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Jabazz
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Registered: 05/27/06
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Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety?
#5679132 - 05/27/06 12:32 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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About 2 years ago I was diagnosed with moderate depression and SaD (Social Anxiety Disorder) I was prescribed all the regular anti-depressants and even attended therapy for a short while, but it didn't seem to help me at all. I've read a lot of experience reports on erowid of people using MDMA as a sort of self-therapy method to help them overcome such disorders. They compared it to spending months in therapy sessions. Has anyone had an experience like this before? I'm thinking of taking it alone as to have a very introspective experience, and get to the root of why I'm feeling and thinking in the negative ways that I do.
Edited by Jabazz (05/27/06 12:34 AM)
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Crestfallen
some kindasomethin'

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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5679426 - 05/27/06 02:19 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Well man, IMO yes i think it could help. My only concern would be the medications you are currently taking (if any) may have an effect on your experience. I'm no expert, but I know that many anti-depressants work via the serotonin in your brain, which is also the way MDMA works- so there may be adverse reactions. It would be wise to probably not have any other medications in your system at the time of dosing. When messing with brain functions, its best NOT to fuck up...
MDMA was used in psychiatry and therapy sessions (marriage counseling in particular) before it was illegalized in the 1980's and has been hailed as a great therapy tool.
IMO, the setting you are in is one of if not THE determining factor of how the experience is. - For therapeutic purposes tho, a good environment would be one that is chilled out for sure. The party side of MDMA can kind of overrule the therapeutic effects if there is a lot of sensory input (loud music, crazy lights, and tons of people). - If you are more of a loner and see other people as possibly getting in the way of the experience, then sure try it solo. But (again IMO) it would be better if someone (maybe 1 or 2 other people) that you are close to were around to chill with you and talk or give you a backrub or whatever.
Anyways, whichever you choose i think its a definite possiblity for you to gain some insight into your perspective and even how it could be changed for the better. If all goes well, you might move up a step into a psychedelic like mescaline which has powerful potential for gaining perspective. (Mescaline and MDMA are chemically related as they both are phenethylamines). Much Love.
-------------------- The above statement is completely fictional and composed solely for the purpose of entertainment.
Edited by Crestfallen (05/27/06 02:21 AM)
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Disco Cat
iS A PoiNdexteR

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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5679588 - 05/27/06 04:24 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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My oppinion is very similar. MDMA could be a very beneficial experience, however I strongly urge you to have at least 1 friend who has committed themselves to taking care of you for as long as that intoxication lasts. Opposite sex is a strong +, but not required - whoever you're most comfortable with and can reveal yourself to.
Edited by Disco Cat (05/27/06 04:34 AM)
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Icelander
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Disco Cat]
#5683409 - 05/28/06 01:17 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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The MDMA experience changed my life in a big way.
Using it alone is the ultimate. Here's a technique that can work wonders. Completely dark womb like warm room with full length body pillow. You need a comfortable pad or bed. Two hits clean XTC is best. Take one get naked if possible and relax on the bed. At one hour take the other. You may find yourself in a fetal position with the pillow which is good. When you are coming down I recommending reading Handbook to Higher Consciousness by Ken Keyes. Or take a walk in the woods. When you come down take lots of vitamin C and other antioxidants. This can greatly help with any after effects. Doing this really turned on my self love light.Good luck.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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Stoned_Druid
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5685926 - 05/29/06 09:29 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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It would help, it's not really a pill you can pop everyday though.
-------------------- "Sanity is for the Weak"
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Corporal Kielbasa

Registered: 05/29/04
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5685938 - 05/29/06 09:37 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I feel a group would be one good way, even better would be with really good feeling music and a crowd of people. Unite feel the posetivity and rejoice.
Or as Ice said alone is totaly good too. My personal prefered reading on the come down of a trip is the book by Ram Das, Be Here Now. The art and poetry and the messages will totally flip your mind.
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Catalysis
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5685939 - 05/29/06 09:39 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I actually disagree with the above posts. I don't think MDMA is a very good tool for psychotherapy at all. The high is too short lived and it changes your thought patterns and disposition so much, so rapidly that it is almost impossible to integrate everything into your sober life. Anyone who has done X knows that you think about all kinds of things which seem remarkable at the time only to wake up the next day and wonder why the hell you thought that. I have found this is more true for X than other drugs such as shrooms or lsd which are easier to integrate even though the revelations may be even more profound. You will just end up self-medicating with MDMA and abusing it to feel good. I have seen it a million times. I think people are too over-anxious to have one of these drugs become a valid medical tool. Just IMO.
You can try it once or twice but if you don't notice any lasting changes, I would not continue. Just use it on occasion recreationally.
Edited by Catalysis (05/29/06 09:46 AM)
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Catalysis]
#5685953 - 05/29/06 09:50 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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MDMA already was a great tool for psychotherapy.
Quote:
MDMA was considered to possess a "unigue action that enhanced communication" (Greer 1985), especially between people in a significant emotional relationship. Reductions in defenses and fear of emotional injury and a heightened capacity for introspection were reported. MDMA was reported to enhance retrieval of previously suppressed memories, leading to reduction of symptoms (Grinspoon and Bakalar, 1986). These effects of MDMA were achieved with relatively modest reported side effects and no indications of chronic toxicity.
http://www.maps.org/mdma/protocol/review2.pdf
It was made illegal because people began to use it recreationally. America is very suspicious of recreation.
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loopin20
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Veritas]
#5685959 - 05/29/06 09:54 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Alcohol helps me with social anxiety, so should I use it to help overcome my social anxiety, or will it just mask the problem? MDMA was used as a tool to assist in therapy, not for hanging out in isolation to ponder your self. JMO.
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
Posts: 11,089
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: loopin20]
#5685967 - 05/29/06 10:00 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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If you choose to use a tool as a crutch, then it is not therapeutic. If you utilize it as one aspect of self-therapy, then you will benefit.
If your intention was to overcome social anxiety, then you might utilize alcohol as a disinhibitor during the initial phase of your therapy. Once you have several successful social interactions "under your belt," you would introduce other methods of reducing your anxiety.
MDMA was never meant to be a permanent or sole solution to emotional problems. This does not mean that it cannot be therapeutic.
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Corporal Kielbasa

