pmz
Bluelighter
- Joined
- May 11, 2013
- Messages
- 550
Hey PMZ,
I am 2 years and 7 months into recovery.
No matter what anybody else says, you know the cause of the problem was the drug and the dosage that you chose.
The first few months of my recovery were, without a doubt, the most difficult and traumatic period of my entire life.
There will never be a suffering that can equal this experience.
I was certainly an OCD personality type prior to my drug use.
Always have been...
But after my MDMA-induced neurotoxic brain damage, my OCD nature seemed to take over.
I researched to the point of exhaustion.
My mind, while suffering, seemed fueled beyond reason.
I literally read THOUSANDS of research articles, including a large number of meta analyses, which are research papers written by a qualified research scientist that have spent a LONG time reviewing the literature on MDMA toxicity.
I felt as if I was capable of learning as much as a seasoned doctor, in a period of months.
On the internet...
Was I right?
Maybe...
Was I crazy?
Absolutely.
I was a very bright young man and an excellent student.
I pushed myself to the limit mentally, trying to understand the neurological and chemical basis of what had happened to me.
I telescoped my efforts solely on the function of serotonin as a neurotransmitter and the known toxic effects of MDMA.
I prayed that somehow, in my brilliance and desperation, that I could discover the treatment or medication that could STOP what was happening to me.
I was wrong.
Read through some of my old posts, and you will understand the lengths that I went to.
If I never located the 'cure' to MDMA brain-damage, then perhaps you can accept this process as inevitable.
Yet I recall a rather insightful revelation from long ago, something I would have said in the initial research phase...
There is no way to stop the racing mind.
At least not completely.
There is a trend among the 'victims' of MDMA to research, to read, to write, to ramble....some endlessly.
The energy that fuels the suffering mind is almost without limitation.
Those who do not experience this type of 'brain damage' simply cannot understand the nature of it.
Therefore, advising those early in the recovery process to simply 'let go' or 'calm down' is foolish.
Its a joke.
Cue laughter!
It is not POSSIBLE to stop thinking about the dysfunction of emotion that you find yourself in.
The brain is FORCING the victim to worry, to wonder, to suffer.
And those who look back at their own recovery and proclaim that acceptance is the key - they forget (necessarily so) that it was the process of suffering that ALLOWED them to accept their fate.
You will not be able to understand this until later.
You will not be able to think and learn enough to alter the course of your suffering in a substantial way.
The thing that allows the suffering to improve is the suffering itself.
Are you familiar with the relationship between serotonin and cortisol?
It is a critical relationship, if you are to understand what is happening to you...
The more serotonin transmission that occurs, the greater the release of this stress hormone.
With MDMA use, cortisol can skyrocket to 800% of normal levels in some people.
But all users experience a spike in cortisol of some kind.
After the peak, cortisol tapers off and both prolactin and dopamine flood the brain.
Cortisol is a defense mechanism against serotonin.
It increases the metabolism of serotonin, thereby reducing it.
The brain fights back when serotonin levels rise.
Why is this?
Serotonin is a modulator, a control mechanism with widespread effects upon other neurotransmitters and capillary beds in the brain.
It also has a profound impact upon the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis.
This is a structure you should also become familiar with.
When damage to the serotonin nerves occurs, serotonin levels don't simply drop.
Yes, MDMA depletes serotonin stores and inhibits the enzyme that produces more...
But when the actual nerve structure that branches from the brain stem through the hypothalamus and into the frontal lobes experiences a neurotoxic event - the re-growth of new serotonin axons is NOT associated with positive emotional or cognitive experiences.
Serotonin INHIBITS brain cell function.
As the tree of nerves starts pulsating with serotonin, your highest brain structures are literally being dimmed or shut off.
The suffering that you feel is a result of this process.
Your mind is fighting back.
Cortisol is released in an ongoing relentless pursuit of homeostasis.
One that is never achieved.
No matter the amount of cortisol released, your nerves are damaged.
You can put a leash on the process, but you cannot stop it.
Every day you awaken to a new reality, one in which your stress levels simply do NOT relent.
