It’s been now over 2 months since I’ve done something that would test my sanity in a wide variety of situations. I don’t mean that I went nuts or anything crazy, I’m still me and weirdly enough, I actually enjoy the activities I am involved in these months.
I am Italian, living in Italy, soon to be 22 years old. I started uni just 2 weeks ago and I am enjoying it to a great degree: social interaction, interesting studies, awesome atmosphere.
The nature of my problem lies in my head and it eventually extended to my body due to drugs. I’m not going to tell the full story, I am not a drug addict by any means, but I ****ed up once and that was enough for me. I actually always enjoyed being healthy, but I was always a very gullible person and tried a bit of everything in life, even dangerous stuff, mostly because I was convinced (or I convinced myself) to do it.
I talk openly about the fact that I feel the nature of my problem comes from my head because I am OK with it, I am not schizophrenic or anything serious, but I have a lot of problems dealing with my personality, especially now that I am growing up to be an adult.
I had a pill of MDMA at a party 2 months ago and by the time I did that I already had slight panic attacks due to the way I’d be living: I was always traveling and working months on months in foreign countries where I’d know nobody and I’d always be challenged to learn continuously.
The drug obviously didn’t help, it actually almost killed me.
Long story short, I feel horrible ever since. More mature, but also traumatized.
This has had both mental and physical effects on me: I started having panic attacks on a regular basis, I’d feel my heart burn, my brain would feel like it was numb, I couldn’t concentrate properly. To this day these symptoms are still present, although less frequent and I am managing them in a much better way, doing the best I can not to let depression take over.
Most of all, I have an extreme sense of derealization on me throughout the day and this, together with the fact that noises and the outside world have gotten so much louder now is one of the reasons why I sometimes can't cope, following with either me having strong panicky kind of heartbeats or the strongest headache you could possibly imagine.
The reason why I am writing this post is out of pure and innocent search for a community of people that I could talk to in search of relief from something that scares the living crap out of me. Namely, the thought of dying young.
Now, here’s the thing; don’t think that I spend my days in bed crying over what happened and letting anxiety run over me, quite the opposite. I do EVERYTHING I can in order to fight this ****, which means I do sports, I study, I go to uni regularly, I go out with people, I try to live normally.
I try to live normally, which is why I sometimes feel so down (like tonight). Everything is just so different now. I’ve learned to adapt to it and in some way or another, ‘control’ it, but it doesn’t eliminate the fact that I just don’t feel as healthy as I did before, both phisicallly and mentally, which is what I am trying to cope with and what I mean with ‘testing my sanity’.
Sometimes these feelings get so overwhelming that I just simply get scared of them, although I know they won’t kill me. But hell, would you guys like to feel your brain send little shock-like sensations that actually hurt from the inside of your skull? Or would you love to feel like your heart is constantly pulling down on your throat in an attempt to choke you?
I’m doing therapy and it’s working out fine for the most part, but there are days where I feel like life is too weird to be true, where I constantly question my existence and that of other people and other ‘things’. I just feel like life is too abstract and absurd sometimes.. I’m not suicidal. I would never be able to do that. I care about understanding most of all and I won’t understand much if I’m dead.
There’s one thing I wish I had right now; someone who understands me, nothing more. Someone experienced and compassionate enough to share kindness to someone that still feels like a happy and innocent child, but who’s found himself trapped in this existential young adult transition.
I'm not looking for attention, nor am I looking for pity or a 'cure'. I just feel closed into myself on this, in this tiny italian town, where I have close to no good friends and many family problems that make it all that much more frustrating.
I just don't like being frustrated, nor do I like screaming, nor do I like violence, nor do I like drugs, nor do I like crazy things. It just so happens that it took me quite a few doors smashed on my face to truly grow up and be grateful for life, yet I find myself questioning it all now.
Thanks if you were patient enough to read this all through.
I honestly don't know what to expect as I post this, I'm doing this even to maybe give hope to whomever may be in a similar situation. Mostly I just want to share experience though.
Hey, welcome to RYL and thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like a very traumatic experience and that you're working really really hard to move forward from it. Have you seen a medical doctor since what happened to help put your mind at rest about your physical health?
I'm glad therapy is working out well for you and I hope you continue to get a benefit from it.
I wasn't quite sure from your post, but I wanted to ask whether or not you're beating yourself up about what happened? Yes, it was a bad choice, but everyone makes bad choices sometimes and there's nothing to be gained from getting mad at yourself for something that you've already acknowledged was a poor choice!
