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LTC Symptoms came back after a very long time.

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Jiraiya

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 20, 2013
Messages
133
Location
Melbourne, Australia.
ADMIN: Please let me know if this isn't allowed, if so I can move the post elsewhere.

Hey everyone.

I am an old time poster here. I'm not sure if anyone remembers me, it might be all new faces here now! I was a bit apprehensive posting here as this is a bit of a trip down memory lane and I might read something I don't want to, but I thought fuck it why not.

Basically the last time I took MDMA was June 2013, a long time ago. I had pre-existing panic disorder/anxiety that was present at the time, however it would only show up every few years for a month or so, and I've probably used MDMA around 10 times, never large doses (I was living in Australia at the time so I know that our pills are alot weaker). No it was not tested, but I'm the only one that actually had problems from it, everyone else was fine. I won't go into too much detail but if you want to read my story then you can view my previous posts. I had all the typical symptoms - anxiety, depression, DR/DP etc etc. It was a living hell.

Anyways, back to June 2013, my anxiety skyrocketed about 4-5 days after that party. To be fair I only did one small line, around a 1/3 of a cap at this party. It took me about half a year to slowly return to my old self. The old me seemed to come back in layers, and I seemed to finally be free of this nightmare. It became obvious that my symptoms were mostly anxiety fueled. About February 2014, I was enjoying life once again, actual loving life! The only symptoms that remained was a mild form of the panic disorder I suffered BEFORE MDMA, and this didn't bother me because it only happened like once a week or something. I then had a setback in July 2014 , which only lasted 2-3 months max. Then once again, pretty much back to normal for the next 10 months, with a few minor setbacks that lasted no longer that a few days (once again, pre-existing anxiety). No depression or anything. I wasn't even remotely worried about the drugs at this point! I had completely moved past it.

I recently returned from an OE in Europe. When I arrived back, about four days later all my symptoms returned again due to complications with a girl - the usual emotional shit that accompanies a break up - I'm well over this now. Anyways up until about four days ago, I was doing not too bad, then the thought came out of nowhere - What if the MDMA did this to me permanently. FUCK! Now whenever I have the thought, it is accompanied by a feeling of fear and absolute despair. Wtf I thought I moved past this.

Since then, I've been reading posts on Bluelight, going on google looking up brain damage etc - not so helpful as everything I read was conflicting information. I've basically reinforced my original fear.

Most of the people I used to converse with on here have actually gone on to recover, or are in a much better state than they were. I'm pretty sure most of them abused MDMA far more than I did. Some people did 500-600 pills throughout their life and recovered. I probably didn't even abuse it. Yet I can't get past the idea of brain damage - even though I came right for a long time, and back to enjoying life. I'm pretty much feeling like I'm back to square one, or close to square one. Also it's probably important to note that I haven't taken any drugs since, expect for very occasional weed smoking, and I drink now and again which causes no problems. Also my diet has been absolute shithouse and I smoke, I'm currently on my last pack and changing to a healthier diet.

Any thoughts? Deep down I think this must just be the anxiety talking and I'm overthinking it, but I felt the need to post here. I know people who suffer from the same shit but didn't take MDMA at all. But for some reason I just can't move past it and I really need to move forward. Thanks everyone :)
 
I'm already dreading the replies haha, this is how scared I am right now. If I went back to normal for ages then surely this has to be just anxiety fueled right? I know my symptoms are standard textbook anxiety/DP/DR, but yeah I'm back to fearing the whole 'brain damage' thing.
 
If you got pretty much back to normal I believe it's safe to say this is not because of permenant damage from the MDMA :) You would've never gotten better if that was the case.

There is this pattern of thinking you can get stuck in, kicking yourself over and over for taking a drug that messed with you, unfortunately every time you're doing that you're going back to "that place" and re living it. This becomes something of a self fulfilling prophecy. You might believe your mind is fucked, so hence your mind is fucked just from the anxiety of that thought.

I know a girl who actually had really bad dr/dp from her first time doing weed, which we know is not toxic. It was bad for 2 months and then she was about back to normal at 4 months. Anyways, dr/dp etc. is not indicative of brain damage because it happens with substances that are not brain damaging, and it happens outside of substances too which it sounds like you understand. What I think is important to understand about whatever emotionally strong experience is that though they're not "brain damaging" they can change your psyche.

