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MDMA Recovery (Stories & Support)

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happy_dude said:
I seemed to have picked up some food intolerances during my bad comedown which can affect my short-term memory a little. But when I avoid those foods I feel like superman.
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Could you elaborate on this? What type of intolerance, which foods and symptoms?
 
It seems dairy doesn't like me anymore. It makes me feel tired and a bit confused depending on how much I consume. Also, some digestive issues.
 
No just dairy foods not everything haha. My name wouldn't be happy_dude if that was the case. It would be flatulence_dude or something =D
 
I also don't respond well to dairy anymore.

If I ever eat cereal now, it's almost always with non-dairy milk (usually almond milk - it's really not that bad tasting, but also IMO somewhat of an acquired taste).
 
Hi everyone. I am almost three months into my long term comedown. I have taken mdma 9 times over the last year and a half, from september 2012 to february of this year. I believe i dosed 100mg on 6 occasions and 250mg on 3. I also did weed and coke over the same period, although not at the same time as the MDMA. I have an anxiety disorder and had OCD (which i managed to alleviate through cbt) from age 14-19. Around the end of last year i began to feel foggy and sensitive to light, mostly transient symptoms. I was super naive and reckless, as i didn't really understand what i was taking. I carried on with life normally and carried on taking md. I had a family bereavement, overworking and other issues at the time and so my head was all over the place. I became a hypochondriac, thinking i had chronic fatigue syndrome, anaemia (which i had a blood test for in january) and so on. My symptoms appeared quite a while after rolling so I never suspected the mdma (stupid I know). I eventually started counselling to tackle my personal problems.

It was my last roll on february 1st that was the tipping point and made me realise the problem was linked to mdma. I rolled 250mg that night and the following few days i was pretty much bed ridden with nausea, anxiety, depression and fogginess. All my previous symptoms worsened and became present everyday. I am now sensitive to artificial light, especially at night. My emotions became extremely blunted and although I haven’t lost interest in life, my enjoyment of activities is impaired. I have tension headaches and pressure behind my left eye. My sleep is fucked.

I become overwhelmed easily; housework and other simple tasks seem formidable. I’m a bit confused about whether I’m experiencing brain fog or dp/dr. How would you define brain fog. I feel lightheaded and spaced out, but my short/long term memory is fine, as is my word recall. Things like pin numbers, passwords and little short term details are completely engrained into my head. I don’t really experience confusion, but I feel like I’m in a dream state. I struggle in supermarkets, where the bright lights and packed shelves overwhelm my senses. I feel spaced out in crowds. I can have lucid conversations with friends and family and everyone tells me I am articulate.

The symptoms fluctuate, occurring anytime of day or night, but generally I feel more comfortable at night when winding down. My counsellor thinks i’m suffering from post traumatic stress, from all the stress of the last few years and the drugs added in. She also said that my fight or flight system has gone haywire. Both her and my gp don’t think I’ve fried my brain, but that I am suffering from anxiety. The problem is that I often feel these symptoms when completely calm, although it increases in intensity when in stressful situations.

My history of mental illness doesn’t help. But my current symptoms aren’t typical of my previous illnesses. I was worried my ocd would resurface, but it is fine. I was a bit dubious about the anxiety diagnosis because it doesn’t fit in with my own experiences of how anxiety affects me. My “anxiety” stems more from feeling anxious over my situation or in social situations how to react when my symptoms are intense. I have become a bit withdrawn and vulnerable. Being aware of the various triggers makes me realize that a lot of it might be anxiety based, but i’m still dubious.

It is painfully slow, but I do think i’m recovering. I feel pretty bad at the moment, as opposed to absolutely terrible 3 months ago. It is like being on a rollercoaster. I try to be positive by thinking about the little goals and achievements i’ve made so far. Some days I have a predominant symptom, i.e I might feel foggy, but generally in high spirits. Another day I might be excruciatingly depressed, but less foggy. Another day might be experiencing headaches. Some days I find it hard to read, the words are like patterns on a page and I struggle to focus on individual sentences. I guess this is preferable to experiencing all of the symptoms together all day everyday like I was almost 3 months ago. Sometimes I feel really normal, but it never lasts.

Spending time with people who make me really happy is therapeutic. I often feel like my normal self when with the right people and I completely forget my symptoms. This gives me hope that this isn’t permanent. However I’ve also had occasions where socializing has been too overwhelming.

