# What mdma taught me about SA **must read**



## username135 (Dec 1, 2011)

Registered just to post this...

I'm depressed because I have social anxiety and am lonely for years now, and because I am down and depressed I cannot be myself and enjoy social interactions. When I do try to talk to people, I come off so inauthentic and lethargic that I feel no reward from the interaction and it just makes me want to stop and go home. Every thing I say just feels forced and inauthentic. Socializing just feels like work and I feel I am getting nothing out of it, as long as I'm in this state. I've tried all kinds of prescriptions drugs, but they don't lift me out of this state. Weed can make socializing fun, but only with friends, around strangers it makes me self conscious and in my head. Also, over long term weed makes me very anti social. Alcohol does nothing to me, just makes me feel down and kinda get a headache. I don't understand how it makes others social but anyways....

This weekend, I took pure MDMA... and holy ****. It completely broke me out of this cycle. I was able to tap into my extroverted side and actually feel rewards from socializing. Self consciousness, awkardness, anxiety, fear of rejection, low self esteem, and negative thinking all completely left my reality. it's like I never had social anxiety and was born to socialize lol. I was out completely of my head. I realized my head is the only thing stopping me. I socialized with people my sober self would normally judge and resent. Hitting on girls was no problem. I actually learned to distinguish being in your head vs. not being in your head from this experience. I could also appreciate my introvert qualities, there was a perfect balance of both.

I was feeling so good and relaxed internally that I just wanted to share these feelings with others. I got extremely good feedback from people and I could tell people liked me because I was being myself. I could empathize with people, I could listen to them better and actually have a good conversation instead of being myself and "thinking of what I should say". Socializing didnt feel like work, it felt completely the opposite.

If a person rejected me or walked away it didnt even affect me I would just move on to the next. But when sober and normal, I am hypersensitive to rejection.

Now, I'm smart enough to make the decision I won't use MDMA to self medicate. Infact, I probably won't use MDMA for a very, very long time. Actually right now I have no desire to use it again. The comedown was pretty nightmarish, I got very panicky and depressed which I didnt like at all.

But this experience taught me SO MUCH. Infact, when I was sitting there, I knew it wouldn't last so I tried to absorb everything that was happening so I wouldn't forget when I came down.

If I could only emulate how I felt when I was on MDMA, my life would dramatically change and this rut of social anxiety/depression will disappear forever. Socializing just made complete sense to me. When normally, socializing confused the **** out of me and felt like I could never understand how it worked. Well, thats the anxiety doing its job.

See, what people tell me to do (including my therapist) to overcome my social anxiety is to socialize even when I don't feel like it. So when every fiber in my body does not want to do it, do it anyways and you will eventually overcome the anxiety and enjoy socializing. But after taking MDMA, I somewhat disagree and have a new perspective on this, **bold**and this next part is very important and can help others with social anxiety and depression.**bold**

Yes you need to socialize and create new experiences and receive positive feedback to overcome the SA. **bold** BUT, AND THIS A HUGE BUT, IT DEPENDS ON WHAT STATE YOU ARE IN WHEN YOU GOING IN TO SOCIALIZE. **bold**

- If you are feeling DEPRESSED, ANXIOUS, AWKWARD, IN YOUR HEAD, doubting yourself and generally not feeling good about yourself and you try to force yourself to socialize anyways, YOU WILL NOT GET THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK THAT YOU NEED. See, these are all social anxiety/depression symptoms and thats why this **** is to hard to get over, its a vicious cycle that just keeps reinforcing the negative. The other person will just notice that you aren't being yourself/coming off negative, and the interaction will not reach its fullest potential and become dull and boring. Because you're "forcing yourself to do it" it feels like work and you are missing the whole point of socializing. there is no point of socializing if you cannot be yourself and enjoy it. You will just feel like **** afterwards, like why did I do this? and it may even reinforce your anxiety and cause you to go back to isolation. For the longest time I have been frustrated because I HAVE been forcing myself to socialize but get nothing out of it and just continue to feel like ****. Now I understand that it's because I feel like **** prior to socializing and I am not in the correct vibe.
Anxiety completely changes your behavior and personality, and you must not identify with it. You are NOT yourself when you are feeling anxious/depressed. I asked my very social friends after if they still talk to people when they are feeling down and depressed and they said no, they just don't feel like it.

