MDMA. It’s part of our culture. We have been taught that it’s safe, that it’s something that people do at parties, and that’s something that can heal. As we have all found, this just isn’t true. My IQ is well above average, but in the words of Stephen Hawking- IQ is for losers. However, it’s not permanently damaged you. You are suffering because you made the ‘LTC’ your religion.



This will be the last post I write because I feel like a lot of people on here don’t actually want to get better and just want to vent.



I’m sorry that all of you are suffering so much because of this drug and I understand that your symptoms are very real. A lot of you are channelling your energy in the wrong direction. I really hope that you all recover.



All my love, coma girl.

it's not the fact that what you're writing is not very sensitive, it's just not accurate. at no point did i say what i was going through was worse than what you went through. at no point did i say i'm permanently fucked because of mdma. i didn't make anything my religion. i'm not channeling my energy in the wrong direction. i'm living my life; i just so happen to be dealing with very real symptoms that haven't gone away. i'm glad you're recovered. your experience doesn't preclude other people from having different experiences.

 

[Tea&toast.x]

Definitely last post because I feel like I’m getting way way too emotionally involved in this.

I’ve already said on every post that I have written that I recognise and I understand that all your symptoms are very real. Everything that I write is purely just my opinion.


After I had my bad experience, I had horrible physical symptoms for a year and then for another year I had psychological symptoms; really terrifying psychological symptoms.

If I had these symptoms now, I would be able to cope with them. As a 18 year old, I felt like the world was ending. I didn’t understand anything to do with neuroscience and I didn’t know what was happening to me.

I have a really good family and I had a psychologist who was really great and who always told me that it was PTSD. I believed my psychologist and I got better.

What concerns me is that there is some teenager in a care home somewhere who doesn’t have anywhere to turn to and is going through the ‘LTC’. They read a post from some old guy on this forum who was dealt some shit hands in life. Maybe their girlfriend left them, maybe an employer never saw their potential, maybe their teacher never saw their potential, maybe they were/are a poly drug user, etc etc.

That teenager then completely disregards the idea that it might be a mental health thing that will get better with time (cause it’s really difficult to wrap your head around). They then try all the tips on the recovery program and don’t get results and then they start thinking maybe that old dude was right and I’m permanently brain damaged because of that one time I took MDMA. Then said teenager kills themselves.

It’s normal to experience physical things sometimes (especially as you get older). Do you really think you are experiencing physical problems because of something you took ex amount of years ago? I’ve already said on a previous post that if you are concerned about a physical problem then see your dr about it. This is just my opinion, but those of you who say they don’t have anxiety, I think yous kind of do. You are on a forum worrying that you have damaged yourself because of something you took years ago.
I’ve also said that I don’t think it’s completely psychological. At one point there was obviously a chemical imbalance, but after a few days this would have sorted itself. Although by the time it sorted itself a lot of people would have already started worrying, ruminating, researching, obsessing and on route to the LTC. People are creatures of habit.

I think a lot of you would really benefit from watching the derealization manual.
There are people that get spiked with MDMA (especially girls for obvious reasons). These people don’t seem to go through the ‘LTC’. Why is that? Is it something that comes from knowing that you might have harmed yourself and that you can’t trust yourself? Who knows? I for one felt like everytime I accomplished something or laughed at something I got a little bit of myself back. I don’t have all the answers and I never claimed to.
After my bad MDMA experience, I remember thinking to myself that I wished I had done more when I was still healthy and that I wasted so much time worrying about stupid stuff and loads of other funny stuff. However, the truth is I didn’t do more stuff then because I was busy worrying about something else.

Your life wasn’t perfect before MDMA and it won’t be perfect after, but it’ll be a whole lot better. It’ll be real. Cause that’s the problem with MDMA, it makes you feel like your on cloud nine, but it’s fake, it’s chemical. Real happiness might not be anywhere near as intense but it’s a whole lot better. The first time you hold your child, the first time the person you love says they love you (knowing that it’s not some man made chemical pulling on the puppet strings). You’re going to worry, you’re going to worry for the rest of your life; you’ll worry about your children, you’ll worry about your partner, you’ll worry about climate change, you’ll worry about your parents. Just don’t worry about MDMA.

I’m praying for you all to get better. I’ve been told in the past that the way I say things can come across as too direct and matter of fact. I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, if yous are experiencing the same thing or something different. Only you can really know. I was just giving my opinion in the hope that I could help someone.
Regardless of what you are going through. The best thing you can do for yourself is to believe that it will get better. Peace out.