Work has become hell, but I still go in and get it over and done with. I work part time so it isn’t too bad. 3 months ago I couldn’t read, play video games and etc as I didn’t have the will to do so. I would either stare into space or watch tv. This is extremely abnormal as i've always been a driven, hardworking and focused person. It was all I could handle. It was alarming as I am trying to develop my career as a writer. I have now started volunteering as a blogger/copywriter for a website and have had lots of work published. I swim three times a week and try to meditate 20 minutes a day. I am also working on a freelance web design project, which is challenging as I am a complete amateur. I read, write in my diary and I might have a freelance writing job on the cards.

I went on holiday to brazil for carnival a month after my bad trip. I didn’t think I’d be up for it as I was so bad and I was petrified that it would all be too much. I felt so relaxed in the sun, getting out of London and spending time with friends. Again I managed to forget my symptoms for long periods of time and I felt if I could’ve stayed there for 3 months or so I would be 100%. I have been learning Portuguese for 8 months or so and was able to use and understand it out there, so my learning and memory is definitely unimpaired.

I quickly fell back into my symptoms when I returned to london, like i literally took a holiday from the reality of my situation and returned to find stress waiting for me on my doorstep. It doesn’t help that you don’t get enough sun in London.

Around this time I started having tension headaches and pressure above and between my eyebrows One day the left side of my face went numb and tingly for half a day. My gp gave me the all clear. It has mostly gone apart from sporadic pressure behind my left eye.

My sleep improved from sleeping 2 hours, waking and not being able to get back to sleep, to sleeping a full 8 hours, to now, where I sleep around 5 hours and then wake. If go to bed at 11, I wake at 3. Bed at 2 am, wake at 7 am. It is really annoying as I am the kind of person that needs sleep. At times I have woken with my scalp tingling.

My sensitivity to light is not as intense and fluctuates.

I am functioning near enough to normal as possible in terms of activities, but everything just feels so difficult because of the spaced out feeling. I can handle the low moods as everyone is down now and again, but I just feel crushingly depressed some days. i'm 26 years old, still living with my parents and in a shitty day job i can't stand. I had to come clean to my parents and they are supportive of me. This was meant to be the year that i was going to push my career and move out of my parents, the former I am doing, but i don't feel like I can cope with things as they are.

I feel like I’m just existing, rather than living. I used to love going out and doing different things. Now everything seems overwhelming. I enjoy swimming and meditation but I feel I’m forcing myself to participate more than I usually would and I’m getting bored. Even my writing endeavors feel forced, like desperation to escape my current job and progress in life. I guess it's good to keep myself occupied and also i do feel the benefits of exercise!

I’m done with mdma and all drugs, a shame as i had some awesome times. I know it is recommended to avoid alcohol, is one or two beers when watching football or something ok?

I’m also not sure about my counseling anymore. It has helped me long standing issues, but I feel like cbt might be more helpful with this current issue. I’m not sure. I'm wary to go down the tablet route, as is my gp. So i guess i'll have to wait it out and see if i continue to improve. I feel that if I can make it out of this horrible situation that I can do great things in life. I will even write a memoir or something about my experiences, not just about mdma, but ocd and so on. I’ve got enough stuff to fill a coffee table sized book lol!
 
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I posted about this once or twice without any answer so i'll ask again to see if anyone is in position to answer. I am prescribbed 40mg Vyvanse. Since it's a pretty effective stim(amp) of the csn, am I gonna go back to square one if I start using it again, will it worsen the damage I caused to myself, or will it have little or no impact since it's low dosage and therapeutic?
 
At times I have woken with my scalp tingling.
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One day the left side of my face went numb and tingly for half a day
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I deal with this on a daily basis. I'm at month 5 of my comedown and at about month 3 the tingling sensations pretty much went away completely then I had a cup of caffeine and it brought back these symptoms much worse. In the last two months it has slowly gotten better there aren't too many days where I feel total numbness in my head but the tingling sensation is sporadically there. I'm not a doctor but I am positive that these sensations can be attributed to neurotoxicity.

I do think if you have mental illnesses and use MDMA it can be playing with fire. The first two times I used MDMA with a proper dose (100-200mg.) it actually helped my anxiety and depression for weeks/months after taking it. This time I took roughly 333mg. of MDMA and instead of helping it did the exact opposite and a bunch of other symptoms appeared. I think MDMA can be used as a therapeutic tool for people with mental illnesses but as soon as you abuse it any way it can have dire consequences for those with fragile minds (people that have history with mental illness). It's good knowing that you plan on stopping for good.

