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

Hi everyone

Has anyone had experiences of a return of LTC symptoms - like literally landing back to square one - after recovery?

My story begins in 2013 as an 18 year old. I’d taken MDMA about 5-6 times prior with no issues. One night I went out a did a pretty large dose. Everything was fine the next day - normal comedown. I woke up 2 days later in the middle of the night to what I know think was nocturnal panic attack. It was horrific. I woke up with extreme anxiety and i had this sense that something was coming towards my face very slowly and the world was tipping upside. The whole thing felt sinister, almost like I was possessed by something evil. I had the same experience every night for about a week, and during the day had all the symptoms described on this thread - anxiety, DPDR, obsessive thinking, depression, mild visual static. The worst symptom was mental though - I think because I was always checking for signs of brain damage, I got suck in this “hyper awareness” loop, where I was always thinking about what I was thinking about … kind of like being aware of my own consciousness all day, every day.

Fast forward 2 years and I was completely recovered. I didn’t know about this thread and maybe back then there was less resource available, so I started to slowly integrate back into life. I stupidly decidedly to take MDMA again on my 20th birthday. A terrible decision I regret more than anything to this day. My come up was brutal, my head got all spinning, eyes were darting and I needed to sit for a few minutes with my head in my lap. The rest of the night was great. I woke up the next morning though completely depersonalised and dissociated. Because I had spent a year in a terrible LTC, I panicked as I knew what I may be in for. Like I said, stupid decision. I was drunk, young and I regret it.

Maybe because I was so aware of what could happen, I started to develop all symptoms I once had immediately. To cut it short, I went T-total and saw a psychiatrist who put me on lexapro. After a year, I was basically fully recovered.

I then went 2 years or relative bliss. Sometimes this Hyperawareness sensation would hit me and I would freak out and get stuck with symptoms for a few days, but broadly I was fine.

After I graduated uni, one day I had a flash of DPDR and this Hyperawareness sensation and immediately panicked. And bang, just like that I landed up having all the same symptoms of a LTC like I did back 3-4 years ago. Took me like 6 months to recover. In 2022, the same thing happened. I was taking my dog out in the middle of the night and had the sensation again, panicked and then couldn’t stop thinking about anxiety and how I could land up in a hole again. This time I had the same symptoms as before and this lasted a year. All this time I have been t total.

9 months ago the same thing happened and I have been suffering with the same LTC symptoms I did back in 2013. Sometimes I need to remind myself I haven’t touched MDMA in over 10 years…

My question is - has anyone else experienced the reemergence of symptoms following what seems like near full recovery? Maybe the first episode gave me OCD or a condition that keeps emerging, but my obsession now is that I have really just screwed up my brain and this will keep happening for the rest of my life.
 
I want to say that recovery is possible. I took a large dose of MDMA 2 years ago and was dealing with horrible anxiety and panic attacks 24/7- fast forward to today, my sleep is great, my symptoms are Sooooo much more tolerable and I feel like a normal person again. I’m sober now, never again will I touch drugs. Fuck all that shit. It was so bad I had become suicidal. Stay safe fam
 
Hi everyone,
2,5 weeks ago i took XLC for 4 days in the row.
After 3 days i started to feel nausea, for 3 days.
Then turned to anxiety and depression for 1 week.
From Monday i'm feel better, the anxiety is improved,
but it's still there, it's fucking exausting.
I hope it's not a permanet damage to my brain.
Anyone like me?
 
