BODY WEIGHT:

130 lb

July 12, 2000

I've tried to write a reflection of my Ecstasy experiences. At the time of my meltdown, I blamed the psychoactive pharmaceutical medications that I was given.

Of course, what I didn't write in my post last year [included below] was of the panic attack going up on the E that a friend talked me through, or the panic attacks coming down even before I'd taken the zoloft. I didn't include that my pupils were all dilated and I was hot and cold and shivering nor that as I came down, I experienced huge uncertainty about the prudence of the decisions I made.

Because these details didn't fit what I wanted to believe: that MDMA had no negative impact on my mind state; that it was all the psychoactive pharmaceuticals and that when those stopped my problems would go away and I'd feel better. Most importantly, I needed to feel, at that time, that I didn't break my brain on the substance.

Now, after a year of no Ecstasy use and minimal drug use (3 total occasions), I now believe Ecstasy to have had a large impact on my psychic condition.

I definitely was fighting depression over the year that I took E 5 times and that would have been present with or without the drug. But E pushed me to a place I otherwise would not have gone. Since the panic attacks of that summer, I have continued to experience them: it is as if my mind learned a new trick. I spent most of the last year in an exhausted, depressed state, mostly just sleeping and numb to the world, alternating with extreme anxiety and crying. I could not get a handle on the freaking out and never seemed to stabilize. It finally took paxil to stabilize my depression, to allow me to relax, refocus and begin to regroup and to let go.

I feel very strongly that E caused me to form unnatural attachments to people, attachments that I feel weren't real, and to feel extremely hurt as these newfound relationships disintegrated. I read way too much into what was being said by me; I formed crushes that were exhausting to those I had them for.

Even when done only with people truly close, I still experienced plummeting depressions immediately after use for a few weeks; either numbness or anxious suicidal ideation. I feel like my tendency for episodic anxiety became more constant. I know, during this time, and the following year, I lost my ability to connect, to remember who mattered to me, and where my friends were.

Can I prove it was the MDMA? Of course not. Can you ever? But I know myself and I know what I was reacting too. I have had similar rebound depressions from failed relationships before. I'm sure that the drug use was a symptom to my attempts to run from my problems. But when everything hit, it hit fast, all at once, and with a fury I barely survived. And I know it was the E trip that caused everything to hit so fast, and send me dangerously close to crossing the line.

!frog

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The original Post - Tuesday July 22nd, 1999

I'm not accustomed to making 'dump your life's problems' type of posts. I tend to be very personal and private about things; carefully picking and choosing my confidentes for how they will be able to relate to a situation. But something inspires me to write this out to a more general audience.

I have had the week from hell. A week ago Friday, I took MDMA (75 mgs and a 25 mg boost). At the time, I was torn about some major life decisions - I could not decide where to live in the fall, I was packing and crying non-stop for the 2 weeks before, and I decided to try the therapy route of MDMA to try to get me through and make a decision. I took it alone; I hung online for a bit, talked to A and F, and then spent quite a bit of time simply meditating on things. Everything became clear - how I worked, how I would react to the situation, the right thing to do. It was very productive.

I have a tendency to get very depressed after MDMA, so instead of 5htp, I took Zoloft to counter the crash. Very quickly I had a six hour anxiety attack. At the time, in the midst of X forgetfulness, I forgot that I had taken zoloft. I then hung out, very strung out, but was able to sleep that night. I was fine until the following evening, when I took 50mgs more of zoloft. Within 2 hours I felt all warm and arms and chest ached and worried and anxious. This persisted all the way into the next day, until finally, at 6pm, I took myself to the hospital. While there, I talked myself down, finally realizing I was not sick, that this was simply anxiety. I was fine again til the middle of the night and then I woke up after 1.5 hours of sleep, extremely anxious. The next day, I collapsed at work, crying in tears in my bosses office and then went to my doctor. I did not tell her about the MDMA however, so they prescribed more zoloft and then trazodone.

Talking to people online, I had a full-fledged panic attack, and showed up at my doctors in tears, struggling for breath with a racing pulse. She told me the trazodone was the best they could do for me.

So I started taking the drug, trusting the doctors. It didn't really help the sleep or the night panics (where I'd wake up from a dead sleep after 1.5 hours in a panic, and then need hours to recover from the adreneline surge and pass out again). By Friday, when I dosed, in about 2 hours, I'd get suicidally ideated for about 4 hours til the dose would start expiring from my system.

The panics continued all weekend; though sunday night, I stayed at mom's,
took some sleep ninjas [diphenhydramine - erowid], and although I slept interruptedly, I did sleep. I was actually fine - a little worrisome, but that was more my natural worrisome feeling - until about 2pm. At that point, I woke up anxious again; I went to work to distract myself and I lost emotional control again, once again crying in my bosses office. I had a conversation then online that I'm trying to let go; that felt slightly destabilizing. I initiated it; as if to fuck up what seemed to be going well in my life. Perhaps that's overly harsh. But it was good, because it made me realize there was far more going on than just drug-drug interactions in my system.

My friend and I went to my home; we sat down with a pad of paper and a pen, and we listed all of the things on my mind; set aside action items for now; action items for later; things I could work on; things that needed time. It felt very relieving - like 'well, is that all. That's downright maneageable.'

So - where does this all leave me now? After making the list - I went to sleep. I'm still not sleeping without waking, but I did not have the intense anxiety attacks tonight. I feel like, if more stuff comes up, I can put it on the list; take it one thing at a time. Not expect for it all to clear up at once, and not expect for it all to be easily resolved. Just work through it all. Meanwhile, right now, I'm scared and frightened. I've decided that I need to stop using drugs; I cannot go through anything like this again anytime soon.

!frog

Exp Year: 2000	ExpID: 2445
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 13, 2000	Views: 39,041
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MDMA (3) : Alone (16), Post Trip Problems (8), Depression (15), Retrospective / Summary (11)