I wouldn't recommend even having a beer or two. Like I said above, I had a cup of caffeine and it brought back many of my symptoms that nearly went away and now I'm still dealing with them two months later. They are going away slowly it seems like. Realize your serotonin system took a huge hit using MDMA that many times over a year and a half period. Some people make it out fine with no negative affects but you are obviously the latter. I just wouldn't risk drinking a beer or two. I also wouldn't risk caffeine or ANY drug for that matter. If you were to break your leg you wouldn't keep walking on that leg. It needs to heal fully before you can put pressure on it or it will only slow the progress of the bone healing. The same mindset needs to be taken place in your mind. The reality is that you damaged your brain. To let it heal and rewire itself as fast as possible you don't take more drugs. It's putting salt on a wound. There are people on here that say a cup of caffeine doesn't bother them or a drink or two doesn't bother them but the risk outweighs the benefits that you could be creating more time for you to fully heal from this experience.

There is no doubt in my mind that MDMA use damages your brain despite all the research that says it doesn't and people that say stuff like, "it's all in your head.". The good news is that the brain is an organ great at healing itself. The only bad thing is that it doesn't heal like a scrape you get on your knee. The brain counts its healing process in months and years for those that have fucked their brains up at least a little with MDMA use. Let time do its thing.

No one can tell you how long it will take but if you live a healthy lifestyle for an extended period of time you will recover. It takes a shit load of time and there will be days that you feel like complete shit for making this mistake but you have to look at the big picture.
 
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happy_dude, how was your fatigue like a year later even. I struggle with sleeping a decent night and still feeling like I havent slept in days.
 
pmz said:
happy_dude, how was your fatigue like a year later even. I struggle with sleeping a decent night and still feeling like I havent slept in days.
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I wasn't fully recovered one year later, but it was mainly the hppd-like symptoms and the "my head is messed up forever" thoughts - even though I got better, I didn't think I would make a full recovery.

Fatigue and sleeping were fine, as far as I can remember. I started to do boxing and weights at the gym, though. So maybe that helped.

EDIT
I just remembered that around 1 year later I was taking a small melatonin capsule which was enabling me to sleep because I was struggling to sleep.
 
^^^
happy_dude said:
Ok, I'll start with the worst part. I was down for about 2 - 3 years. But I made it worse for myself because I continually smoked weed and occasionally took coke and alcohol. I just want to stress more than anything - I thought I was a gonner. I thought my brain was damaged. I thought it was game over. But it's not and I'm back. In fact, it feels a very distant memory and I rarely think about it.

I Made It Worse For Myself By Doing Drugs
First I want to talk about my biggest challenge. I kept doing things that made it worse. Even though I had smashed my mind I just couldn't let go of old habits. I still spent time with the same group of weed-smoking friends. I still wanted to go clubbing and occasionally I took more pills which just reset me back to square 1.

I tried to live the live I used to live, but I was just making everything worse for myself. I couldn't let go of the weed, clubbing and drugs. That's who I was, that was all I ever wanted to do.

I fully believe that if you want to recover as soon as possible you have to let go. Quit the weed, quit the other drugs, don't even go to clubs any more and avoid friends who will put you in situations that will even tempt you. I failed at all of this for a long time.

The Problems Came from Nowhere After a Normal Night of Clubbing
After rolling on new years and having an amazing time I took no pills for 3 months. The I went out clubbing and had a few great pills which left an amazing afterglow for two weeks. Life felt utterly amazing and everyone seemed to love me. I had to get the afterglow back...

Unfortunately the next time I rolled my life changed in a big way. It was just a normal night; I picked up a few pills from a friend, went to a club, smoked some weed at a friend's after then went home to bed. I can't quite remember exactly, but I think I went to sleep and woke up in hell from my first awakening thought.

One thing that happened a few months before was that I took some LSD and had a bad trip. That time I thought I fucked my head, but was fine after a couple of days.

It Was Like Living a Nightmare, and I Never, Ever Thought I Would Be Normal Again
That morning when I woke in my bed, life wasn't the same. I wasn't hallucinating, but I was having very strange thoughts in my head. It felt like I was in a distant evil universe. I saw weird things in my mind and heard weird noises. These thoughts were horrible, dreadful, and then I began to realise that "my head is fucked", "how can I cope with life" etc. I felt like I was in a mental wasteland with these weird creatures. At the same time I could see out of my eyes that I was in my bedroom and everything appeared to be normal.