 

[Phoenix_03]

You are on a forum worrying that you have damaged yourself because of something you took years ago.
I’ve also said that I don’t think it’s completely psychological. At one point there was obviously a chemical imbalance, but after a few days this would have sorted itself. Although by the time it sorted itself a lot of people would have already started worrying, ruminating, researching, obsessing and on route to the LTC. People are creatures of habit.

Chemical imbalances don't usually sort themselves out in a couple days. If they did, majority of the mental health profession wouldn't exist.

 

[ar223]

Anybody else had super high libido before LTC and now literally zero? almost 6 months in btw.

 

[ar223]

Found this on reddit, seems interesting. Also recovered in 9 months like many of us here.

”I’m 17 and had a similar experience. At a music festival I went on a 2 day mdma binge never having tried the drug before and with doses that in retrospect were too high. I much like you didn’t feel horny for months, it wasn’t that I couldn’t get it up (I could although less easily than normal) I just wasn’t interested and didn’t have “the urge”. About 9 months later my libido finally came back and now I’m a sex obsessed teenage boy just like before. I did also use mdma in the period between my libido disappearing and returning. My dad (who somewhat ironically is doing a PhD in neuroscience at imperial) suggested that it might be because the first initial large dose shocks the brain with the chemical effects and the brain reacts as if you’ve been traumatised. Which just like with victims (?) of ptsd can have long term hormonal reactions sometimes affecting testosterone”

 

[ar223]

Sorry for triple posting but i just checked all the symptoms of ptsd and seems like i have most of it, including getting panicky feeling when i think about that night i did the mdma. im gonna start treating it as such

 

[semisober]

Definitely last post because I feel like I’m getting way way too emotionally involved in this.

I’ve already said on every post that I have written that I recognise and I understand that all your symptoms are very real. Everything that I write is purely just my opinion.


After I had my bad experience, I had horrible physical symptoms for a year and then for another year I had psychological symptoms; really terrifying psychological symptoms.

If I had these symptoms now, I would be able to cope with them. As a 18 year old, I felt like the world was ending. I didn’t understand anything to do with neuroscience and I didn’t know what was happening to me.

I have a really good family and I had a psychologist who was really great and who always told me that it was PTSD. I believed my psychologist and I got better.

What concerns me is that there is some teenager in a care home somewhere who doesn’t have anywhere to turn to and is going through the ‘LTC’. They read a post from some old guy on this forum who was dealt some shit hands in life. Maybe their girlfriend left them, maybe an employer never saw their potential, maybe their teacher never saw their potential, maybe they were/are a poly drug user, etc etc.

That teenager then completely disregards the idea that it might be a mental health thing that will get better with time (cause it’s really difficult to wrap your head around). They then try all the tips on the recovery program and don’t get results and then they start thinking maybe that old dude was right and I’m permanently brain damaged because of that one time I took MDMA. Then said teenager kills themselves.

It’s normal to experience physical things sometimes (especially as you get older). Do you really think you are experiencing physical problems because of something you took ex amount of years ago? I’ve already said on a previous post that if you are concerned about a physical problem then see your dr about it. This is just my opinion, but those of you who say they don’t have anxiety, I think yous kind of do. You are on a forum worrying that you have damaged yourself because of something you took years ago.
I’ve also said that I don’t think it’s completely psychological. At one point there was obviously a chemical imbalance, but after a few days this would have sorted itself. Although by the time it sorted itself a lot of people would have already started worrying, ruminating, researching, obsessing and on route to the LTC. People are creatures of habit.

I think a lot of you would really benefit from watching the derealization manual.
There are people that get spiked with MDMA (especially girls for obvious reasons). These people don’t seem to go through the ‘LTC’. Why is that? Is it something that comes from knowing that you might have harmed yourself and that you can’t trust yourself? Who knows? I for one felt like everytime I accomplished something or laughed at something I got a little bit of myself back. I don’t have all the answers and I never claimed to.
After my bad MDMA experience, I remember thinking to myself that I wished I had done more when I was still healthy and that I wasted so much time worrying about stupid stuff and loads of other funny stuff. However, the truth is I didn’t do more stuff then because I was busy worrying about something else.

