I'm In Over My Head. I'm Drowning.

[MoonShiner]

I need help. I'm getting near the end of my rope. I'm just so tired.

I have been diagnosed with complex PTSD and now major depression. I've had PTSD since I was about 8 (with compounding incidents thereafter), and I'm in my late 20s now. My now ex therapist told me that I was one of the worst cases she had ever seen. I have been through a lot of really gnarly shit, some of the instant and shocking and very bloody variety, and some of the cannot-escape-long-term-abuse-and-rape variety, but I've kept on fighting all this time. I kept a part of me iced. Locked down. Walled off. It meant I could survive, but I couldn't really feel any emotion. I had no idea what was going on inside my own heart.

I decided at the beginning of this year that it wasn't enough and started therapy. Everything, f*cking everything fell apart. I've had two minor mental breaks (actually, I'm not sure how minor. Are hallucinations minor?) and the therapy drew me into deeper and deeper depression. I hit a point this summer where I just couldn't take it any more and I did a low dose MDMA talking treatment. My therapist didn't participate for legal reasons, but heartily approved, especially after the dramatic changes it made. It really affected some fundamental things and got me back on track. Due to its nature I have decided that I would like to do MDMA therapy once every six months, and the next treatment is coming up in a couple of weeks.

But in the intervening six months I would recover some ground, claw for every bitter inch, then break again. Claw, then break. I'm a fighter, obviously, or I wouldn't still be alive, but I am just so exhausted. So beat down. This is a new cumulative low. Just one break? I can take that. I'm tough. But it just keeps coming at me over and over again. I just...there's nothing left. I'm limp on the inside. I just want this to end. If things are really just going to go on this way, I can't take it.

Therapy has been a f*cking nightmare, and I decided to take a break at the end of October. I'm looking for a new therapist, but haven't found one yet. I'm not on mood stabilizers, ostensibly because you can't mix most of them with MDMA, and it's the only thing that's proven to be beneficial so far, but also because I hate the idea and my body usually reacts very poorly to ANY kind of medication. It's very likely to harm more than it helps.

But I've lost so much weight it's actually now a health risk. I can't sleep. I can't do my work. My partner is simply overloaded with how terrible this has all been and waffles between being committed and deciding to re-evaluate if he wants to stay (I don't blame him). I feel completely decimated. I keep spiraling down and then barely pulling up and missing the bottom, and I just don't have the strength to pull up anymore.

I don't know what to do. I don't even know what help I'm looking for. I just feel like I'm nearing some unseen cliff, somewhere out there in the dark. I have suicidal ideation just like anybody under this amount of stress. Had it on and off for years and years. To be honest, I've never taken that ideation seriously. It's like a buzzard that never lands. Not a threat.

But one day this spring a voice popped in my head and said, "Kill yourself now, while things are still good. Call it even, leave without bitterness, and make a graceful exit before shit goes all the way to the bottom. Don't turn your life into burning rubble before you leave it." And I was like, ha, right. Then things did get that bad, and every day thoughts pop into my head unbidden; jumping off a bridge, hanging, stabbing, acid. I began to vaguely keep count as the months passed and the thoughts began coming every day. Now I've lost count of how many times a day it happens. 30? 40? I still never take those thoughts seriously. I don't entertain them. I guess I'm just afraid that something will break or slip and just once, I will.

I don't think my brain is right. I think the chemicals may be way, way off. I feel like I'm fighting to understand reality through some sort of really bizarre and disorienting filter. I guess I just want to hear voices in the dark, besides the ones that want me to kill myself.

Just to be clear, I do not believe that I am a suicide risk right now. I really, really don't. But I am afraid that might change some time in the future. I'm afraid I'm going to break so hard that I'll never really come back. There's just nothing left to keep fighting with.

 

[Tinyflame]

I'm so sorry @MoonShiner , I don't know what to say, & yet oddly I've been there too, & I have to say it was a long stretch. I guess at the very least I can say it did pass.