I don't remember what happened that day, but I remember the next day at work. People's faces looked weird - wooden almost. I was in an office talking to a manager and it looked like the cars parked out the window were alive. Their lights were like faces and they had an evil aura about them.

Those thoughts of "my head is fucked", "game over" never went away. I was thinking about them all the time every day. Even when I was watching TV or talking to people they always came back.

HPPD symptoms were present as well. Everything just looked weird and I used to shadows on objects - even the lights on the ceiling scared me. I think this made the anxiety worse because it made me feel more like my brain was fried. I once saw a floating letter M as I lay on my sofa talking to my family. I used to see puddles on the floor and think they were a mile deep. I used to see blue dots in the pitch black.

The Horror Peaked After a Couple of Weeks
The absolute worst of my symptoms were those where I questioned who I was. Nothing felt right. I believe this is ego-loss and yeah I had definitely had that severely. I just felt empty and wanted to cry all the time. I came close to asking for mental help on a number of occasions, but thought I would be locked up.

Another of my worst symptoms were the nightmares and evil thoughts I got. I used to wake up in the night and it felt like my cupboard was alive. I woke up sweating, scared to death because of horrible nightmares. But waking up I was still just as scared. I think I even had auditory hallucinations when awaking in the middle of the night hearing scary animal noises.

For me these symptoms were worse at night because night time is just scarier. However, the worst of these utterly, utterly devastating symptoms appeared to go away 2 weeks after rolling. Any time I rolled they came back for two weeks. The symptoms were still very bad, but the nightmares and horror seemed to peak after 2 weeks.

After the two weeks it felt like very slight improvements week on week. But any time I did weed I was basically tripping and head-fucked. I just could not stop doing it.

I Fell Out With My Friends and Family... That Saved Me
Because of my symptoms I was a weird, anxious person. I wasn't normal and I used to say really weird things and do stupid things. One day I annoyed some people who were part of my group of friends and I got absolutely smashed in. Knocked out cold and put in hospital.

These people weren't nice and I was taking one of them to court. I could no longer hang around with my friends and I had to move back home with my family. This was great because I couldn't smoke weed and was the first step to improving my symptoms. Going to the gym and getting a regular endorphine rush was the next that helped. I used to feel almost normal after a hard weights session.

But I soon fell out with my family because of my symptoms and moved to my own place. This is about 2 years after that devastating roll.

Once on my own I was able to deal with things much better. Just me in my flat. Life wasn't great, and I yearned for my old life of clubs and drugs, but I couldn't do that because I had no friends now.

It was living on my own, though, that really helped me to get things together. Apart from going to work I just spent time on my own which gave me few things to worry about. I started to get my confidence back and not be scared of going in public places (except to avoid those people who would probably smash me in again).

With the combination of no drugs, no friends and no family, I could clearly see that I was getting back to normal and it felt good. Just being on my own was so important, because I had to keep things together. I had nowhere to go and I would be on the streets if I messed up.

I'm not suggesting you should live alone. If your friends and family are supportive and helpful great. But if your friends are a bad crowd, and your family just make things worse, then you have a decision to make.

I Now Have a Great Job and I'm in Love
Living on my own got a bit worrying. If I lost my job what would I do? So I spent all my spare time learning computer programming which is now my job. What's more, I absolutely loved it. Learning about things felt so amazing again. I discovered the joy of knowledge. I read lots of books.

One painfful thought I had when my symptoms were bad was "I wish I could just be normal and feel normal things. Have a girlfriend and enjoy life. But instead my head is messed up and I can see the world for what it really is". Right now I am there. I live with my girlfriend and we argue over trivial things like who is going to turn the light off before we go to bed at night.

I made it and you can, too.
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happy_dude said:
I wasn't fully recovered one year later, but it was mainly the hppd-like symptoms and the "my head is messed up forever" thoughts - even though I got better, I didn't think I would make a full recovery.

Fatigue and sleeping were fine, as far as I can remember. I started to do boxing and weights at the gym, though. So maybe that helped.

