Mental Health (Question) Learning to enjoy drugs again after drug-induced anxiety

[t0aster]

Hi everyone

A little less than a year ago, after redosing ethylphenidate multiple times throughout the night I found myself early in the morning myself wanting to sleep, but with a heart that was beating really fast. This was uncomfortable and this is what triggered my anxiety and panic attacks. The following months I had panic attacks here and there, and just anxiety in general. I had never had anxiety to this degree, so it was pretty scary honestly. One day I ended up at the hospital cause my heartrate just wouldn't go down, even after ten hours, so I was convinced that something was wrong with my heart, but eventually I calmed down and I was told that it was all in my head.

With this anxiety comes sensitivity to stimulants and drugs in general. I cannot smoke a cigaret or smoke some hash without getting anxious and uncomfortable. This anxiety actually helped me kick my weed habit and drug use, so I guess you could say that it brought something positive with it, since I was doing drugs pretty much every day. These days I'm sober, but I'm bored. I feel I have gotten over the worst of my anxiety, and It doesn't bother me anymore. I am a little more anxious in certain situations than before the episode with ethylphenidate, but overall I'm not crippled by anxiety anymore at all. I want to enjoy drugs again, but I'm not sure how to go about it. More specifically I want to enjoy methoxetamine again, since it's the chemical that I have come to love the most. It never gave me any anxiety, but now it does. As I said I generally have my anxiety under control when sober, but as soon as I take methoxetamine I feel anxiety coming on. It lasts from the moment I ingest it to when it wears off basically. It is just anxiety though, and it doesn't go as far as a panic attack, since I can control it to that extent at least. It's just uncomfortable and while on it I don't really enjoy it. Keep in mind I have only tried mxe two times after the ethylphenidate incident. Now, I'm not sure how to go about this. On one hand I think that I can overcome this anxiety on mxe by taking low doses and learning to get comfortable while on it, but on the other hand I feel that if I wait a few years and stay sober that the anxiety might fade all together. I'm leaning mostly towards the first option, though. The reason for this is that I feel that I have come to a point where I'm basically anxiety free while sober, and the way that I obtained this control was by putting myself in the situations that gave me anxiety. For example, I had bad anxiety if I was doing cardio or anything that made my heartrate rise, so I started working out and doing cardio and eventually I got over that anxiety. With this logic I'm thinking I should be able to learn to enjoy mxe again by exposing myself to it and getting comfortable with its effects once again. As I stated before, mxe was not the culprit for the anxiety in the first place, so I'm not too worried it worsening my anxiety.

What do you think I should do?

Also, recently I have been reading threads on here about people getting anxiety, like me, but after doing mdma, cocaine or meth. If any of you are reading this; I'm very interested in hearing what your relationship with drugs has been like after your drug-induced anxiety.

 

[professseur]

I find lower doses of MXE much more anxiety inducing than higher doses. Once I hit a threshold of 40-60mg, I start feeling very calm and start sinking. On the come down a bit of stimulation comes up, but it's manageable. Whereas lower doses <20mg have given me rapid heart rate and anxiety much more commonly. Also, it may not be your thing, but plugging MXE makes it feel much more sedating for me and smooth. The come up is within 5-10 minutes too, so there isn't much time to feel anxious in anticipation, just a wave of serenity. Don't know if that helps or not!

A mild sedative with it may help otherwise, like a small dose of a benzo, just enough to take the edge off (like 1mg of etizolam or the equivalent)

 

[Dysphoric]

Almost insane how identical my situation is. Ever since extended prescription amphetamine use and smoking weed, I've gotten this obsession with my heart that I've become quite the cardiophobe. I quit smoking cigarettes like you did weed since I was so scared that the rise in BP and elevation in pulse rate was going to cause a heart attack. One could say that's a good thing, but tobacco is one of the few things that helped with my dysthymia and apathy with little side effects or crash. I've come to the point of accepting not doing any drugs, but I just want to be able to use tobacco here and there without fearing for my life.

Also, I've also noticed this hypersensitivity to drugs (although I've always been like this, but its even more amplified); even something like 60-80mgs of caffeine hits me hard and can cause me anxiety.

 

[herbavore]

For me it was important to replace drugs with non drug alternatives. It wasn't so much a conscious effort on my part as just the plain fact that drugs did not feel good anymore. I feel lucky to have always had art in my life and stopping drugs is when I dove deeper and deeper into art. Doing art is a relationship, an activity and a spiritual practice. It is really all about creating energy. I would say that if you are bored you need to make changes in your life (your expectations for yourself, your setting, how your time is spent, etc). The world is never boring but we can certainly get stuck in ways of living that are. I understand why you would want to be able to go back to an experience that used to be pleasurable but why not use this time in your life to address your boredom from other angles?