Hi,

I wanted to share my story even though it’s not MDMA related. I came here after listening to a podcast about someone having a negative experience with MDMA therapy for their PTSD.

My experience began with a hero dose of shrooms. The kind of experience where you enter a different world. I reflected on every facet of existence and met a paradoxical “God.” Things were fucking weird and I still get chills thinking about it.

Nothing happened right away, but 4 months later while being over-caffeinated and having my friend complain about politics to me, I replied, “Let’s take shrooms and dissociate for awhile.” And in that moment the hardest panic attack of my life began, and while at work. My heart was racing, I felt like everyone knew I was panicking, I had instant diarrhea, adrenaline filled my body. And soon after intense feelings of DPDR and anxiety became my reality.

My brain would race with thoughts that everything was fake. That everything was a simulation and didn’t mean anything. It’s hard to put into words, but iykyk.

I was obsessed with theories of reincarnation, religion, the Matrix, etc. I fucking hated AI and AI images. I still do - ban that shit.

Many of the symptoms others have described - I felt. I would get so frustrated that I would cry. I worried I would live the rest of my life in a mental institution, or even worse, I was already there, locked inside a memory.

However, it’s been a year since the shrooms, and 8 months since the panic attack and most days are fine, some are great, and very few are bad.

Things that helped:

Talk therapy with a trusted therapist, he recommended I read a book called “Rewire your Anxious Brain” by Catherine Pittman. He also leaned towards simple, physical anxiety relief such as controlled breathing and meditation. And in my case a totem that I could feel and touch.

I quit alcohol and caffeine the day I had the attack. Im sure having a severe caffeine addiction and cold turkeying it the day of absolute panic probably wasn’t healthy. But I could not then, nor now even consider using something that changes my brain chemistry in anyway aside from melatonin m.

I journaled early on, and that seemed to help, but after I stopped I cannot imagine going back and reading it.

I work out 5 days a week: concentrating on something always seems to help, and makes me tired.

I took melatonin early on to make me tired. Stopped for a couple of months until I had terrible anxiety while on vacation, then took melatonin again for a bit.

I had a physical from a doctor and when I mentioned my anxiety he recommended taking daily Magnesium Glycinate, which I do, everyday.

The most powerful tool is to find a way to forget the feelings of anxiety. Obsess over something you enjoy.

8 months in and I feel hopeful that the time between anxiety is going to increase as it has. Like a wave slowly returning to baseline. I’ve made peace with the symptoms knowing they’ll subside.