PMZ - I think our experiences are very similar. I had very bad derealization which lead to panic attacks and agoraphobia. For the first month, I could barely leave my house and was absolutely devastated as I thought that I had fried my brain. I slowly got better but still had DR for eight months.
I went to several medical professionals at UCSF and Stanford. They were convinced that recreational use of MDMA would not cause brain damage but rather it could trigger a anxiety reaction. When I say "Anxiety" I use the term very generally. They described it as a temporary stress. Just as some combat veterans detach from reality during fireworks shows, our brains went into safe mode after being exposed to a psychoactive experience.
I, like you, did not feel "anxious." Rather, I had blurry vision, a strong feeling of detachment, a feeling of floating, I felt like I could not concentrate, I would find myself in existential thought loops, I feel a overall "dullness" that I now attribute to stress/anxiety. I did not believe it was "anxiety" at first. I thought I had physical damage.
I realized that by constantly worrying and even thinking about my comedown, I was doing myself no favors. I know it sounds a bit patronizing but when I just chilled out and moved on with my life, I started feeling a lot better. The more attention and grief I gave my symptoms, the worse they became. The first part of my comedown was spent 24/7 agonizing about how miserable I felt and how upset I was that my life had been turned upside down after one night.
My therapist and dr. told me it was just anxiety. At first I did not believe them. I told myself that I know what anxiety is. There is something seriously wrong with my brain and it is not anxiety. But only after a few months, I decided to trust them and say fuck it, I'll try what they say. I kept myself busy, did my best to avoid worrying about how I used to feel and I realized that I was getting better. Althought I did not feel normal, I just forced myself to quit worrying, quit letting my life be defined by my comedown.
My opinion that what I experienced and what everyone else is experiencing is based off the fact that after I recovered, I took MDMA again and it brought back the DR. Since I knew how to approach and deal with it, it went away fairly quickly. If it was brain damage or a chemical imbalance, it should have taken me the same time or longer to recover. My outlook on my "second comedown" was very positive and I was not scared of or even concerned with my feelings. They quickly went away.
The more you convince yourself that you have brain damage, the more your brain will actually believe it is damaged. Look at how many people take MDMA. If it caused brain damage there would be far more people and studies complaining about problems. It is just a small percentage of people with anxiety issues triggered by MDMA.
We are just unlucky, we took some drugs that stressed out our brain and we are left to pick up the pieces.
Check out
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_students'_disease. I think it explains a lot of my secondary "non-anxiety" symptoms. I googled a bunch of scary shit when I felt off and I started to feel the symptoms of brain damage/serotonin dysfunction.
I still feel like I suffer a bit from the PTSD. It is one of the reasons I still post here after I have completely recovered. I feel that when I come here to share my experience, it helps soothe the emotional trauma that I experienced a the beginning of my comedown.