Logic97 said:
Hi everyone,
2,5 weeks ago i took XLC for 4 days in the row.
After 3 days i started to feel nausea, for 3 days.
Then turned to anxiety and depression for 1 week.
From Monday i'm feel better, the anxiety is improved,
but it's still there, it's fucking exausting.
I hope it's not a permanet damage to my brain.
Anyone like me?
Click to expand...
It took me over 2 years for my anxiety to chil tf out, best of luck
 
Hey everyone,

About three weeks ago I made a stupid mistake by mixing MDMA (220mg) with 2-FMA/speed (pretty high dose, 2 hours before the MDMA) Since then I’ve been dealing with a heavy crash:

  • depression,
  • anxiety,
  • brain fog,
  • trouble holding conversations
  • headaches.
  • suicidal
I’m seeing a psychologist and trying to stay calm, but my mind keeps spiraling into fear that I’ve caused permanent damage and lasting depression. Reading online hasn’t helped. Anyone who recovered after a combination like this?

thanks
 
lg1 said:
Hey everyone,

About three weeks ago I made a stupid mistake by mixing MDMA (220mg) with 2-FMA/speed (pretty high dose, 2 hours before the MDMA) Since then I’ve been dealing with a heavy crash:

  • depression,
  • anxiety,
  • brain fog,
  • trouble holding conversations
  • headaches.
  • suicidal
I’m seeing a psychologist and trying to stay calm, but my mind keeps spiraling into fear that I’ve caused permanent damage and lasting depression. Reading online hasn’t helped. Anyone who recovered after a combination like this?

thanks
Click to expand...
In short, you’re probably gonna be dealing with that for a while. I overdosed on MDMA and ever since then I haven’t really been the same. This was over almost 3 years ago granted, has gotten way better, but I was dealing with the same things, you were twitches suicidal thoughts, depression no sleep, crazy anxiety, and panic attacks that lasted 24 seven for over two years. Let this be a learning lesson bro stay away from drugs neuroplastic it is a real thing and you will recover stay sober for now till the rest of your life. If you want to get better good luck with everything.
 
I feel 95% recovered, 2 years ago. I took ~750mg in pill form plus adderal plus alcohol. I'm now generally a very happy person and mentally sharp. Your brain will regrow whatever it needs to regrow, try to live a healthy life every single day!
 
100% glad to hear you’re doing better man. I was going through it when I was experiencing LTC- felt absolutely hopeless but as the years and months went by.. it’s saw improvement and more improvement to where I don’t feel anxiety or panic attacks 24/7 like I once did. That was probably the worst of my symptoms, I’ll never touch drugs again. I feel so incredibly lucky to have recovered all without SSRI’s just pure grit and suffering day in and day out. It was horrible but I’m happy to be here
 
Hey guys, I have had a really interesting experience with LTC, and I hope it goes away, although it could be worse esp. with how much I abused drugs around this time:

I took a large dose of MDMA at the end of May, around 250mg. Stupid, I know, but it's done now. Prior to that I had done MDMA twice, both amazing experiences that benefitted me greatly. It allowed me to really tap into my empathy and not take so many things personally (I have CPTSD which impacts these things normally).

During the large dose, I genuinely worried about neurotoxicity and my brain being destroyed. My anxiety went to levels I've never had before, my vision started blacking out, I heard weird popping sounds in my ears, and I got EXTREMELY loud tinnitus. During the trip I took NAC to try to reduce neurotoxicity because I had no idea what was happening. My memory also didn't work at all, I couldn't even speak a full sentence without forgetting what I was talking about. The nightmare only lasted for around 10-15 minutes after that. The trip then became pretty normal and similar to my last two.

For about a week after that I felt *really* good. I was basically incapable of feeling negative emotions and my appetite was low. Then, I was laying in bed and it felt like I was on MDMA again. My whole body relaxed and I felt high. After that, my legs stayed like jelly for probably 1-2 months. All of my muscles felt really weak and I twitched a lot. Cognitively, I felt fine at this point, and my anxiety was still so much lower than normal. Even though I felt good, I had the following other symptoms:

  • Ongoing loud tinnitus
  • Very low heart rate (40s-50s) and low blood pressure
  • Way stronger orgasms and a very sensitive prostate (I thought this was really weird)
  • Extremely low energy, although I felt relaxed
  • Much higher heart rate variability (HRV) than usual
  • Lots of twitching all over my body
  • Visual symptoms: weird vision (kind of like DPDR but a very mild version), tracers, long-lasting afterimages (3-5 seconds) when I closed my eyes, light seeming way brighter than before
  • Weird random stomach clenching... Like the autonomic system in my stomach muscles no longer worked properly. This also caused my right testicle to stay raised up whenever I stand up unless I purposely fully relax my stomach muscles (let my belly stick all the way out). When I'm sitting or laying down, it goes back to its normal position.
During this time, I tried to do other drugs like ketamine and DMT, and alcohol. They did not work at all - did literally nothing. Alcohol felt slightly relaxing but nothing like it used to.