It is unreal and unimaginable.
Welcome to the world of mental illness.
Yes, this is what major depression or psychosis feels like for some people.
Understanding and accepting this came easily to me, and intellectually it helped.
The good news is that plenty of research on MDMA has been done that shows depression and anxiety do eventually resolve.
But it takes a year or two.
Two months is only the beginning.
But it is the hardest part indeed.
The first four months were absolute hell for me.
Words cannot express...
One day your cortisol levels will drop, perhaps due to exhaustion.
This is known as chronic fatigue and it is a serious metabolic and cognitive event.
It took six months to hit me.
When it finally did, two things happened.
First, the cognitive changes started setting in.
Second, I got VERY tired in the middle of the day - especially after eating.
I decided that when cortisol levels are finally exhausted, after months of suffering, the brain's serotonin network is finally able to sprout new axons in the cortex.
This means life-long alterations in structure.
And long-term changes in personality and cognitive abilities.
But until your cortisol levels finally drop, this is not possible.
You are currently fighting an inevitable process.
Right?
Well there is one other approach, other than waiting for exhaustion and cognitive decline to set in...
It involves going the other direction.
What happens if cortisol were significantly increased?
Beyond what your mind is capable of doing on its own?
No, I'm NOT talking about taking another dose of neurotoxic MDMA!
I'm talking about Electro-Convulsive Therapy.
ECT.
Yes, it is still in use.
And some psychiatrists swear by it, while others demonize it.
But it seems to be the ONE treatment with the potential to resprout a significant amount of your cortical serotonin nerves and restore your mind to working order.
ECT releases powerful waves of BDNF, or brain derived neutrophic factor, a protein that literally grows serotonin nerves.
It is also released by physical exercise, but in much smaller amounts.
Nothing comes close to the BDNF release of ECT.
It also releases cortisol.
In fact, the level of cortisol release is associated with recovery.
The patients with higher cortisol response to ECT are the ones with the most reliable and successful recoveries.
Those with lower cortisol levels during ECT are predictive of poorer long-term prognosis and the need for re-treatment in the future.
A massive wave of cortisol and BDNF at the same time might be the one thing that can 'cure' the re-wiring process that you are experiencing right now.
And it is my humble opinion that this treatment is most effective EARLY ON.
The same is true in other mental illnesses - with severe depression the sooner treatment of any kind (including ECT) is performed the more likely recovery is going to happen.
With schizophrenia, evidence exists that if ECT is performed within the first year their is an 80% chance of life-long remission.
For me, I felt like the first six months were the opportunity I missed.
Beyond this time, I felt like long-term changes in brain structure had already occurred that rendered ECT treatment less effective or even damaging.
But if I could return to the initial first months of this process, if I had a time-machine to travel back to that era of unimaginable suffering, I wouldn't hesitate to seek out this treatment.
I would search until I found a doctor to administer it, no matter the risks.
Memory loss? Big deal, worse things can happen than forgetting names, faces, and how to read quickly.
All that happened to me anyways.
ECT may be the magic bullet.
It may not be.
As with many areas of brain research, it is too complicated to fully understand.
What we do know is that ECT causes remarkable recovery among a percentage of severely mentally ill people.
And significant short-term memory loss in about a third of them.
There are miracle stories.
And I would BET that MDMA victims, those that report major anxiety along with elevated prolactin and cortisol plasma levels, would benefit very clearly from this treatment.
We should be testing this treatment out on primates to prove it.
Or disprove...
Through all of my research, no doctor that studied MDMA offered treatment opinions other than the lack of effectiveness of SSRIs.
But I did find a case study of severe depression in an MDMA user that was cured with ECT and showed no return of symptoms within the one year follow-up.
And many psychiatrists offer support for this treatment - pointing to the robust growth of serotonin in the hippocampus as evidence.
This may also explain memory loss in some patients - remember that serotonin inhibits neuronal firing.
Even if you chose to avoid this treatment, which is a very big decision...
You can be comforted by the knowledge that significant amounts of MDMA research have shown that severe depression among its users does eventually resolve - with abstinence from drug use.
