The Comedown

[Taradox]

So I've been lurking here for a while now. I've been reading a lot about the comedown but I've read some disturbing things like a comedown can last months and years. What do people mean when they say that? I've even heard of it referred to as a Horror story. Like what does the user feel during that time? Agitation, anxiety, depersonalization, that kinda stuff? I used to be a big e head but haven't touched the stuff in a long time because of a breakdown. I'm not sure if it was e-related or not. Can e really fuck you up for months?

 

[vancbc]

Yea, it can. I can't say about pure MDMA, but I can tell you from personal experience that street E has the potential to mess you up for a long time. I abused for years and got away with it until one night in a club on some street E I had a very dark experience where in a split second something inside of me died. What died was what I always experienced as the joy of life; a sense of curiousity & adventure; and a creative side of myself that allowed me to write as my medium of artistic expression. I can't explain it, but the life was sucked out of me as I looked around the room and what a moment before was a sea of happy ravers became a cesspit of depraved people fucked out of their minds. I felt dead and cold inside, and what followed was a very dark time of years of anxiety, depression and thinking I would never feel alive again.

The recovery has not always been easy. It has gone in starts and stops. After several months of abstinence I begin to improve rapidly and since then it has been very slow but steady. It's taken almost three years with therapy, near complete drug abstinence, healthy eating and forcing myself to engage my mind; but it is working. I get better and better all the time. I've felt "fine" for quite a long time now, but it's only in the past several months that the magical wonder, joy and mystery of life is returning and I'm starting to feel creative and getting ready to start writing again.

 

[futura2012]

^^ I read your story with interest vanbc and it sounds very similiar to mine.

It seems most long terms comedowns are usually caused by excessive doses of E or a mixture of E and something else. (in most cases not all) In my case it was MDMA mixed with BZP. This was from a street tablet just as vanbc describes.

In a moment of weakness I was out clubbing fucked up on E and decided I wanted more. Made the error of eating a poorly sourced and untested tablet. As soon as I took that tablet within about 30 minutes my story is identical to how vanbc describes. The tablet I later discovered to be BZP. I had already taken a 150mG MDMA tablet and 1/4 a cap of MDMA.

I now suffer from Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Zero Memory, Insomnia, Confusion, Lowered Voice, Limited Vocabulary, Very Slow thinking, Apathy, HPPD, Shaking Hands, Social Phobia, Sensitive to Light, Sensitive to Sound, Nervous, Afraid to go Outside.

I now take no drugs, dont drink, take a few meds, reduced sugar I sometimes take a benzodiapine if I am very paniced.

Only now after one year I am starting to feel slightly better but I emphasize the word slighty. All the conditions above are still there. Life became overnight from a loving and fun person to mentally disabled locked inside my house.

Just out of interest vanbc what do you think the street E you took contained? How old are you whats your history of drug taking like? Feel free to refuse these questions if you feel this is prying. I am just very interested to hear more about your story.

Both these stories illustrate how IMPORTANT YOU MUST ALWAYS USE TESTING KITS. It is also imortant to test not just for MDMA but follow the instructions carefully to sniff out the adulterants such as Piperazine BZP etc.

Never buy from people at raves and clubs and know and trust your source. Do what ever you have to do to get decent MDMA tablets.

If you require adulterants add them yourself.

I used to be a big e head but haven't touched the stuff in a long time because of a breakdown. I'm not sure if it was e-related or not.

Maybe you could tell us a bit more about this breakdown taradox and we can give you an opinion. What is your story, what are the symptoms?

 

[F1n1shed]

I experienced this to as have many people on this board. I am sure pure mdma can cause it as well, but usually it is triggered by an mdma / piperzine combo. Or if you are a heavy mdma user your bound to get it sooner or later. Something about having most of your serotonin stores FORCED out in a 5 hour setting is just detrimental on your brain and psyche. That's years and years of happiness and emotion built up, made to come out in less than a days time. If you really think about that, it's a huge strain on your brain. Now i don't know if i am 100% , well i know i am not 100% but i am A LOT better than what i was 2 years ago. I learned to get used to the changes but at first it is hell on earth, the anxiety and denationalization is just torture to live with. So it is not a year long come down, rather long term damages caused by the substance that can be reversed for the most part by staying off all drugs but mostly heavy stimulants.

The things i was thinking when i was at my worst point was scary, my perception was off my emotions were all over the place. Weed caused me panic attacks all the time, i didn't know how to feel happy or what world i was really living in. Things looked normal, but they weren't. Its like your brain isn't processing what is going on, you'll be in class then all the sudden you look around and you get this feeling of impending doom that comes on for a few seconds. If you are used to having anxiety attacks you will ignore it and wait for it to pass and stop your thinking. If you are new to it, you will feel like you are going insane and there is no way out.

 

[futura2012]

Just out of interest F1 how did it get triggered for you? how much did you take prior etc?

For me I am 39, taken approx 400 tablets over 19 years. Last 5 years maybe 3-4 sessions per year.