Your life wasn’t perfect before MDMA and it won’t be perfect after, but it’ll be a whole lot better. It’ll be real. Cause that’s the problem with MDMA, it makes you feel like your on cloud nine, but it’s fake, it’s chemical. Real happiness might not be anywhere near as intense but it’s a whole lot better. The first time you hold your child, the first time the person you love says they love you (knowing that it’s not some man made chemical pulling on the puppet strings). You’re going to worry, you’re going to worry for the rest of your life; you’ll worry about your children, you’ll worry about your partner, you’ll worry about climate change, you’ll worry about your parents. Just don’t worry about MDMA.

I’m praying for you all to get better. I’ve been told in the past that the way I say things can come across as too direct and matter of fact. I don’t know what’s wrong with all of you, if yous are experiencing the same thing or something different. Only you can really know. I was just giving my opinion in the hope that I could help someone.
Regardless of what you are going through. The best thing you can do for yourself is to believe that it will get better. Peace out.

I will preface this by saying that more than anything I want to believe that I have a transient, treatable anxiety disorder, or some other similar medical condition that could be cured or improved through treatment.
At the same time, I’ve had periodically worsening cognitive symptoms for 3+ years now that are increasingly making it impossible to live a normal life. This started the week after taking mdma at a festival in 2017 as persistent brain fog, memory issues and sexual dysfunction. I was a fairly experienced mdma user, very familiar with harm reduction and best practices. I took safety very seriously. I didn’t have a bad reaction the first time I took the drug, I didn’t have a bad trip and I didn’t do anything crazy.
As you mention, millions of people take mdma each year. And we know that it is involved in some chemical processes in the brain that, under certain circumstances, are neurotoxic and damage or destroy neurons. Isn’t it a fairly reasonable explanation that for some small % of those users, they would experience an outlier event and have something go wrong neurologically even under seemingly safe conditions? And that destruction could manifest in a wide variety of ways depending on what neurons were damaged.
It unfortunately seems much more likely to me that some kind of brain damage took place to cause this than we are all experiencing extreme physical symptoms of anxiety. I desperately don’t want this to be true. I don’t want to have gotten epically fucking unlucky that I am the poor .01% outlier who had some kind of catastrophic reaction to very mundane mdma usage.
And the real mind fuck is that we can’t know for sure. There is no test a doctor can run to scan our brain and see what is happening. We can’t see the neurons involved in memory or emotion or other functions to see that some of them aren’t working correctly. We can’t see if this is related to impaired blood flow, transmitter imbalances, inflammation or some other breakdown. So a lot of people post here desperately hoping someone else has a magic fix that worked for them that we can try, because there is no break from feeling like this. It’s in our mind and we have to confront it every single day. And we are desperate to find something.

 

[Deep_Fried]

Many have said it before and to me it feels the same: Anxiety and Depression have similiar effects to our MDMA induced brain damage. And yes scientific data suggests that some people might be more vulnerable. Scientific data also suggests, that the damage can be healed to some degree. So the only way is to get out of the anxiety and depression and start the healing process. It really is a vicious circle. Stress from worrying prevents your brain from healing and damages it even more.

I can feel the progress very strongly and absolutely believe in recovery. My recovery started once I didn´t care anymore and got rid of any anxiety, regret and hate. A mindset that will serve you well in your post LTC life as well. Spring is coming in the northern hemisphere - go out and enjoy yourself!

 

[foolsgold25]

I’ve followed this thread for years & I have struggled with these exact symptoms myself, I probably took around 1000 pills in my life & I’m 30 now. It took lots of work but I live a good happy life now, I am left with some social anxiety which was probably made worse by excessive drug use. The only advice I can give is what has worked for me.

1. Stop doing drugs (serotogenic kind especially) Allow your brain to fully recover as much as possible -
2. Stop over analysing these threads daily, read them maybe once a week, your brain needs filling with positive things daily so always searching for answers can make things more difficult.
3. Exercise daily, 30 minutes, jogging or weights is a good start.
4. Eat healthy, nutrient rich food and drink water - I cut out coffee & sugar & went veggie which all helped.
5. I also took 5htp for a long time, It may of helped with balancing my serotonin levels but I can’t be sure of that, I actually found it quite difficult to stop taking & causes me some problems.
6. Travel & get out of your comfort zone, life is for living, even though during that time I was dying inside it did help me with gaining a new perspective on life.

I have visited my GP so many times over the past 10 years to try and get help, all blood tests came back normal and I was offered medication & nothing else. It takes time but those are the steps which I took, it is still a battle sometimes but I guess life is a battle; we’re all suffering in some way or another.peace