EDIT
I just remembered that around 1 year later I was taking a small melatonin capsule which was enabling me to sleep because I was struggling to sleep.
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hmm, So I would assume you would have some fatigue issues still then. Who knows. Ive been trying to figure out where my fatigue is really coming from. Is it someting external like my diet. I dont sleep the best, but then again, im not sleeping worse than I have been all my life, so I dont know. Maybe its the brain fog/low motivation/indifference that im misinterpreting as a fatigue.
 
pmz how is your derealisaion/depersonalistion? has it gone away/gotten loads better? that's the scariest symptom for me right now. then again i don't even know if what I'm experiencing is Dr/dp as i can take genuine interest in conversations and even genuinely laugh at stuff. it's just that everything 'looks' weird, as if there's something wrong with my eyes. went to the opticians and they said my eyes were fine
 
India111 said:
pmz how is your derealisaion/depersonalistion? has it gone away/gotten loads better? that's the scariest symptom for me right now. then again i don't even know if what I'm experiencing is Dr/dp as i can take genuine interest in conversations and even genuinely laugh at stuff. it's just that everything 'looks' weird, as if there's something wrong with my eyes. went to the opticians and they said my eyes were fine
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That's what I classify as hppd-like symptoms. It's uncomfortable, but when the dr/dp symptoms went away, I realised that the hppd-like symptoms aren't really that bad when everything feels better. They just make all the dr/dp worse for the first x months.

It does go away - completely :)
 
pmz said:
hmm, So I would assume you would have some fatigue issues still then. Who knows. Ive been trying to figure out where my fatigue is really coming from. Is it someting external like my diet. I dont sleep the best, but then again, im not sleeping worse than I have been all my life, so I dont know. Maybe its the brain fog/low motivation/indifference that im misinterpreting as a fatigue.
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I definitely had some fatigue issues somewhere at the start, but I can't think when they went away, unfortunately. I can definitely say I don't have it now, so I think you'll be fine :).

Probably worth speaking to a doctor though. If there's a medical reason maybe it will show up on some tests?
 
thank you happy_dude, I'm so looking forward to the day that it does!

edit: okay BIG mistake just looked up HPPD and apparently it can last forever...I've only ever rolled four times in my life though and I've never taken anything like acid or shrooms or lsd or anything ): silly me, why did i look stuff up!
 
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Having a first time bad reaction to Molly, never any problems before or have any health problems. Scared the shit out of me, needed water desperately but too afraid to get up because of my heart pace and how tight my chest was. I am most positive I fucked up taking 4 different vitamins because I was unable to eat all day. What do you do when that happens to you?
 
India111 said:
thank you happy_dude, I'm so looking forward to the day that it does!

edit: okay BIG mistake just looked up HPPD and apparently it can last forever...I've only ever rolled four times in my life though and I've never taken anything like acid or shrooms or lsd or anything ): silly me, why did i look stuff up!
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Don't be scared of looking stuff up. I remember that I would get very scared and anxious when I read stuff like that earlier in my comedown. But now that I have come to terms with my condition - not even the worst horror stories can scare me. I don't mean to sound harsh, but I believe that it is in your best interest to come to terms with the fact that you might have done substantial damage to parts of your serotonin system. By learning about this damage, and by reading many anecdotal reports of recovery, I've accepted that I probably have damaged my serotonin system, and that I probably will recover fully - or close to fully from it. During the first month or two I would not have accepted "close to fully". I couldn't accept that a single night of using approx 200mg of MDMA could damage my brain this severely. Now I accept it, and because of that I do not have any anxiety about my condition what so ever. I do still have some lingering general anxiety, as I am not recovered yet, but not in the way that I get scared by reading discouraging research or anecdotal reports.

Check out my username. I came to this site so fucking scared that my life was over. The only thing I wanted was reassurance that everything was OK. I just needed something to lessen the fear and dread that I felt. That fear left me many months ago.

At one point I stopped trying to convince myself that I hadn't done any damage just to keep the fear at bay. I would rather know the truth, then work with it. That liberated me from the constant worrying. When you can accept something like that, you will truly overcome your anxiety and fear about your condition.

I want to reiterate: You don't have to be afraid of looking stuff up. You don't even have to be afraid of reading horror stories of people never recovering. The particular symptoms you are suffering from will probably resolve themselves completely in time, there are enough reports of that happening. It is not detrimental to learn about your condition. You will not manifest more symptoms by learning about your condition, like one or two dudes on this site keep on saying.
 
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