In my young 20s a session was perhaps more once a month.

Maybe had about 5-10 large dose raves festivals over 3 days (over my life).

I got zapped 2 years ago by a bzp/mdma combo came out of it. Comedown lasted 6 months.

Now been going on for 11 months. Symptoms second time are much worse.

I will never take drugs again for the rest of my life as I cannot risk going through this horror show again.

 

[vancbc]

@futura2012

I'm 38. I started using E at age 25. I had used no other drugs prior to that unless you count alcohol and caffeine. I initially was a very cautious user and would take 1 pill per session and wait a minimum of 3 or 4 months before using again. I was careful for 2 or 3 years, but as I got familiar with the drug I lost respect and began to abuse. It was only double dropping at first but over the course of a decade it got to where I would take multiple pills in a high dose regimen over 12 to 14 hours. Frequency went from 3 or 4 times a year to once a month.

Along the way I dabbled in occasional weed usage which I used almost exclusively when high on E. I also tried LSD twice and did eat mushrooms on several occasions. I'm very experienced with E, but I'm relatively drug naive when it comes to most other drugs.

My experience with E has ranged from street pills to quality MDMA. As far as what I took that night when it all went bad for me - I honestly have no idea. I've never really given it much thought. I can say a good part of the high was edgy with an undertone of anxiety, and there were some crazy hallucinations such as birds flying around the club. I was quite off balance and had difficulty walking without wanting to fall over. It may have been anything from a very high dose of MDMA that opened a psychedelic window outside of the expected experience, or it may have been a pill that was anything but MDMA.

 

[boombastic]

There are some pretty worrying stories here. Would any of you guys who have described your problems rather have just never done any drugs at all? I feel as if I have been lucky with my drug use up until this point but its like with each roll I then decide to learn more & more about ecstasy and the more I learn the more wary I become, making the build up to each event slightly more worrying (in a ''what if something goes wrong'' kind of way). Last year I was just having a ball not thinking about any consequences, not testing any of the mdma or anything.

 

[futura2012]

There are some pretty worrying stories here. Would any of you guys who have described your problems rather have just never done any drugs at all?

Hello boom. Its great to hear your observations of this thread because as you can see this gives you an insight to what happens a bit later in life if you dont get the MDMA balance in your life right.

I think the answer to your question is an obvious YES. Now in this condition of course I wish I would have never taken drugs. But at the same time you have to be realistic and fair in this answer. Rewind the clock to when I was 20. Young and full of energy would I then have taken drugs? probably so because it was the 90s. The rave scene was new it was amazing. I think what I really wish for and soooo envy you people now is the availability of information. Internet enabled mobile phones / pill reports / bluelight / dancesafe / ecstasydata etc. Plus ecstasy has been around a lot longer now. I guess I just wish I had been more sensible in my drug use no highdose stuff, no monthly stuff no consequtive day stuff. Thats the regret really.

Now I am older and supposedly wiser my perception of drugs is different. I see drugs as something that has the very strong ability to blur and haze your brain thinking potential. If you want to be ahead of your game. Live your dreams. Move forward into your later years with a secured and happy future I think the drugs have the potential to set you back, allow you to get taken over by people who are truly ahead of their game.

When you really think about it we are animals and it truly is "survival of the fittest". If you take something that has the potential to make you perhaps not quite so fit you lose your status. Of all the drugs I see MDMA as one that needs closest attention as it can varie from being relatively safe to being extremely dangerous. It is this reason that ironically makes it so dangerous because people arent always aware of the real dangers lurking beneath brightly coloured 'happy' pills. I am not anti drugs. The just say no argument is futile and stupid. I support people in need as best as I can on here. But deep down thats what I think on the topic.

I'm 38. I started using E at age 25. I had used no other drugs prior to that unless you count alcohol and caffeine. I initially was a very cautious user and would take 1 pill per session and wait a minimum of 3 or 4 months before using again. I was careful for 2 or 3 years, but as I got familiar with the drug I lost respect and began to abuse. It was only double dropping at first but over the course of a decade it got to where I would take multiple pills in a high dose regimen over 12 to 14 hours. Frequency went from 3 or 4 times a year to once a month.

Thanks for that vanbc. Seems the period of drug taking we have is similiar. Yes its the monthly / high dose / and extra day stuff that really takes its tole. For this reason I always say to people with HR questions break should be 3 months I dont agree with the one month break theory. Dose wise I think 150mG is a sensible cap off point and following day rdose is an absolute NO NO.

What are your thoughts on booms question. Do you wish you had never taken drugs particularly MDMA?

 

[F1n1shed]

Futura it's hard to tell, but it was kind of a build up thing. Id take it no more than once a month at raves only, pill count is only around 40 total. One of my worst nights was a piperzine, mdma, meth combo that had me convinced i was gonna die for 6 hours straight. But i don't think that single event caused my problems alone, it was more of a combined thing. Plus i was a heavy smoker, smoking weed every day potent stuff. And it would cause me anxiety when i would smoke after doing E but i didn't care. Anyways I'm not sure i could pinpoint one event that pushed me over but it was from my ecstasy experiences for sure. Serotonin plays a huge role in many many processes of your brain. Messing with the levels of serotonin in huge amounts like E does causes derealization, depersonalization, anxiety and depression for sure and the list goes on. Some people are better at ignoring these things, and some people just haven't done enough to get to that point.

