revisiting a repressed traumatic experience?

[greenmitsa]

After reading the Transcript of Lindesmith MDMA Seminar, 3/30/00 NYC, below.
“I think the most common problem, even though I've told you how calming and soothing the MDMA experience is, is that there are still people who have acute anxiety reactions and acute stress reactions. Some people are not properly prepared for what they are going to get from MDMA. Part of the problem is that people have had traumatic experiences in their past which they may be unaware of, or unprepared to revisit, and these memories may come to the foreground in order to be processed, and in the wrong setting, in an unprepared person, they are very threatening and unsettling and lead to a sense of panic. The other issue is that some people simply panic when taking a drug that leads to any altered state of consciousness, no matter how mild or pleasurable” ---- Julie Holland, MD.
I was wondering if anyone has, upon rolling for the first time or any other time, revisited a repressed traumatic experience?
------------------
Thanks really!

 

[Soma]

Nods, the first time I had an E
I found out that I'd been raving for years without it.
I was devistated.

 

[Acid_Reign]

Um, i have a question....
Is it correct to say it's possible I could have been beaten/molested/etc when i was a wee lad and I wouldn't know about it now?

 

[Mr Be]

I think its more like shit thats happened to you when you were older nuff to remember, but your mind has repressed it in your memory so you cant remember it but its still floating aroung somewhere in you head.
I had a preety traumatic child hood and my first E was pure bliss.

------------------
"Its great being anonymous until you want to be someone" - Anonymous

 

[haste]

I think that we can get to a point that when something hurts us and threatens that we can choose to ignore it, lock it away, or more commonly known as building a wall around it. Is it possible, and I'm asking this as a question so no flames, that as a child we are less able to fully understand what has hurt us. As we grow in maturity we are more able to sit down and analyse a particular situation, break it down and form some sort of understanding. As a child we don't have these skills and therefore our only defenses at this point is to build a wall around it. As time passes, and especially if nothing else happens in relation to this, that we tend to forget it ever happen. It is still there within, but so strong are the walls that we are not aware of it.
If this is possible and considering the power of MDMA to smash down these walls, I would not find it hard to belive that something like this could happen. We understand next to nothing we it comes to the complexity of our brain and the methods it uses in defense. I certainly don't think a child sits down a consciously lock it away, but it's more the brain that does it. A child is less aware of the evils of the world and what the true ramifications of an action would be. It is as we grow older that we learn the rights and wrongs, and things tend to hurt us more because we know it's effects.
Well I might be just talking shit..hehhehe..but just a thought

------------------
"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on" - Billy Connolly

 

[rockee]

interesting!
i had a yucky childhood too; and now, looking back at it, i can only say that i lived in 'limbo' land..it was like i wasn't really a part of that world; nothing could really hurt me because i wasn't physically there; i didn't really give a shit about anything...it's weird when i look back, but i feel pretty unscathed, but bitter towards my parents. my sister on the other hand is a complete and utter mess, suicidal since 11, she has now been diagnosed as bi-polar...she's never taken ecstasy, probably just as well.
i don't think ecstasy has made me relive those times but it has certainly helped me discuss these things with those closest to me now.

 

[Ben]

haste, I think you might be on to something.
The only thing that I would call "traumatic" about my childhood was that my parents divorced when I was 5. I apparently rebelled big time against it, but I can remember absolutely nothing of it. My younger brother (by 1 year), who wasn't as concerned (didn't understand what was going on?) has memory of that time. I have yet to remember anything of it, on a pill or otherwise. I think that this might be just around the corner though...
The other week @ Timo Maas I was fairly sorted on two Orange cK's, & these things are very clean. I was doing my usual stare off into the lights, then close my eyes & make pretty patterns with my mind, when what started scrolling up in front of my mind's eye were random thoughts from my subconcious. It was like looking back into the last three months or so of just random shit, & stuff that I never would have thought of again.
I took it a bit further & went wading through my memories/subconcious to try & resolve part of a difficult problem I've been thinking about & it just came to me, I didn't have to think - I'd already done it over time. The thinking I'd done previously flashed up before me (I'm a visual person so these thoughts were all things I could "see") & "explained" the solution. If only I could remember it now!

So, given this, I think that the possibility of revisiting repressed memories whilst on e is very real. It might take a bit more effort to get past any walls that might be around these thoughts, but all the same it's still a possibility.
Cheers,
Ben.
------------------
The rich would have to eat money, but luckily the poor provide food.

 

[haste]

Ben it doesn't suprise me that you were able to do this at all. We all have the capabilities to resurface old issues, it's just getting past the defenses that we have put up. I think this is the role of a good psychologist who is trained in this area. Knowing the right triggers to press is the key and we are not capable of doing this on our own. The role of MDMA is that it drops the walls that we have constructed, the walls that a psychologist would normally break down in time. Like visiting a psychologist, breaking down these walls can be damaging if we are not prepared for what lies beyond, or if we are not guided through the journey (as a psychologist would do). Of course a psychologist goes through the process without the use of drugs, but aims at the triggers within us that will release that information. This is a very hard process, as many people can spend years in counselling. With MDMA it is instant (well for some people anyway)
Of course I'm no expert on the field, just from what I've learnt in psychology at uni, the brain has it's own defensive system. I think this comes into play more as a child when other forms of coping have yet to have been developed. I think at this stage in our lives it's only option is to lock it away and therefore it wouldn't suprise me if someone was to have old unresolved issues resurface.
Ever had situations that as you grow older more and more memories resurface from your childhood, I know I do - maybe the mind releases these memories natuaraly as it see fit - when it thinks we are ready to cope with them.
Anyway enough said cause I think I've gone way off topic now and I'm bordering on dribble...heheheh

------------------
"Never trust a man who, when left alone in a room with a tea cozy, doesn't try it on" - Billy Connolly
[This message has been edited by haste (edited 10 July 2000).]

 

[E Bee]

my experience wasn't of a prepressed memory, but it freaked me out all the same...
I got held up at work by a guy with a sawn-off shotgun the day after my birthday...I freaked for a bit, but I was alright by the time I got home, and there was no way I was going to let it fuck up my plans for a birthday bikkie feast, so I went ahead and munched anyway.
I was at home, with all my best friends around me (some pilling, some straight). When my blue euro started to kick in really hard, I started getting flashbacks of the guy with the gun, and I started freaking out because I thought I'd be stuck with it for the whole roll

I told my boyfriend and some of my friends that I was having flashbacks....but they kind of ignored me

I was kinda shitty at them for a while after...but I guess they just didn't expect me to have a problem with it.
I'm lucky because I was able to reason with myself, and talk myself into thinking happy thoughts, so I snapped out of it after a while...I dread to think what the night would have been like if I hadn't of been strong enough to do that.
I'm not sure if rolling that night made it better or worse for me...the bad side was that a couple of my favourite songs got tainted with bad memories from that night, and I still get a horrible feeling when I listen to them (18 months later)

One good thing that happened though: I used to have recurring nightmares about people shooting me, and they stopped after that day (came back about 8 months or so later though).
I suppose it's possible that the E could have helped me in a way, by making me face it...because I know I would have just ignored it, and locked it away in my head, only to pop up at the most inconvenient moment.