Registered: 05/29/04
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Catalysis]
#5685984 - 05/29/06 10:13 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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Quote:
Catalysis said: I actually disagree with the above posts. I don't think MDMA is a very good tool for psychotherapy at all. The high is too short lived and it changes your thought patterns and disposition so much, so rapidly that it is almost impossible to integrate everything into your sober life. Anyone who has done X knows that you think about all kinds of things which seem remarkable at the time only to wake up the next day and wonder why the hell you thought that. I have found this is more true for X than other drugs such as shrooms or lsd which are easier to integrate even though the revelations may be even more profound. You will just end up self-medicating with MDMA and abusing it to feel good. I have seen it a million times. I think people are too over-anxious to have one of these drugs become a valid medical tool. Just IMO.
You can try it once or twice but if you don't notice any lasting changes, I would not continue. Just use it on occasion recreationally.
The idea is to moderate your dose and use it as a tool. Its not about self medicating just to feel good for a the night. Its about building your life up from that point on.
When you abuse anything its power fades. When you do something just for fun you loose all its meaning. When you use a substance and guide your self through its eyes along with the use of aids like music, dancing, drumming, and art, you create for yourself. You dont loose anything the next day becayse you materialised and crystalised and icorporated it into you, not just through you.
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dblaney
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5687926 - 05/29/06 07:11 PM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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I have been clincally depressed in the past and have been shy though never formally diagnosed as SaD. A little more than a year ago I went out to the desert and took some mescaline (which I'm fairly certain didn't work) and a tab of MDMA. I had prepared a list of personal issues, and brought a tape recorder, and worked through most of my issues on my way up a mountain. When I reached the top I felt completely free, alive, and happy: feelings which I hadn't felt for years. It was a life changing and wonderful experience. Since that day I haven't really been depressed and have branched out in many aspects in life. MDMA really helped me out...it gave me a much needed push in the right direction.
I would highly recommend MDMA to anyone who can physically tolerate it.
-------------------- "What is in us that turns a deaf ear to the cries of human suffering?" "Belief is a beautiful armor But makes for the heaviest sword" - John Mayer Making the noise "penicillin" is no substitute for actually taking penicillin. "This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it." -Abraham Lincoln
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hybridphil
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: dblaney]
#5689164 - 05/30/06 12:11 AM (17 years, 8 months ago) |
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It could be just me, but after an MDMA trip is done and over with for me, I am left with nothing but feelings of anxiety, and depression from the comedown as it is the last thing that I feel from it. I can see it being beneficial, but not for everybody.
-------------------- Psilocybin anonymous
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Catalysis
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: hybridphil]
#5691497 - 05/30/06 05:17 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Quote:
hybridphil said: It could be just me, but after an MDMA trip is done and over with for me, I am left with nothing but feelings of anxiety, and depression from the comedown as it is the last thing that I feel from it. I can see it being beneficial, but not for everybody.
Well, people with an already depressed CNS experience a heavier dopamine system rebound than normal people. Personally, I get tropane-like feelings of discontent, nightmares, central sleep apnea (scary, by the way), and dizzyness for up to a week after taking pure molly. This is one of the many reasons why I don't think MDMA self-therapy is good for those with mild to moderate depression.
I do think MDMA therapy would be good for severe depression (i.e. suicidal or sociopathic) and coping with terminal illness. It is also my understanding that these are the main areas of current academic research into MDMA.
I am not saying don't try it. There is really no reason not too and I know that most people would try anything to relieve mental illness. Just keep in mind that doing something like this outside of a controlled setting without an expert on hand to administer the doses often results in drug addiction. All im saying is go for it but set your boundaries ahead of time and be willing to accept failure.
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Trav
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#5699025 - 06/01/06 10:20 AM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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I used MDMA heavily for about three months. Abuse of the drug increased my anxiety incredibly and left me in far worse mental shape then I was before using the it. It must be said that I was abusing the drug, so I cannot say if moderate use would help or not.
The E made me extremely social but I began to think I needed E to be normal in social situations. When put into situations without the drug, anxiety and nervousness increased 10 fold. I am still fighting the problem today, and wish I would have taken it easy with the mdma.
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Catalysis
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Trav]
#5705089 - 06/02/06 06:49 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Thanks for the report. This is exactly what I am trying to explain and why the misunderstanding that MDMA self-therapy is always beneficial for general depression is so dangerous. Sorry to be so negative in this thread but this topic concerns me for many reasons. Be smart, safe, and know yourself.
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Veritas

Registered: 04/15/05
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Catalysis]
#5711105 - 06/04/06 12:58 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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You are confusing use with abuse. What has been discussed on this thread is not regular abuse of MDMA in a "party" setting, but deliberate, occasional use in a one-on-one or solo setting, followed by therapeutic integration methods.
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Icelander
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Veritas]
#5712673 - 06/04/06 08:41 PM (17 years, 7 months ago) |
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Zactly.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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nhmi
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: Jabazz]
#18722881 - 08/18/13 01:29 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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hope you start to feel better man
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The Lizard King
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Re: Using MDMA as a tool for Depression and Anxiety? [Re: nhmi]
#18722905 - 08/18/13 01:35 PM (10 years, 5 months ago) |
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Yeah, hang in there OP.
--------------------
Dipping Swords in Metaphors
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