DOSE:	repeated	oral	MDMA	(powder / crystals)
		oral	Lisdexamfetamine	(daily)

BODY WEIGHT:

205 lb

A drug that causes heaven on earth can cause you to experience the sheer opposite.

Okay, so I am obviously not saying “don’t use MDMA,” because I truly believe it is a wonderful substance that has created mostly positive experiences for people. What I am saying is this. When people online say “only use Molly once every few months,” they aren’t being overly cautious. They say that because excessive use can cause your brain to change and can severely impact your life in a negative way. I am sharing my experience with abusing MDMA and what happened that made me quit because I haven’t seen anyone touch on this yet. I’m honestly lucky that it didn’t end up being worse for me.

So I first tried legit, tested MDMA about a year ago. I had taken “Molly” before but it didn’t do much. I was on SSRIs so that could be why, or it could have been bunk. Who knows. I saw the Marquis turn purple and was ready to party. I took 200mg and had a transcendently glowing experience. It caught me off guard because I got super crisp, electric, shroom like visuals on the comeup that went away after a few minutes. I loved it so much.

I had went in half and half on a ball with my buddy so I still had about 1.5 grams of good MDMA left. I promised myself I would stick to the 2-3 month rule but the next night I took 80mg and told myself it doesn’t count because it’s less than a point. I rolled pretty hard again and felt tired for a week. I sold the rest of it after because I had promised a few friends I’d sell them some.

Fast forward to around June. One of my best friends who sells psychedelics and weed Snaps me asking if he could borrow my kit. He then sends me a picture of a half oz of 2 different kinds of M. I obliged and both tested positive. He sold grams at a time for $120 (ugh I know). The price was expensive but I know plenty of people who would happily spend $30 a point for that experience. I only charged 15-20 and it sold out fast. Several times the next month or two I would pick up a gram, cap it up, sell 7 or 8 points to various people, make my money back and a little extra, keep 2-3 points for myself and then buy another gram. I probably bought about 7 grams over this 1-2 month period. As you can imagine I rolled WAY more than I should have over this period.

Here’s where it starts to turn south:
I started off by doing it 2 nights in a row and told myself that I would wait AT LEAST 2 more months to do it again. About 3 weeks later I told myself that I would do it at the month mark. What harm could doing it every month do? 2-3 months is just a suggestion right? The minute I allowed myself to take it after a month in my mind is when I started fiending. Three weeks and a few days after my last dose I said “fuck it” and rolled again.

I didn’t have a hangover or feel depressed. I decided to be a dumbass and push my luck a couple weeks later again. Same thing. No negative effects on my mental health. A few days after that dose was the 4th of July. I though “okay rolling twice a week is bad but I have to take M and watch fireworks!” I went through like 500mg that night and it got to the point where I made a pizza and it took me 10 minutes to read the instructions my eyes were twitching so hard. I couldn’t see my Iris because the pupil dilation was so extreme. I was in heaven.

I wake up the next day feeling drained. I thought that I finally was experiencing the dreaded MDMA burnout. Shockingly after a couple hours I was fine. At this point I had foolishly convinced myself that my brain must be immune to the negative effects of MDMA. To be honest I felt a lot better than I did before overall which to this day is weird to me.

This is where it REALLY goes south. I start rolling 2-3 nights per week, usually using 150mg-500mg per sesh (not at once). I wake up feeling fine most mornings and didn’t see a problem with it.

However something had been happening to me over the past couple months that I had no explanation for. I would fall asleep most nights for what seemed like a minute or two and then wake up confused. I usually check my phone for the time when I wake up so I’d try to do that and I was startled to find out that I couldn’t move. It was as if a giant weighted blanket that weighed hundreds of pounds was on me. I went back to sleep and nothing else happened. This happened for a second time, only this time my room didn’t look right. It was like the eyes on all my posters were staring at me. I also got a very mild sensation of not being the only one in the room. Again, I couldn’t move. I went back to bed and it was over.

Now- I’m guessing anyone who knows much about the body or medical stuff knows what this was. The second episode of it was when I realized what it was. Sleep paralysis. I had had episodes in the past so I just assumed it was stress related or because of my bad sleep schedule. I didn’t think much of it.

I started having sleep paralysis episodes a few times per week for a while. Eventually I started having them 4-5 times per week, and then every night. Then they started to get more severe. Instead of my posters looking at me and feeling a mild presence in my room I got to the point where my walls were vibrating and I watched a blue portal open up on the ceiling sucking all my posters into it. I would fall asleep, my face would vibrate super hard, I’d feel like I’m freefalling and then I’d wake up. Completely unable to move. The absolute WORST part about the increased severity is that instead of a mild presence, I had an overwhelming sense that something was for sure in the room, it wanted to hurt me and I didn’t know where it was but it was close to me. My last episode before I figured out the cause involved me waking up paralyzed but keeping my eyes either closed or looking to my side. This was because I knew during that episode that not only was the evil being in my room. I could sense that it was at the foot of my bed staring at me and that if I opened my eyes and looked at it, it would be the scariest thing I have ever seen.

The next day I decide I need to figure out why this is happening to me. I did a bunch of research and found NOTHING that would explain sleep paralysis getting that severe that fast after only having it a couple time growing up. I kept looking and looking and found a clue. I read somewhere that some medications can cause sleep paralysis. One of the ones that can cause it are ADHD drugs. I take Vyvanse. That seemed like it could be the explanation for it but I honestly didn’t think so because I had taken it for years with no problems and I didn’t up my dose recently. I was thinking about it for a while and then I realized that if amphetamines like Vyvanse can cause sleep paralysis, then MDMA may be the cause since it is part amphetamine. Right when I realized that I also realized that the sleep paralysis got worse as the MDMA use got worse.

I immediately google “MDMA and sleep paralysis,” and BOOM. There it was. Hundreds if not thousands of articles, blogs and Reddit posts from people who have had the EXACT same experience as I did! I have no idea how I hadn’t read about the correlation before.

I immediately stopped taking MDMA and the sleep paralysis went away in a few days. I was clean off of M for about 6 weeks before getting drunk and deciding to take my last pill. The next night I had sleep paralysis again (albeit less severe).

MDMA feels amazing but can get dark. Even the best high is not worth being afraid to go to sleep. I really feel stupid about this scenario. Because A. I had blatant disregard for harm reduction and B. it took me so FUCKING long to figure out that the MDMA was causing it!

This goes to show that even if you aren’t depressed or tired from using M, it can still have consequences!

Exp Year: 2020	ExpID: 114876
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: 24
Published: Oct 27, 2020	Views: 1,560
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MDMA (3) : Retrospective / Summary (11), Addiction & Habituation (10), Post Trip Problems (8), Health Problems (27), Unknown Context (20)