After around 2 months, I tried ketamine again and I had horrible anxiety during it and it made my symptoms worse. All of my muscles got extremely tense when I tried ketamine and they stayed tense for around 2 weeks. This sucks, because ketamine helped me a lot and I may no longer ever be able to use it again, and if I can it will probably be 1-2 years+ before it works properly again.

The symptoms seem to have gradually improved a bit, especially the visual symptoms, but they're still there. It has now been nearly 6 months since I took the MDMA. What I notice now is:

  • Visual symptoms are less intense: afterimages are not as strong and last maybe 1 second now
  • Heart rate is still low, resting HR is now around 50, but higher than before
  • Anxiety is back to normal levels or close to normal - I had extremely high anxiety before and it seems to be close to what it was before the MDMA
  • Orgasms are still stronger although sometimes they're back to normal
  • Twitching still happens, but it's mainly in my legs and feet and is about 80% better than it used to be. I notice it happens more when I'm lifting weights.
  • Tinnitus intensity comes and goes, sometimes one ear is way louder than the other. This seems to get a little better with good diet/exercise
  • I've drank once or twice and alcohol feels normal again. Swishing a tiny part of a ketamine troche for even 30 seconds in my mouth spikes my anxiety until I spit it out, although I still notice the therapeutic effects afterward like clearer brain and less hunger.
  • Feeling really spaced out and almost high from around 2-4pm each day. Sometimes it actually feels like I'm on a drug, it feels good usually, but makes it a little hard to focus although I can kind of snap myself out of it if needed.

I would say I'm maybe...60% better overall than when all of this first started. Again, it's been around 6 months, so I'm hopeful in another 6 months I'll be in a much better place, although it seems like I'm starting to plateau.

I really hope I can use ketamine and psychedelics (probably not MDMA ever again) again because they changed my life a lot, but maybe they aren't meant for me. I misused MDMA, so this is my consequence. If I do get the chance to use psychs again, I will treat them with so much more respect.

I wanted to post this here because I haven't really encountered any cases with my symptom profile, especially the decreased depression/anxiety, and the aversion my body seems to have developed to ketamine. It seems like most people had depression triggered by LTC and I'm the opposite. This makes me wonder whether my brain configuration has changed permanently or if I may have entered a defensive state due to the trauma of the trip itself. I theorize that the traumatic trip experience has caused my body to reject altered states while it is healing (or maybe forever :/). I do feel like I'm recovering, but it's getting harder to tell as the months go by how much healing is actually taking place.
 
exist123 said:
I theorize that the traumatic trip experience has caused my body to reject altered states while it is healing (or maybe forever :/).
Click to expand...
this can truly happen even with much more benign drugs and I kinda suffer of it to some extent, but I have partial control and can sometimes rationalize over it.

Another thing; sometimes drug use can contribute to onset of clinically manic/hypomanic episodes. Even after the system has been cleared of all drugs. I have experienced this also.

I am sorry to hear you are suffering, I can not really contribute any conclusive but share these anecdotes.
 
Solution

Hey BL crew,


I've lurked/posted here for years about what so many of us describe as a protracted/long-term comedown from MDMA/ecstasy - that endless headaches, ear pressure/fullness, restricted opening, clicking/popping, muscle fatigue, and that heavy "wired but exhausted" feeling etc...

