DOSE:

300 mg

oral

MDMA

BODY WEIGHT:

195 lb

I feel as though in a bit of a cliché way, all recreational drug users have this moment in one way or another. My final encounter with “MDMA”, “MOLLY”, “E” will be a night that haunts me for the rest of my life, no exaggeration.

I started using MDMA in the fall of 2010, my senior year of high school. With the rise of the EDM scene came with it our little friend. I had been attending shows for four years now, learning how to be a “responsible recreational user” along the way. I learned to enjoy these events without taking drugs, saving those instances for special occasions (summer music festivals and New Years mostly). I will always love EDM and what the scene meant to my adolescence, and ultimately, MDMA was a part of that.

The night of the incident, February 28th, I was attending an event in New York City with a few friends and knew going into the night I was planning to take MDMA. To preface, I had been working non-stop for the latter part of two months and felt I deserved a night off. No work the next day, no worries. My mind going into the experience was positive, and to be honest, I was not thinking much of it. I knew what to expect and when to expect it, it was a pretty typical night out.

The first two hours were without a doubt one of the best times I have had with MDMA. I felt all of the classic euphoria, good vibes with my peers, and I was attracting lots of female attention with my dancing, all in all a great start to the night. The problem began about half way through the first act. I began to start feeling a bit paranoid, very unusual for me on MDMA. I can honestly say before this point I had been lucky and had nothing but positive experiences. The paranoia soon rapidly began growing as I noticed or at least I thought I noticed people in the crowd beginning to stare at me, and not for my dance moves. I had felt like I could not focus on any specific object, also a new feeling, and whenever I looked in the general direction of someone around me, I literally could not help but make eye contact with them. It was total sensory overload. Being an experienced user I went through the routine in my head “you’re going to be okay, let the drug run its course, if you feel like it gets THAT bad, do what you have to do.” No luck.

I began to realize that people around me were noticing my eyes fluttering uncontrollably every time a new light or face came into my vision. My eyes were crossing and shuttering like mad and it was starting to worry those around me. Intensely feeling the bad vibes I was creating, or thought I was creating, I quickly moved to the other side of the dance floor. Same thing. I would try to dance, but now with each passing minute the worry and anxiety were building to palpable levels to the point where I was, without saying anything, harshly disturbing my neighbors wherever I went. Everyone could feel that something was wrong with me, and I could hear all of their comments mixed in with the music and the general noise in the room. I am still not sure if the effect of “vibes” MDMA gives and the fact that probably a decent amount of people there were using it as well, if my situation was actually that noticeable and I was in effect creating this discomfort, or if it was all in my own head. I realized what was going on, pulled my hat over my forehead, and moved again. No luck. My anxiety was through the roof and absolutely nothing could relinquish it. I began walking around the venue with my head locked staring at the floor, feeling the concern for me as I shuffled past each person. I felt like I was a machine of negative energy, something that to any experienced raver is poison on the dance floor.

I left my friends for about an hour, called my buddy back home to get his “sober perspective.” He told me I was making perfect sense on the phone and that I should ask someone to borrow their glasses for the remainder of the evening. I knew this was a physical effect, I could feel my eyes moving and feel the anxiety, which was very frustrating because all that aside the MDMA was still working very strongly. But I could not enjoy it no matter how hard I tried or what I did. Between my anxiety and the fact that I could not look someone in the face without my eyes going absolutely nuts, made this impossibility. I spent the remainder of the evening struggling to find a spot where I felt comfortable. 3 floors, no luck. I had intense and honest conversations with various people, hoping that in sharing my experience with them in the moment, it would ease my anxiety. But it did not. I spent the rest of the night worrying that every passerby was homed in on me and that since I had been there and made my rounds in a sense, “nowhere was safe.”

I now hope that once I return to work and normal life, my situation subsides. I do not know if any permanent damage was done, but I still get anxious about looking someone in the eye in fear of my eyes repeating their actions. Once again, I am someone who has experienced every possible pleasure MDMA has to offer multiple times, but I am now too scared to go near the substance again.

Exp Year: 2014	ExpID: 102747
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 22
Published: Nov 21, 2024	Views: 27
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MDMA (3) : Difficult Experiences (5), Rave / Dance Event (18)