I don't have anything to give :( , except for well-wishes & to light a candle, if that's ok. And to say you're heard & understood. Someone will have the words I lack, just wait & try to do something even tiny kind for yourself. Can you sleep? I couldn't much.

:hug: :hug: :hug:

 

[arfie]

I have been through a lot of really gnarly shit, some of the instant and shocking and very bloody variety, and some of the cannot-escape-long-term-abuse-and-rape variety, but I've kept on fighting all this time. I kept a part of me iced. Locked down. Walled off.

Me too. I had my first formal therapy session in 1972, but I was in my early 30s before I started taking therapy seriously. My longest running therapist was in my 40s and she described those relapses as, "graduated healing." She believed my psyche was healing in levels. After I healed one level, my psyche graduated to the next level of healing. She didn't really believe they were relapses. Just stages of healing. There is allot to heal in hard, long-term cases.

It has gotten easier for me. As I have worked on my recovery, I have grown an arsenal of coping tools. I am still plagued with aches and ticks, but... What 60 year old isn't?

Be gentle with yourself and with the process, MoonShiner. Healing happens. Hope it happens to you. It is worth the work.

 

[Wounded Scribe]

Welcome to the forum.

 

[joeylittle]

I'm not on mood stabilizers, ostensibly because you can't mix most of them with MDMA, and it's the only thing that's proven to be beneficial so far

I don't think my brain is right. I think the chemicals may be way, way off. I feel like I'm fighting to understand reality through some sort of really bizarre and disorienting filter.

First of all, welcome.

I think that you really might benefit from a big review of your current pharmacology. I'm not sure if you are using MDMA in the therapeutic processing of memories, or if you are using the high to survive the really tough symptoms. I'm not judging - but MDMA is a pretty serious neurotoxin, and if you are using it medicinally, you are probably creating much of the "my brain is way off" stuff that you are experiencing.

Just because information is always helpful: (this quote is from wikipedia, but it is well-cited)

MDMA use has been shown to produce brain lesions, a form of brain damage, in the serotonergic neural pathways of humans and other animals. In addition, long-term exposure to MDMA in humans has been shown to produce marked neurotoxicity in serotonergic axon terminals. Neurotoxic damage to axon terminals has been shown to persist for more than two years. Adverse neuroplastic changes to brain microvasculature and white matter also seem to occur in humans using low doses of MDMA. Reduced gray matter density in certain brain structures has also been noted in human MDMA users. In addition, MDMA has immunosuppressive effects in the periphery, but pro-inflammatory effects in the central nervous system.

I'm not meaning to say drugs are your only issue; you've got a horrible trauma history, and PTSD is a monster disorder.

But you aren't helping the situation with the MDMA - you might really benefit from some other kind of medical stabilization, just to get you on solid footing so you can start to work on the other stuff. I'm a very suicidal person, and I know that without my drugs, I would not be able to manage that thin line between ideation and actualization. Nothing I take dulls me out - it just lets me keep a toe-hold in a version of reality where I understand that I have disorders and experiences that push me to think that death is the best answer.

 

[StellaBlue]

I'm so sorry you are experiencing this kind of distress. I have been in therapy where things have gotten terribly worse and have come to the realization that very very slow is what I need. I think a lot of folks here will tell you that stabilization and learning grounding skills are essential...and finding a therapist that understands this is important. I have been in therapy where I agreed to "push hard" - and it almost killed me. One of the hardest things for me has been to accept that I can only do so much at a time if I want to keep the rest of my life in some semblance of order.

My therapist didn't participate for legal reasons, but heartily approved, especially after the dramatic changes.

This statement concerns me. I'm not an attorney, but if your therapist wouldn't participate but "heartily approved", I'm guessing he or she could be held legally liable if something were to happen to you.

I am all for alternative treatment methods and finding what works for you - but I would be very careful trying something of this magnitude on your own.

