Skeeto 222, as always we are in the same line of reasoning. I also believe that all this may be a response to extreme stress. I'm finally starting to improve, but I think it all started long before my abuse of MDMA and other substances. In fact, I believe the abuse itself was a product of my previous problems.
Since I started with self-therapy discovered many things about myself, I realized that because of my childhood I developed a disorganized attachment system, which made me a narcissistic and egocentric person, addicted to influence others, wanting to control everything, imagining all possible future developments in relations with other people, usually negative, seeking acceptance, destroying myself. The theory I'm building shows that it was probably because I had a mother who loved me more than anything in the world, but also had constant emotional problems, as if in a moment she was super loving and made me feel safe, and in another she was simply depressed and angry and I did not know why, and thought it was my fault. To make matters worse my father was a jerk, he used to cheat on her and was a drug user, which caused a lot of stress for the family. Also, my sister was chubby and constantly bullied, she was 4 years older than me, and used to take all the anger and stress on me, then we'd fight, and my mother would be more stressed and have "reactions" that just me traumatized in several ways. My father was always traveling, so my childhood came down on me, my sister and my mother. My mother was overprotective, which hindered my relationship with others.
All this made me avoid my own basic needs of human being, and stay constantly focused on my mother's needs. I did not interact with other people, I just thought if my mother was fine or not. If she was fine, i was fine. Also, my love for my mother was very strong, and hers for me. She used to give me a lot of affection when she was not in a bad day, but was in love with my father, which made the Oedipus complex theory developed by Sigmund Freud happen exactly as he said himself.
This happened at the time when my brain was developing, so I grew as a person who is continuously thinking about how other people will react to what I speak when I do, and seeking to act in ways that will be accepted. Since 15 years I started to smoke marijuana, and find that it was possible to pleasure myself, so I used it as a valve of escape from the reality of pleasing others which was submitted for a long time and started to walk away from my family.
Until the age of 18 when I met a girl and felt in love. She was like my mother, gave me all the love I needed (without the problems of depression), and for two years I was extremely happy. I was completely in love with that girl, and she for me, it was the most beautiful time of my life. (Note: The feeling of love I felt for her was basically the same feeling I had when I used MDMA later). I stoped seeking for acceptance because I had all the love I needed, but it made me start to reveal a side of me that until recently I never realized. I wanted her just for me, I wanted her to devote all the time to me, I was extremely jealous, I was afraid of losing her as I lost my mother to my father. As I've always been a smart person, and she loved me, I could manipulate her to devote all the time for me. This generated a lot of stress, Until, after numerous fights, we broke up.
It was horrible, the sense of feeling alone made me go into a depression for long months. With self-esteem down there, returning to society, gradually I started to look for acceptance of others again, and began to build basically the same image of my father, I fed my ego with that image and felt good, I found refuge in MDMA. I remember the first time I used had the same feeling when I was in love with my ex girlfriend. Everything was perfect, I went out, going to parties, had built a jerk image, I got on well with women, but these problems were hidden, repressed, waiting ... until on a beautiful evening, I abused the substance. After 7 untested pills in one night, mixed with large amounts of alcohol, I messed with my serotonin system.
The next day serotonin was still upstairs, I smoked a joint, everything was great. The other day, during the comedown, my serotonin levels probably got lower to an extreme level, and then I smoked a joint, and after only a few minutes, this was the recipe for the most horrible panic attack of my story. This one panic attack was the trigger for my depersonalization. All these anxiety problems have joined a new horrible trauma. Weed panic attacks are the worst because you really are in an altered state of reality, and I thought I had damaged my brain and I was going crazy.
What do i think today? I think it happened because it should happen. Before all that I had tried to quit smoking marijuana more than 50 times without success. I finally succeeded, I finally began to dedicate myself to exercise, I finally started to leave my ego aside, finally began to seek to satisfy my own needs in a healthy way, look for ways to develop my brain, study, and mainly treat myself.
Do I think that MDMA damaged my brain? It's possible, as well as alcohol. But I found that my LTC is actually a state of depersonalization caused by all of this that i just told you, and a few things more.
Today I can say that I solved almost 100% of my problems like erectile dysfunction, low libido, anxiety and palpitations, fatigue, brain fog. I had hard times with insomnia, and now, under treatment and follow-up of a psychiatrist/psychotherapist, I can sleep. I'm still at the beginning of my recovery, but I finally see the possibility of a better future. Through meditation I accept my reality and develop areas of the brain that involve sincere empathy, through the exercises I can create and stimulate new neurons, through my self-therapy I can stop worrying so much about things.
If there was an damage, it was probably in my memory system, but since I started sleeping better my memory improved a lot, and my cognitive and learning functions, but if I stop to think, since I was 15 when I started smoking pot I didn't devoted time in this regard. If anyone relate to any of these events, please feel free to share information.