For ages (like most people here), I chalked it up to serotonin damage, neurotoxicity, PAWS, or some lingering brain chemistry thing. I tried every nootropic stack, 5-HTP, therapy, rest... the usual harm-reduction playbook, but nothing touched the core symptoms. After 7 long years of dead-ends with GPs, neurologists, psychiatrists, and basic dentists, I finally got a proper diagnosis: s temporomandibular joint (TMJ) dysfunction on one side, specifically an anteriorly displaced disc that had slipped forward and wasn't reducing properly anymore. This required surgery (discoplexy to stitch the disc back into position).


Important point: This is a physical, structural mechanical issue inside the actual jaw joint, not primarily a psychological problem, not "brain zaps" or pure chemical depletion. The disc (a little cushion between the bones) gets knocked out of place, in my case from gurning (clenching/bruxism, very common on MDMA). Once displaced anteriorly, it causes inflammation, restricted movement, pain referral to the head/ears/face, and muscle spasms that constant tension. It's a hardware problem in the joint, not just software in the brain. Many of us in the "long comedown" crowd might actually have this structural damage from repeated mechanical stress, and it gets completely missed because it mimics neuro symptoms.


Crucial advice: Skip the neurologist and standard dentist route — they often just give a basic splint and call it bruxism without checking the joint/disc properly. You need an experienced Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon (Maxfax/OMFS) who specializes in TMJ disorders. They do detailed clinical exams, order the right MRI (dynamic/open/closed mouth views), and can diagnose disc position accurately.


In the UK, these are the specialists frequently recommended for serious/complex TMJ cases (based on patient reports and their expertise in advanced imaging/surgery):


  • Dr. Kevin Lotzof — Consultant Interventional Radiologist and one of the leading experts in TMJ MRI imaging in the UK. He's the go-to for precise diagnosis of disc displacement and joint pathology. Huge plus: He can review and report on MRI scans you've already had done elsewhere — so if you've got old imaging, send it to him for a second (or first proper) opinion. Many Maxfax surgeons refer to him because his TMJ reports are gold-standard for planning treatment.
  • Mr. Nabeel Bhatti — Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon (Royal London Hospital & private London clinics). Very experienced with TMJ dysfunction, surgical management of joint issues, facial pain, and related trauma cases.
  • Mr. Luke Cascarini — Top Consultant Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon in London, one of the most experienced in the UK for advanced TMJ surgery (including arthroscopic techniques, disc procedures like plication/plexy, and joint preservation/replacement). He's known for handling really complex cases with innovative approaches.
Above all tell them that the cause was mdma.


If your long-term symptoms are heavily headache, neck ache, jaw/facial-focused after heavy MDMA (especially with a history of intense gurning/clenching), push for a Maxfax referral or private consult — it could be a fixable structural issue that's been mislabelled as "permanent brain damage" for years.


This is just my story after a massive diagnostic delay — always do your own research and see qualified pros.

Hoping this saves someone else years of suffering. Recovery is possible when you address the actual physical cause.
 
Hello everyone,
I have logged into this account once more to read some of your stories and to give an update on my situation.
I rolled HARD in June of 2023, something I’ve done before in the past where a pressed pill, a Molly or two with some alcohol in one night wasn’t anything new. I had a boat load of fun that night and everything seemed normal u til it wasn’t. I remeber I got 3 hours of sleep that night and starting the next day I had this weird panic attack feeling- best way I can describe it is when you know you’re about to get bad news or anticipating something bad and you feel your heart drop- I felt that nonstop for years- additionally, I had jerks, tinnitus, suicidal thoughts, and HORRIBLE sleep issues that lasted well over two years. Just the worst of the absolute fucking worst type of symptoms that I had never experienced before. I thought for a long time that this was just gonna be my life- I had caused irreversible neurological damage and it was my own doing. But then as years went on, I noticed some improvement, some days weren’t filled with anxiety- other days I got 5 hours of sleep instead of 4- fast track to today- January 2026 all of my symptoms have subsided- all of them. If I get genuinely worried about something I’ll get anxious like I did before in the past but no longer does it linger how it used to in the past and I now sleep my full 8 hours. What a freaking journey it’s been. I got sober doing all this and that was the last night I touched MDMA and will never touch it again for as long as I love- I stopped smoking weed 7 months ago which seemed to improve my symptoms, alcohol has been the toughest thing for me to get rid of as I’ve been drinking since 18 (I’m 30 now) but last year was the first year of my life where I drank perhaps less than 10 times the entire year. I say all this in the hopes of some web surfer who may potentially need some advice or a story similar to there’s to lean on for hope- I’m here to tell you there is hope! I swear I’m better and have 10 mo the before I can apply to. Rising School- something I would’ve never imagined as I wasn’t getting any sleep so school was impossible. It’s been such a long and arduous journey ey but here we are- thriving and loving life. If anyone reads this and needs to talk, send me a message as my email notifies me when someone has responded or interacted with my account in some way. Also, I never took an SSRIS, I had a doctor prescribe me some- first pill I took made my symptoms so much worse - I didn’t take anything- just time, clean living and having hope got me here almost 3 years later. Best of luck yall
 
