News Ecstasy... A Possible Treatment For PTSD

[malibran]

Has anyone heard of Hypnosis as a help for PTSD? Has there been any research done around this at all? Mostly I was wondering if the sleeplessness and nightmares could be helped at all because lack of sleep and hypervigilence are so big a toll on the sufferer.
Thanks Malibran

 

[anthony]

It has, and it was no real help. You cannot hypnotise away your trauma which is causing the sleep and hyper-vigilance issues.

 

[anni]

Hi-
Sometimes when I'm really anxious and am about to log off Ill look for posts to distract me from my own stuff so I can stay on longer. This one did it! :) Wow. I can only say Good Lord. I try to have respect for medical clinicians because they have the correct training to ascertain the specifics of conditions.This, however, seems ludicrous. It feels to me like whatever chemicals are triggered by the PTSD which cause the behaviours and reactions are already just completely out of control. What it seems like we don't need is one more reactive chemical rocketing around the system to further stimulate over-reactions.
This is of course just my gut instinct and based and how I feel my head reacts to stimulation. I'm not very good at arguing and fair warning will no doubt cry if anyone thinks I'm being at all controversial. :) I'm really not, just slightly alarmed at the thought that PTSD patients could really be getting exposed to this med as someone's experiment. Of course, I also have days when too much lint in the dryer-trap makes me slightly alarmed so could be over-reacting. :)

 

[Sunrise]

Ecstasy. LSD, pot, whatever.. if they get you through the night it is hard to put a case for not taking them. If drugs are used to help keep body and soul together, this has to be good if meltdown is going to occur without them. Using them to settle a person or to help maintain some kind of equilibrium until (or so that) therapy can get under way is another justification for using medication. What worries me, especially with the psychedelic drugs and that includes the magic mushrooms, is while the drug is in our system doing the "good" it is there to do we don't know what else it is doing. If we ever find out it could be grim.
love to all

Came back to add, some therapies may not work well while drugs are being used, but can they be stopped long enough and if ya can't concentrate how could you be therapised? Is anyone aware of this scenario: therapy slow or stalling because of the drugs? I know with TIR you are not supposed to have drugs or alcohol in the last 24 hours. The idea is it is hard to get clear recall of past pictures in order to examine the traumatic event(s).
love again

 

[TLight]

I'd be scared to death...........I once had a bad acid trip in college. Looking back I think that memories might have been just barely the cause. Just remember becoming on the verge of terrified to the point it would kill me. But no actual memories. My friends pulled me out of it, thank heavens.

I'd be really afraid...........but if it made the distress more tolerable? Well.........who knows? We all have individual responses to drugs..........I'd be terrified it would make it worse.........

Too much danger to even consider it for me.......

 

[Sunrise]

i might be a bit off topic...? Way back when it was all the rage to do acid, I had a major trip and had this all pervasive feeling that while this was like "all my Christmases had come at once" I also had this strong sense that the mind couldn't take this over and over, that this is too much at once for safety sake. I think it was this thought process that stopped me from doing it over and over. While I'm on the truth serum here(!), I also remember thinking right after trying a hit of opium, that these people around me (in the room) are actually addicts and i was was kidding myself if I thought I couldn't go that way. so i stopped right there. Years later, after many attempts I finally gave up smoking and that was hard enough.

i feel thankful that i made those decisions back then as some of the people I knew in those days were gone within a decade.

 

[popeye]

I came across this post earlier today and didn't know how to respond. I still don't know how to respond. All I can say is that X should not be used in such a way. Pot I understand because it mellows you out. The paranoia thing comes only when people are using it illegally and are afraid of getting caught at least in my experience.

I am not sure about ecstasy but I would assume even in small doses it wouldn't be a good idea.

 

[midi]

Popeye, pot is not recommended for peeps who have certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar. The paranoia only increases when they do pot. If you're stable and anxious at all, pot can also cause temporary paranoia. It is misleading and extremely dangerous to measure the effects of a drug by only one person's experiences.

 

[popeye]

I was not recommending Pot as a treatment or even as a good idea.

 

[TLight]

Sometimes I'm OK with pot...........sometimes it makes the anxiety worse.

Lately I've not been partaking.........sometimes just a tiny bit makes me go back to the times I was in college and happy and somewhat carefree, and that feels good. Too much....too much anxiety.

 

[Philippa]

I know a counsellor who has worked with Ecstasy during sessions with her patients, and she reported it to be what she considers to be a very successful session where a lot of time was saved building trust, adn the person was able to speak about stuff he/she had had trouble even admitting to for years. I don't know this woman too well, but I would think that, given that certain drugs have been used in the past as adjacents to therapy, with positive results, I would not write it off all together, though obviously it's not for everyone.

It's a risk. Some risks help people to grow beyond where they were, and other risks don't work out the way you hoped they would.

I've taken Ecstacy before, in my party days, and I had a blast. it was really fun, adn not just enhancing of sex, but it reminds us of how happy we can be...the potential for being happy which so many people are too miserable to even remember how it felt to be happy. After a while though it does feel like "why do I need to take a pill to be happy? Isn't that something I am supposed to be able to be without a pill?" And it's true. People rely on pills for "fixing" them too much these days.

I don't agree with taking them all the time, because I've seen people who just take them every weekend for years, and they literally don't know how to have fun without them...which is sad really. It also changes their brain chemistry so that even though they are happy for a tiem, the amount of serotonin they go through winds up leaving their brain basiclaly starving of the stuff and dependent on a pill to provide what they 'should' be able to produce on their own but their brain has forgotten how to.

In the context of therapy though, I think whatever works for the individual.

I've known people, friends of my brothers who grew up in very violent households and never knew how to communicate in anyt other way except with their fists and violence, and after taking E's for a few years with their friends, they were able to discover their own insight into themselves and that they can actually learn new ways of communicating that don't involve hurting other people...so, when I hear stories like that, how can I not support the fact that E's do help people...if they are taken infrequently and with the intent to heal, I cannot see how this would be a bad thing.

 

[becvan]

I know a counsellor who has worked with Ecstasy during sessions with her patients, and she reported it to be what she considers to be a very successful session where a lot of time was saved building trust, adn the person was able to speak about stuff he/she had had trouble even admitting to for years..

Most of us with PTSD have severe trust issues and need to relearn how to build trust with another person. This is actually part of the therapy! To have a therapist use a drug to skip that part is irresponsible and I wouldn't consider this therapist very unknowledgeable about PTSD. Skipping vital steps in therapy is a very bad thing. A quick fix is not ideal. Scary stuff there.

bec