 

[Intrepid]

Wow, that's pretty wild. I was 27 when the poop hit the fan for me. I was lucky in that I was in the military and had a lot of structure to rely on. I was unlucky in that the military didn't really know how to handle PTSD that wasn't combat related. (I don't think they dealt with PTSD was back then in the mid 1980s.)

Since then I've been seeking one kind of recovery after another. And I have had to tell myself over and over that my brain is just not right. That keeps me from listening to the silliness I stir up for myself, and lets me be a little more forgiving of what's going on in my head.

My experience is that long term brutality changed me. I had to adapt to it fully. Now that I'm older, I can adapt to a sane, peaceful life. You'd figure that would be easy. I wish.

Good luck with the struggle!

 

[rightkindofme]

I have a lot of experience with MDMA. It can be quite a roller coaster ride. It does produce feelings of belonging and being ok and at peace. And then there is the come down. Have you heard of Suicide Tuesday? After you use MDMA for a while (and every 6 months is a great window--more often is really hard on your body) you will find that you need more for the same high then it may stop working entirely.

I can't take MDMA any more. The last time I tried (more than three years ago) I was at my birthday party. Everyone was there for a love-fest about me. I spent the party on the couch having panic attacks and crying because I was so convinced that none of the people in the room actually cared about me. Drugs are *complicated*.

And using MDMA makes your serotonin lower all the time. It makes all of your "happy chemicals" have trouble going through their normal process and it is much easier to just stay depressed.

You are going to have ups and downs with PTSD. The MDMA seems helpful until it seems harmful. It's a very hard line to walk. It's more brain damage. No one can tell you what is right for you. I did MDMA for a few years and it may well be the reason I didn't commit suicide in that period because it was what I had to look forward to.

You have to change your life and give yourself something to work towards. Something to care about. Do you know about Logotherapy? Google it. Viktor Frankl was a genius psychotherapist/philosopher.

It is hard to find enough meaning for your life that you don't need the bump from MDMA. But we kinda have to. :-\

Good luck.

 

[MoonShiner]

So a couple of things about the MDMA since it seems to be garnering attention.

First of all I don't use it to "get high" and I do not use it in a recreational manner. I have actually never done any drugs in a recreational manner except alcohol, and these days I may have a cocktail when at a restaurant for a fancy dinner, but that's about it. I use MDMA for memory processing and for safely examining the trauma and myself, to very great affect.

I do a low dose of about 80 mg and then talk for about six hours straight in a very controlled therapeutic environment. I both pre and post load with supplements to minimize toxicity and rebalance serotonin afterwards (it makes a really big difference). As a result I do not experience "suicide Tuesday" feelings, nor any bruxism, or anything else like that. Don't get me wrong, it still does damaged, but it's greatly reduced, and to me, it is a trade-off I am willing to make. I had a really serious breakthrough the first session, and it very likely saved my life, or at least my sanity. I did an in depth write up at the time, if anyone is interested. But in short, MDMA does not force you to feel happy. Rather, it keeps the anger and shame and fear out of the room so that you can engage unfettered. If you're happy or contented, it's because it's coming from within you.

But I'm willing to consider the idea that right now, even though it is good for me, I may have to switch gears. Perhaps I'm doing too much hard work too fast. Perhaps my brain needs a break and the help of stabilizers. Perhaps trying to save my relationship with my partner is doing more harm than good. I don't know. I can't even tell if it's the PTSD getting to me more or the crushing depression that has come along with opening the Pandora's box of therapy. I just know that I need to make some kind of change or I won't last.

 

[rightkindofme]

Good luck.

ETA: my opinion doesn't matter so I'll shut up.

 

[MoonShiner]

ETA: my opinion doesn't matter so I'll shut up.

I'm sorry, I'm a bit confused. I am not trying to shut your opinion down. I was simply trying to add more context to what I've been doing with MDMA. I liked your suggestion for logotherapy. I did not mean to give offense.

 

[rightkindofme]

You are totally cool. You didn't offend me. I just don't need to try and talk you into anything. You are a big girl. :)