Take for example a traumatic experience, forever after the traumatic experience your brain will jump to the worst conclusions and you will have fears/anxiety and heavy stress responses etc. regarding things that you didn't have before. Your brain makes an association with things that were happening around the time of the trauma, likely in an effort to avoid those associated things to avoid the harm of the trauma again. For example if you smelled a certain smell during the trauma and then years down the road smelled the same smell again, it would bring back memories and you would probably "re-live" the trauma again in your head.

A theory about what has happened recently to you is you associated your "anxiety/dr/dp" type feelings and conscious experience with MDMA, and you associated the MDMA with brain damage. Now that the feelings and conscious experience you felt and associated with MDMA and then associated with brain damage a while ago have come back, even though not related to any substance in this instance, you have related it to brain damage because you relate the feelings to MDMA and relate the MDMA to brain damage. I hope that makes sense.

Anyways, people have horrible horrible mental problems without having ever touched a drug, drugs might uncover things that we then have to deal with though. In the case of MDMA I believe it's honestly an overactive mind problem and not a "brain damaged under active" mind problem. Have you ever been interested in mindfulness meditation? I think learning to meditate on the breath could help you a lot.
 
Hi thanks for the reply Cotcha. Yeah I do try mindfulness meditation now and again.

The problem is I've spent all day reading studies etc. I read a few from a guy called George Ricaurte, showing that MDMA damage occurs in primates with little to no recovery, and this is at recreational doses relevant to humans. I've read other studies, but they all just confuse me. I know I didn't really overdo it with MDMA, but for some reason I still believe that this applies to me. I've pretty much lost all hope now. I can't really see a way out of this which sucks and I'm totally perceiving myself as 'brain damaged'. I don't know why I'm believing this, as I came right for so long.

This study below definitely fucked with my head.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3181923/
 
I have a serious feeling that these feelings such as DP/DR are just anxiety-related... I know a lot of LTC sufferers get DP/DR from MDMA, but maybe there isn't actual neurotoxic damage, but instead MDMA just causes anxiety to skyrocket, and then anxiety causes stuff like depression, DP/DR ? Like maybe what you are going through right now isn't even related to MDMA at all ?

I don't know, its just speculation, but there are sooooo many different types of people out there that suffer from these set of symptoms, and most of them have never touched MDMA, however there is ONE thing they all have in common....anxiety..

People who quit smoking weed go through this, people on the no-fap forum go through this, benzo-withdraw, antidepressant-withdrawal. So many others that I don't even know about.
 
I'm sure someone will back me up on this in a bit but Ricaurte is the LAST guy you should be reading hahaha, he actually withdrew a study once because he "accidentally" used meth instead of MDMA and then claimed MDMA causes Parkinsons. Anyways, I wouldn't pay too much attention to the animal models that involve ridiculous dose multi day binges, there are a lot of arguments about the brain chemistry changes after MDMA going around.

In the really heavy human abusers there are some memory deficits, hard in some cases to pin down to MDMA itself because most of the users are poly drug. But as far as neurotoxicity is concerned there is a study done on human abusers and their SERT binding, a possible marker of how much serotonin axons they have. Its down a tiny bit for a little while after MDMA use but once they are abstinent it comes back to about normal, suggesting that even if there is neurotoxicity, the serotonin axons grow back and rewire. Those people abused something like 700 pills or something though. But there's no real reason to believe there is damage done to the serotonin cell body itself. I would probably stop torturing yourself with these studies :D

Here is a more positive one https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/10195220/
 
Thanks man. All the studying just seems to confuse me and reinforce this whole thing more. I'm back in the whole obsessive stage and it's made me alot worse.
 
I would definitely relax on the studying neuroscience and focus on what is in your control. Doing cardio does increase neurogenesis and will help you make new brain cells regardless of whether you've lost any or not and has countless health benefits for the brain otherwise. I highly recommend 20-30 minutes 3-4 times a week of cardio. I hope you can get back into the mindfulness meditation, my biggest piece of advice regarding that is to focus your attention on the sensation of breathing, wherever you feel it. Every time the voice in your head or thoughts come back, shift your attention again to the breath, this can help your sleep greatly and sleep is very important for the brain. If your mind is very overactive it will be hard though, this is however a sign that you really need it. Same with cardio, if the cardio is really hard for you, its a sign that you need it and can benefit from getting stronger at it. Best of luck man, feel free to PM me if you ever have any questions.
 
When I go trip or holidays and come back I feel anxious and depressed,but after a week that pass away
 
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