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Healing My Posttraumatic Stress Disorder

MDMA

by Echo

Citation:   Echo. "Healing My Posttraumatic Stress Disorder: An Experience with MDMA (ID 16635)". Erowid.org. May 12, 2005. erowid.org/exp/16635

I had tried MDMA once before this, but the dose was very small. For the six months prior to this my second attempt, I suffered from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. The cause of the disorder had been eating mushrooms solo at a Halloween costume party, triggering a social phobia nightmare .

I took 50-70mg of MDMA in a very comfortable home with three of my closest friends. We sat around the living room chatting. After half an hour, the two other friends who also took MDMA had begun their journey.

I complained that nothing was happening.

Fifteen minutes later I glanced down at the clock.

When I looked up I was high as a kite. As far as I remember the subjective effects began instantly.

I did not like them. I am a rather anxious person, and the Amphetamine rush was hard on me. After about ten minutes of listening to conversation, I had worked myself into a panic. I was worried about having another episode like the one I had had six months earlier on mushrooms.

I discretely asked my friend who was not on MDMA to step into the next room with me. She comforted me, and said that in her experience the come-up on MDMA was usually a bit jittery.

For the next couple hours I told her about the horrible Halloween party and the therapy I had been having relating to it. I described for her the day-to-day panic and terror that I had lived with for half a year. I had not told anyone about the nature and extent of the problem until then. I helped her do her laundry as I talked. I could help very little and it was hard to form sentences at times.

During this conversation, I convinced myself that it was trauma causing the panic attacks I had been having for the last six months. I finally believed that I was not schizophrenic. This was a thought that my therapist and I had been working on for the previous six months.

After this short MDMA experience, I had far fewer panic attacks and the trauma disappeared. I did not feel the empathetic “roll” that I have heard so much about, but I got some very important mental work done. My world has become a much better place since this MDMA session. Now I can look into people’s faces without the dread of grotesque distortions talking back to me.

The problems that caused my mushroom experience have been with me my entire life. A ‘bad mushroom trip’ did not ruin me. I tried to explore myself, and stumbled upon some undiscovered country. Between the two experiences I have gained a lot, though it was not easy. My therapist and I believe this to be a positive experimental result for the use of MDMA in aiding the treatment of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder; which apparently has been tested before.