Alcohol is to be avoided or used with reason - it kills nerve growth factors in the brain.
Moderation...
But 12 months is the typical recovery period for anxiety - many papers bear this out.
The first four months are always the worst.
You may still get lucky and see resolution in the next few weeks.
But if you make it past month four with continued struggles, then count on twelve months.
Mark the weeks off the calendar.
And start working out.
Every single day.
Exercise is the ONLY coping mechanism that really works.
It will increase BDNF more with each consecutive day of effort.
This restores some serotonin axons, thereby reducing overall serotonin transmission and cortisol levels.
At least for a while.
Constant exercise will help your brain rewire itself.
Believe me.
No excuses, get out there and run.
I did many pushups with tears streaming down my face - wondering when the suffering will end.
It took a VERY VERY long time, but here I am 2.5 years later telling you it gets better,.
Start sweating and wait for month 6 - you will feel alive again.
By month 12 you will believe that you will be ok and you can accept whatever fate has in store.
By month 24 you will really understand what 're-wire' means.
And every month beyond that you will understand that you have the rest of your life to work on 're-wiring' who you are.
Life is still ahead of you, in the distance.
Stay strong.
FBC
Scary as shit, but i know it will be along run for me. The hardest part is knowing how I will ever get my life back on track after this. I had a good job and good friends. 2 years and will not be able to go back to this. I dont want to be 30 and finally starting my life again. Its scary to know that I will have to start my entire life over because of this. I understand that my life is going to be filled with nothing but suffering for the next few years. Its scary and sad to have to accept this. I used to love the person I was. I was constantly happy for no reason. I was sucessful will many friends and was loved. I feel like I have lost all of this due to a drug that supposed to make you happy. accepting my life will be changed forever is the scariest thing in the world. I feel like a accident victim who lost his legs. Coping with this is not easy. Ive always had soooo much energy and my entire mentality about life is just have fun. Life is short and it needs to be enjoyed. The fact that I can no longer enjoy life is the saddest part. making be borderline suicidal. I wont act upon this because I care about my friends and family too much and have faith that I will get better. But I will never be the same. that much I do accept. I know im still young. but this was the best year of my life and now it came to a crashing hault. I feel like i have already died. I have no idea how to return back to life after this. all I want to do is go back out with friends and laugh and enjoy the simple things in life. I feel like Ill never be able to do that again. I need to stay strong though. For my family, I need to keep going.
This will be an endless battle, and Ive never been so afraid in my life. Noone seems to understand what I am going though, nor they will ever. Its like a death sentence for my youth right now. Ive done something very stupid and now I have to live with it. I wish there was an easy way out, but there isnt.
I am grateful to have supportive parents that are seeing me through this. As young as I am, I need to be able to get my life back on track somewhere down the line at some point.
There are not enough stories about people going through any of this at the extend that I am. Ive only read about depression and anxiety. But my depression and anxiety are purely fueled by the fact that I feel and know that my brain has been altered in the most negative way.
Ive been ripped of my soul. SSRIs, anti-anxiety pills, sleeping pills, nothing will fix this. I know there has been a terrible tearing in my brain that occured. Im trying to be optimistic, I really am, but its wearing me thin. The fact that I cant even think or organize thoughts the same way is the scariest part. I just want to be independent again. I cant even hold down a job at the moment.
Did I really fuck my self up that bad? Why do I feel so alone in this struggle? No one seems to be as bad as I am. The pain is far deeper than I ever thought I would imagine. Its not physical, its not even emotional. Its a pain of loosing everything I had that I enjoyed. My own self, my personality was my own best friend. I relied on him to get me everywhere. I loved the person who I was, and spend years to gain the knowledge and confidence that I had. That person had died and all I was able to do was sit there and watch him burn.
Im very regretful for what I have done to my self and wish I could take it all back. But I made my bed and I have to lay in it.
Im seeking professional help and doing what ever I can. but sitting and chatting with a doc wont rewire my brain. I guess it will at least feel good to just vent. I have no other option really.
Last edited: