MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support)

[ro4eva]

Day 17

I'm posting today because I want to say that my symptoms were mild today. Very mild. Almost like they might be going away. Knock on wood! And, I can't deny that my mood has been lifted significantly.

I've been noticing lately the whole vision thing that people talk about on here. When my symptoms flare up, it seems my vision will get worse and then improve when things die down. It's sort of bizarre.

Hmmm... Perhaps vision is influenced by serotonin?

Wait a minute, of course it is - at least, indirectly?

LSD for example induces its effects by way of 5HT2, I think? Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Also, MDMA causes a cascading release of serotonin into synapses throughout the body - at least, last I checked (last I read about it).

 

[Dawglaw]

rphilli72 - it is anxiety. My vision gets blurry as hell when I feel anxious. Neurodamage does not change based on how you feel, anxiety does.

 

[Lazyoaf]

Hi everyone, I wanted to update you all on the progress of my LTC as almost 6 months in i've made huge progress! Two out of the four symptoms bothering me the most have completely gone, and the other two improving rapidly.

1)My sleep is back to normal and i can sleep 8 hours no problem or until my alarm wakes me up. This has really taken the edge of things as a couple of months ago i could only sleep 2-3 hours a night, leaving me like a zombie in the day. It wasn't until this symptom improved that i really felt like i was making progress, helped immensely. I have the odd night where i wake up to go toilet or something (something i never used to) but it doesn't bother me.

2) My depression has completely lifted and i no longer feel numb or emotionally detached. I'm the happiest and most content i've been for years. By accepting my situation and carrying on life as normal it has really lifted my mood. There is the odd moment where i'm a bit withdrawn but this is usually when i'm feeling a bit anxious or off.

3) My dp/dr is still there but it has really improved. I no longer feel detached or strong feelings of unreality- instead if i do feel dp/dr its more of a head pressure/headache/lightheadedness which a bit of mindfulness rectifies. I am spending more time "in the moment" everyday than i am depersonalised.

4) My sensitivity to light has improved, things still look a bit off when outside but by being mindful i no longer freak out like i was. My night vision has improved from literally spending the first 4.5 months of my ltc in a dark home with all the ceiling lights off and small lamps switched on, to being able to handle the lights and i now have them switched on. If i'm a bit tired then i notice the light is a bit off, a bit too bright, especially when watching tv or looking at a bright laptop/phone screen, but it is no bother to me. If it has improved already there's no reason why i won't improve more.

In all I'd say i'm about 60% recovered at the moment. The only lingering symptoms are my eye floaters, which although annoying at times i've become used to and no longer freak out about. Other people have told me they've had floaters before which went away eventually. I still have tinnitus but this never bothered me and i'm sure it will go with time. I have a slight double vision with small lights such as the little one on my mac charger, the section that plugs into the laptop itself or white writing on a black background and vice versa on tv, but only slightly. Also when i look in the mirror my teeth are doubled and buttons. I read this is not an eye problem and just the mirror having two sides creating two reflections of something but i definitely never used to see this. Whatever, its only in the mirror/on tv with text.

The first step towards my recovery was realising that my brain wasn't fried and my symptoms were the result of a brain that's out of balance. By focusing on my career and taking on a few freelance writing/blogging/content writing jobs I have proved to myself that i'm not brain damaged and my cognitive abilities are fine, something i was constantly worrying about in the first couple of months. I have completed three sessions of CBT and it is helping so far. My therapist has shown me that it is often me anticipating dp/dr symptoms that brings it on and by focusing on it i feel detached. She asks me to think "what's the worst that could happen" every time i suffer an episode, and do you know what, fuck it, nothing bad will happen, no matter how scary the dp/dr feels, it isn't dangerous at all. I've calmed down to the point where i can socialise without a problem. I went on a date the other day with a girl i was seeing before all this blew up and it went well. I was really relaxed, chatty, fun to be around and most importantly, i was in the moment. I have also had a few job interviews which went well and i'm waiting to hear back from, so in all i'm doing pretty well. Even my therapist asks me what the problem is as i'm functioning fine!

I'm gonna take some time off bluelight for a bit and really focus on my recovery, I have a way to go yet but i am 100% confident that I will recover fully, even if it takes another year. Every day was a complete struggle a short while ago, but now i am really living life again

 

[thejibberman]

When I was on my SSRI - which was Zoloft (Sertraline) - I experienced this type of issue. More specifically, for some reason my eyes were much more sensitive to light - so much so that I had to squint continuously at times while outside in order to even see. And then I'd go inside, and even though the light would be on, it was so dark that I was nearly blind. This also used to happen a lot when I was on OxyContin.

To this day, I still am overly sensitive to bright lights, or a sudden and drastic change in light. Totally messes up my vision for a while (far too dim) until my pupils finally adjust.

If you don't mind me asking, are you currently on any medications (prescription and/or over the counter)? Some of them can certainly cause such a side effect.

What else... How's your daily vitamin and mineral intake? If I recall correctly, Vitamin A is used by the body to help maintain proper vision. So basically, if you could munch on about 100g of baby carrots daily (with some ranch dipping sauce for good taste), they are very high in Vitamin A.

Anyone in your family suffering from diabetes? It's notorious for slowly damaging the ocular nerves, IIRC.

Sorry, I'm just trying to think of what may be the problem, but if I'm not helping then I apologize.

Best of luck friend

Not taking anything right now, there's only two medications I've taken since this all happened, nystatin for thrush on my tongue, and 2 days worth of citalopram but my vision was the same before. It's my anxiety still I reckon, the floaters came out from my panic induced adrenaline, my light sensitivity tolerance is probably from it too. I wouldn't put a medical label on it really.

 

[Dawglaw]

Lazyoaf - your recovery sounds almost identical to mine. You will be good in no time. For me it wasn't about "recovering" it was more about adjusting my mindset and attitude to better cope with the stress going on in my brain.

 

[PJ2]

It's your brain. Serotonin runs everything to some degree!

 

[Lazyoaf]

Lazyoaf - your recovery sounds almost identical to mine. You will be good in no time. For me it wasn't about "recovering" it was more about adjusting my mindset and attitude to better cope with the stress going on in my brain.

Thanks Dawglaw, yes you're right, my therapist also said its not about recovering but allowing myself to cope with stress so my brain can reach homeostasis. I still have good days and bad days and there's been a couple of times i thought i was relapsing but i am definitely going in the right direction. I will certainly never take my health for granted again with drugs and etc and other things like sleep, my god i thought i'd never sleep again! All of this is without SSRI's- my local Gp has always been reluctant to dish out medicine. What i am taking is a couple of natural medicines from my local health shop, one with bacopa leaf and the other gingko biloba, not sure how much they help as i was already feeling better before i started them.

 

[Tpchan85]

Im laughing at myself right now. Anxiety is truly a ridiculous thing. Since I'm feeling so much better I decided to try a cup of tea and see if I can handle even a small amount of caffeine, so I'm sitting here with a cup of tea, a xanax at the ready and I start to tense up and shake just thinking about drinking it. Just suddenly struck me how absurd this all is and how clearly it really is anxiety rather than brain damage. I seriously believe that what happened to all of us is severely low serotonin triggered anxiety attacks, our serotonin levels recovered but our brains never moved out of that anxiety mindset because of the trauma of it. I read so many posts like my own when I was in the worst of it all and I didn't believe them, I think it's important for anyone still in that stage of terrible anxiety to realise that your brain can be wrong, you need to realise that a lot of the anxious thoughts (such as "oh my god I've damaged my brain) that come in to your head are simply wrong and are not worth dwelling on, CBT and such definitely help with this. But it seems the best cure is to force yourself to be positive as much as you can (its bloody hard I know!), I seriously doubt the supplements, exercise etc actually did much physically at all - infact it seems likely it was the positive mindset that came with them that helped!

Now that this episode is nearly behind me, it's time to think about getting my life back on the right track and making up for the last 5 months I lost. For once I'm feeling excited about the future. Thank you to every one of you in this thread. Just coming on here and reading other peoples experiences did so much for me. I would have probably jumped off a bridge convinced I'd be stuck like that forever if it wasn't for this community.

P.S: the tea went down fine, first drop of caffeine for 5 months.

 

[me2point0]

Maybe it has been written here on this thread, but is there anyone that did thyroid tests? Because im sick and tired of walking upstairs and feeling my bpm everywhere in my body and exhausted. Did they reveal anything? I'm almost done with this comedown by the way. Anxiety is the worst of it.

 

[PJ2]

Im laughing at myself right now. Anxiety is truly a ridiculous thing. Since I'm feeling so much better I decided to try a cup of tea and see if I can handle even a small amount of caffeine, so I'm sitting here with a cup of tea, a xanax at the ready and I start to tense up and shake just thinking about drinking it. Just suddenly struck me how absurd this all is and how clearly it really is anxiety rather than brain damage. I seriously believe that what happened to all of us is severely low serotonin triggered anxiety attacks, our serotonin levels recovered but our brains never moved out of that anxiety mindset because of the trauma of it. I read so many posts like my own when I was in the worst of it all and I didn't believe them, I think it's important for anyone still in that stage of terrible anxiety to realise that your brain can be wrong, you need to realise that a lot of the anxious thoughts (such as "oh my god I've damaged my brain) that come in to your head are simply wrong and are not worth dwelling on, CBT and such definitely help with this. But it seems the best cure is to force yourself to be positive as much as you can (its bloody hard I know!), I seriously doubt the supplements, exercise etc actually did much physically at all - infact it seems likely it was the positive mindset that came with them that helped!

Now that this episode is nearly behind me, it's time to think about getting my life back on the right track and making up for the last 5 months I lost. For once I'm feeling excited about the future. Thank you to every one of you in this thread. Just coming on here and reading other peoples experiences did so much for me. I would have probably jumped off a bridge convinced I'd be stuck like that forever if it wasn't for this community.

P.S: the tea went down fine, first drop of caffeine for 5 months.

Lol...I'm dying to drink a regular coke for the first time in months and I imagine sitting with it with a Xanax at the ready just like you! That made me laugh. Glad it didn't do much. I am going to wait for my symptoms from the Paxil to die down first before I go crazy with stimulants.

 

[ro4eva]

Im laughing at myself right now. Anxiety is truly a ridiculous thing. Since I'm feeling so much better I decided to try a cup of tea and see if I can handle even a small amount of caffeine, so I'm sitting here with a cup of tea, a xanax at the ready and I start to tense up and shake just thinking about drinking it. Just suddenly struck me how absurd this all is and how clearly it really is anxiety rather than brain damage.

Just wanted to let you know that I used to do the exact same thing - that's how worried I was about getting another panic attack.

I know it causes a serious physical dependency to form with prolonged usage, that it can be habit forming, and that there are some significant long term effects (e.g. short term memory loss + others), but Xanax (Alprazolam) has been a lifesaver for me in countless situations. I could honestly write a book about how many times it got me out of the woods, so to speak. Countless times I recall being on the verge of a massive panic attack, then to resort to Xanax to being me back to a stable anxiety level, and it has never not worked.

 

[Deltronpedro]

@ro4eva:And you got off that xanax easily or do you still have to take those.
Did anyone else did good with Antidepressants?

 

[coderbrah]

Maybe it has been written here on this thread, but is there anyone that did thyroid tests? Because im sick and tired of walking upstairs and feeling my bpm everywhere in my body and exhausted. Did they reveal anything? I'm almost done with this comedown by the way. Anxiety is the worst of it.

Yeah, I have. Didn't have anything wrong with my thyroid. Doesn't mean that yours is fine too if you're thinking about getting checked.

 

[ro4eva]

@ro4eva:And you got off that xanax easily or do you still have to take those.
Did anyone else did good with Antidepressants?

I'm still on it to this day. Still on 0.5mg TID (three times a day).

About 3 years ago, I did desperately try to get off of it, and I managed to stay off for 8 weeks.

I don't remember my reason for wanting to stop, but, the reason I started back up again was because I was still experiencing some withdrawal symptoms - mainly anxiety and insomnia. It's my fault however, because I didn't stop properly - I went cold turkey.

There is some good news however: I find myself having to use only 2 dosages every day instead of 3, with the rare exception.

I believe I could go off of them and stay off for good if I was to properly taper my dose. However, that will have to wait as my energy in invested in too many things right now.

P.S. - I strongly feel that part of the reason why I made a full recovery from my LTC after 19 months was because I decided to use an antidepressant - Zoloft (Sertraline) - for about 8 months IIRC. Its positive effects were extremely subtle, but I cannot stress enough how much it helped to make some very severe symptoms go away for good, such as brain fog, depersonalization, de-realization, numbness and tingling in the extremities, etc.

The problem is that the first 4 weeks on it was very tough, as I actually felt sicker than before starting. But afterwards, it was all uphill, thankfully.

I apologize if you already know this, but if you are considering trying an SSRI, please be sure to read up on the possible benefits and risks, as there is a chance of some serious risks in some people. It's uncommon, but it happens.