- However, if you are the opposite of the above (like how I was feeling on MDMA); content with yourself, feeling good feelings in your body, wanting to share your positive feelings with others, feeling positive and confident about yourself , your interactions will be like magic and you will be able to BE YOURSELF (most important thing). People will feel good vibes from you and will want to talk to you and get to know you. They don't want to talk to the socially anxious depressed version of you. Get into this positive state and your social interactions will be as smooth as baby ***. Then you WILL GET THE POSITIVE FEEDBACK THAT WILL CHANGE YOUR BRAIN CHEMISTRY FOR THE GOOD which is what the treatment for SA is. The trick and the catch 22 is to get into this state BEFORE you start socializing. After all, that's what happened to me.

Now the question is how to get into this state without recreational drugs? Currently i am trying to practice mindfulness heavily. As long as you can force yourself into this state, your social interations will be super fun and easy.
Social anxiety creates a vicious cycle/catch 22 that you must learn to break by learning how to tap into the positive, extroverted side of yourself. All I'm focused on now is how to tap into this state without taking MDMA...


----------



## PressOnBrah (Feb 23, 2014)

I've always wanted to do MDMA, but I'd have no idea where to get it...

Big Brother doesn't like free thought.


----------



## brooke_brigham (Nov 28, 2013)

Yeahhh but here's the deal. Your first time is effing mind blowing. Your second time is great, your third time is nice, and you get the pattern. I know you said youre not going to use it as a long term solution which is good. I think if you can get it from a trustworthy source it's great once or twice. After that it loses it's sparkle. Some hippy therapists have clinics where it's used in therapy which is cool and way better than trying to score form some tweaker. In a way I can see why you think it opens up your mind, it does do that.

Not that I know from experience of COURSE


----------



## PressOnBrah (Feb 23, 2014)

brooke_brigham said:


> Yeahhh but here's the deal. Your first time is effing mind blowing. Your second time is great, your third time is nice, and you get the pattern. I know you said youre not going to use it as a long term solution which is good. I think if you can get it from a trustworthy source it's great once or twice. After that it loses it's sparkle. Some hippy therapists have clinics where it's used in therapy which is cool and way better than trying to score form some tweaker. In a way I can see why you think it opens up your mind, it does do that.
> 
> Not that I know from experience of COURSE


Yeah, but most people with SAD that don't have any friends can't find a reliable source because they have no friends...


----------



## brooke_brigham (Nov 28, 2013)

I don't know. I guess you could try to hunt down therapists who use it. It says in this article they're hoping to make it a prescription by 2021

http://www.maps.org/research/mdma/


----------



## Steve French (Sep 17, 2012)

I find usually I experience a "glow" after taking MDMA. Much happier, more social, for a few days afterwards, then it disappears. Had a lot of revelations as well. I came to the realization that I was a mean spirited, negative person, that gave off bad vibes, and brought misery on myself through acting this way. I resolved afterwards to be positive, put others before myself, not care about material possessions, treat everybody equally, just to try and be a general good person, and I truly felt that through this good things would come to me.

Acted that way for quite a while, and I realized I was fooling myself. I'm not jesus, things aren't that simple, people are just not that reciprocating/selfless, and all just looked to take advantage of me and not return anything in kind. People were actually worse to me when I treated them well, I found on many occasions. The MDMA fooled me. I'm taking any drugged up epiphanies with a grain of salt and a dose of reality in the future.

Still, taking MDMA is a fun time. I would do a couple rails and gain great amounts of charisma, empathy, and understanding. I wish I still had a good source. Last few times I just bought some sketchy pills off some sketchy people, and they were not MDMA and not good experiences.


----------



## guitarmatt (Aug 13, 2009)

i definitely get where the OP is coming from, though I haven't tried mdma. I agree that the simple idea of "exposure therapy" doesn't always work for SA or often doesn't. People won't respond positively to you when you're anxious, so its hard to have positive interactions to overcome SA. instead it can just reinforce it. So I think people with SA definitely have to do something to be in the right mindset like medititation. Unfortunately there isn't a drug that can do this that doesn't cause problems over time.


----------