after almost 2 years of no bettering of symptomps i can say i will end my life, this bullshit drug gave me fucking pssd and ontop of that later after stopping using since a lot i had to get fucking dpdr emotional blunting anhedonia and blank mind. If you see girls with bpd traumatize them till they kill themselves cuz thats all they should do bye
 
Hi everyone,

After almost 7 month i can say that I came back 100% normal.
I had a bad comedown of mdma tha last August, I though that was permanet but it's not!!
Riding my bike has been the key for me.
Kept me away form drugs alcohol.
Now i'm feel a new person, i tried to take mdma again but it's no longer for me, so i decided to stay away from it..
It' doesn't worth it!!
Don't give up, bring your ass outside and run until you feel sick.
Best luck you all guys ❤️❤️
 
Hi everyone
I had molly once that was 3 years ago no terrible comedown experience
Then I tried it again last year December and I was ok for 4 days, on the fifth day i woke up with panic attack, anxiety rapid pulse rate and confusion
I went to the hospital I was put on drip and that helped stabilize my pulse rate but I continued experiencing anxiety, fear , depression and to top it all depersonalization for about 1 month plus
I had to see a psychologist and I was asked to get tested prior to that I had blood work done and nothing was found but I’ve felt better for days now and I’m hoping it will just be ok like this till forever
 
Hi guys, after 6 years I have finally recovered. In my case the bad news is, that all those symptoms are caused telepathically by people you know. I know this sounds insane, but I am definitely of a sound mind. Those "people" are typically narcissists, which have a split personality. One of those personalities lies dormant and tends to develop psychic abilities over time. I am able to hear their voices for about a year and it is a constant spiritual battle. Those entities feed of emotions and MDMA seems to boost those to a level which attracts them ferociously. In addition to living a healthy life as is described so often here, I can only give you this additional advice:

- try not have any negative emotions
- shield your head and solar plexus with some sort of metal plate ( I use a shungite plate for the solar plexus and a Mu-metal shield for the head.)
- stay in motion all the time outside as it makes it harder for them to track you. I even built myself a moving bed.
- If you hear them try not to talk to them at all. Any reaction on your part is a confirmation for them.
- Apart from all the bodily symptoms described here, those entities can also inject foreign thoughts into your head

This also explains the vastly different recovery times for me - some people just know a lot more assholes. If one can recognize a person by their voice or the kind of thoughts they inject, I would not hesitate to burn down their house.

This is spiritual warfare and I wish you all strength to fight those demons.
 
Haven't looked thru this thread in quite awhile but I have been struggling with 24/7 head and neck pressure and pain, ringing ears, etc., since waking up hungover in 2017, and the thing that has been helping the most is low-dose Naltrexone 4.5mg. I've been on it now for a little over a month and it's given me the most relief out of anything thus far. I've tried almost all migraine meds and some psych meds like effexor and amitripyline. I recommend talking with your doctor and giving low dose naltrexone a try if you are still experiencing symptoms without relief.
 
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