Best wishes

 

[thejibberman]

Im laughing at myself right now. Anxiety is truly a ridiculous thing. Since I'm feeling so much better I decided to try a cup of tea and see if I can handle even a small amount of caffeine, so I'm sitting here with a cup of tea, a xanax at the ready and I start to tense up and shake just thinking about drinking it. Just suddenly struck me how absurd this all is and how clearly it really is anxiety rather than brain damage. I seriously believe that what happened to all of us is severely low serotonin triggered anxiety attacks, our serotonin levels recovered but our brains never moved out of that anxiety mindset because of the trauma of it.

P.S: the tea went down fine, first drop of caffeine for 5 months.

Trust me when I say this; the moment you really believe and trust yourself telling you it's anxiety, is day 1 of recovery.

I never feel crazy anymore, I honestly think anyone who still is gripping onto the mind-altering neurotoxicity theory hasn't let go of the other possibilities (not trying to patronise). If you visit any other anxiety forum, they will have everything we're talking about. The term 'LTC' is completely made up from bluelight, and if you convince yourself you have an 'LTC' instead of just anxiety, it'll probably make you worse.

Nice one Tp!

 

[pmz]

oh man, yeah life just keeps getting better. I just came back from a dope party. Seriously enjoyed the music and the scene. Was able to really stay present the whole night.

Im learning to just got give a crap about whats going in with me.

Of course everything is settling down and I dont really feel any anxiousness or depression anymore. Im really having fun in my life again. Though, I still feel like there are aspects emotional and cognitvely need alot of work, but Im at a point know where Im really happy with my life.

A lot of this is from pulling your life back together after it all fell apart.

I think a lot of the depression comes from not the drug interaction, but from how we feel like our lives have falled apart and we have no idea how to help it. Once you start getting grounded again, depression just goes away.

Start making things happen again in your life, regardless of how you feel.

Keep pushing forward, dont put life on hold because you dont feel like "yourself". You need to just doing what you always have done, and keep moving forward. Once you get your self feeling grounded in life again the symptoms of how we feel dont have much power, because they no longer will effect you.

Im at a point, where I have to say screw it to still feeling disassociated, or still feel like my brain has trouble running through my head, or still not getting as excited over things that I used to, or still not having music resonate in me like it used to.

Im at a point where, i can be social and have conversations and enjoy my self again and not have DP distract me, I can hold down a good job right, and am able to dance and vib out to music, not as passionatrly, but I can really enjoy sounds again.

Everything is coming back so slowly. Im retraining my mind to stop thinking about how things were and start just focusing on what they are now. This is the new you. stop looking back. Things only get better as time goes on. I firmly believe I will be fine in another year or so. I got 15 months under my belt, and still feel like another year is left. It is what it is now. I can life another year like this, because I know its all settling away. One day this will be a memory.

And to put things in perspective, When this all happened to me, I thought I was the worst case on this website. From everything everyone else said, I honestly thought I got hit the worse.
I lost every single thing I knew, I had to go to an extremely intensive 24/7 therapeutic environment for 8 months just to get my head clear.

This may take another year, or who knows maybe 2. But At least I can finally and happily start to move on with my life and just be my self again.

 

[thejibberman]

I think a lot of the depression comes from not the drug interaction, but from how we feel like our lives have falled apart and we have no idea how to help it. Once you start getting grounded again, depression just goes away.

Definitely, man. It's even worse, because you begin to accept that you've failed on your life. Good shout, glad you're feeling better dude!

 

[PJ2]

Day 22 on Paxil.

Good news. I have my fingers crossed, but the last couple of days I've felt fantastic. Not only have I been virtually symptomless as far as the LTC is concerned, but I've been in a much better frame of mind as in it seems the depression is lifting. If this continues, I am on the right path. As always, I expect bumps along the way with this whole ordeal, but the sickness taking Paxil brought on has disappeared for now.

 

[ro4eva]

Day 22 on Paxil.

Good news. I have my fingers crossed, but the last couple of days I've felt fantastic. Not only have I been virtually symptomless as far as the LTC is concerned, but I've been in a much better frame of mind as in it seems the depression is lifting. If this continues, I am on the right path. As always, I expect bumps along the way with this whole ordeal, but the sickness taking Paxil brought on has disappeared for now.

I'm glad you're feeling better rphilli72.

Hopefully the worst is behind you.

Have a wonderful day

 

[Deltronpedro]

i thought SSRIs(Paxil) would be harmful in the situation of long term comedown?