Anyways i wish i would have listened more to the research papers all saying it is a heavy neurotoxin. I would kid my self and say well i bet it won't be that damaging to me, but i am just like everyone else. Just because pure MDMA is a safe drug, meaning it takes a lot to over dose on doesn't mean it is safe all around. People get real caught up on well i read it takes grams of MDMA to over dose, but they don't look at the big picture. Yea you will survive but take E every week for years and you will be a walking tard, who wants to be like that : |

 

[futura2012]

Cheers for the feedback F1. Listening to a few issues on this thread it confirms my thoughts to how often you take MDMA. I think advice suggesting one month break is not good.

Seems for yourself the Weed wa probably as much to blame as the E. 40 total is relatively low.

Serotonin plays a huge role in many many processes of your brain. Messing with the levels of serotonin in huge amounts like E does causes derealization, depersonalization, anxiety and depression for sure and the list goes on.

Yes no doubt if you have these symptoms then MDMA is in the mix.

Some people are better at ignoring these things, and some people just haven't done enough to get to that point.

Very true also. Lets hope we can provide enough info to stop people from getting to this point. Unfortunately for me that point came from nowhere. There were not many signs to see it coming. Be warned anyone reading this!

Anyways i wish i would have listened more to the research papers all saying it is a heavy neurotoxin. I would kid my self and say well i bet it won't be that damaging to me, but i am just like everyone else.

Another great lesson for anyone reading. We all think we are invinsible when we are young of course

Just because pure MDMA is a safe drug, meaning it takes a lot to over dose on doesn't mean it is safe all around. People get real caught up on well i read it takes grams of MDMA to over dose, but they don't look at the big picture.

Personally I think anything over 150mG is too much. But 60-70mG is way better. Many pills in the 90s only had 60mG in them with some speed as well. In many ways you could argue this is better for you than the dutch superpill of today. Sometimes in my HR ironically I advise a bit of speed. This way you can maintain the roll but lessen the dose of MDMA.

I was very interested to hear about your pill count F1. Amazed the anxiety derealization etc kicked in that early. Would you say the MDMA is more to blame than the weed?

How old are u if you dont mind me asking?

 

[F1n1shed]

I am 22 futura, and yea id strongly suggest anyone who wants to drop MDMA that 3 months is the minimum waiting amount not 1 month. And no more than 150mg sounds about right, you brought up weed. I'm sure weed took its toll as well but the thing is i never got anxiety attacks from weed until after i was a roller. And i know countless others on this site who also said after they started doing E they got anxious on weed and got panic attacks, not everyone though. I should have let the weed go but i was a stubborn fuck and kept smoking until i learned how to cope with the anxiety attacks. 40 pills is a low count how ever it just shows how potent of a chemical it is, because i could notice changes in my self strictly related to MDMA and adulterants.

 

[Taradox]

Thank you all for your stories.

In my hopes of reversing some of the social anxiety, I thought MDMA would be the solution. I don't wanna risk going through the breakdown (which composed of social anxiety, general anxiety, depression and depersonalization) ever again. I'm still not sure whether it was caused by MDMA or not, there were a lot of other drugs in the mix I was taking at the time. However, MDMA does not seem like the cure. I have read of it "resetting" some of the negative effects. It's a gamble, one I don't wanna take at this moment though. Recovery is so close, I can almost taste it.

Thanks again!

 

[futura2012]

However, MDMA does not seem like the cure.

I would say reading all the above posts you would be very silly not to have reached this conclusion.

I have read of it "resetting" some of the negative effects. It's a gamble, one I don't wanna take at this moment though.

It has been known to 'reset' problems but I feel the negatives are far more likely than the positives. I would agree with your risk analysis.

Recovery is so close, I can almost taste it.

With positive thinking, healthy lifestyle, corrct choice of suppliments you can pretty much recover from most MDMA / Anxiety related issues.

 

[blight12]

Dunno about the comedown but I have bad anxiety and ptsd issues requiring meds to function, only coming right years later. This is from taking way to much at one time and to often, it was just to damn good. Is still rem the day i cracked, heavy derealisation, deporsonalisation. Hadnt yet discovered this helpful forum. Careful with messing with your emotion chemical, it literally is who you are and what you care about. The comedown/next day though was pleasent, blissfull contentness, no ups or downs, curtesy of less serotonin. I say mentally it can own you way worse then other stuff, i use and consider even meth safer in a way as dopamine is far less risky to mess with.

Also using it for a purpose is way more risky as you may get addicted or use to often, anyway mdma is way to "much", to silly, for normal social situations. If i where to recommend another illegal drug, low dose stimulants are far more useful, helped me.