Yes, I have been to doctors and I've had to call 911 (or the equivalent european number) 4 times in the beginning. They all told me I have panic and anxiety disorder, and that the drug, being out of my system, is not a problem. I did countless tests and they all came out fine.
I've been on Xanax for almost 2 months now, starting with 0.75 a day and I am now taking half of that, which is about 0.325. It does seem like the condition is slowly kicking me back in the nuts as I reduce the dose, but I also feel much less numb, my brain feels much more "free", almost (but not quite) natural. It's the left part of my chest that is bothersome, as it seems to burn and tingle around heart area. I've grown accustomed to this feeling, but it's not a pleasure at all. I do want to slowly and completely eliminate the Xanax though, I am sure it will help me recover, since it is supposed to mainly help me "cope" and sleep at night.
This said, I know that recovery from this is a long and jumpy process, which is why I started uni in the first place (not to fall into depression, but obviously even because I wanted to, it was years I'd be saying I'd go back to uni and it was a good choice).
I tried to work and I was unable to, as I ended up panicking after two days due to my heart aching, or me perceiving it as aching, thus leading to some depression, since I, along with anybody else on this world, enjoy being active and productive.
Another issue is the perceiving of it: I am 90% sure that I feel physical symptoms, but I am not a medical professional and all medical professionals with whom I talk do not believe that there is anything wrong with me, although the tests are very superficial. They follow the standard procedures. I wouldn't know any better, so the question remains that maybe my mind is tricking my body into thinking "Omg, what's happening, I'm scared, heart please ache".
I know this sounds weird, but I've had many instances where I could almost control the aching, so it would make sense to think that there's some sort of evil magic going on, which I don't totally understand yet (and probably never will, since I wouldn't wish this happening to the biggest of my enemies).
It gets really scary when my left arm itches and tingles though. I'm accustomed to the general idea that it is one of the things you feel before an heart attack (which does not mean I tell myself I am having a heart attack, my psychologist gave me tools to work on this and they actually work), so I generally just get anxious and my heartrate goes up, it always seems to go down after a while though.
To answer to your last question, I do not batter myself up. The day after I did what I did I went running, the second day I went swimming, the third day I tried to go back to work. Of course it does cross my mind, the thought of "but what if I didn't ...", but I don't let it do its thing because I know by experience how unhelpful that is. It's just that I have these moments (and I think it's 'fair', considering my situation), where I feel discouraged and all I want to do is talk to somebody who cares about the human aspect of doing bullshit like this as well in life. The next day I wake up at 6am and go to uni though, I never skip or try to 'cheat', I am very much working hard to get out of it as you said, although sometimes I have to stop doing something (like yesterday), because I can't cope with the stress it brings (which would only be mild in normal situations) and I feel pressure in my head, as well as weird heart behavior that I honestly can't properly describe.
I hope this wasn't too long either, I don't wish to be the one only asking for support and not giving anything back, I just need people around me right now for this very difficult process to maybe go a lil bit faster and get back to my normal ambitions.
I can really relate to some of the stuff your saying..re physical symptoms and control..I'm having issues with my heart too (still 85% sure it's down to anxiety but still waiting on tests) and it's like if I think my heart is going fast it will go fast blah anyways it's good you've had the tests and they all came back clear. I get the worry still because they are physical symptoms of anxiety and it's still scary even if it's anxiety causing it so in turn can't hurt you.
Are you still in therapy/have professional input? Is there anything you do when you have this episodes? Like mindfulness or some relaxation? If so does that make it go away?
Feel free to keep posting here. That's what RYL is for.
Life can be beautiful if you let it.
Step back, breathe and take it in
Yes, I am still in therapy, in fact, I had a session today and I have another one in 2 weeks. It is helping a great deal (although it is very expensive); my psychologist feels like a true professional and he's very knowledgeable on the subject (thankfully). I was skeptic in the beginning, both because of the price and because I had no idea how this could have helped me, but I come out of that office a bit more relaxed each time, as if he really did pull a weight off of my chest.
When I notice the symptoms building up, I was told by my psychologist to use a technique that we improved on as the sessions went by, where I stare at a fixed point (in my case, my watch) and I think about all of the biggest fears that I am going through in that exact moment, which counterintuitively is supposed to deflate the anxious feelings and the overall fear of what one has to go through.
I was a bit perplexed when I found out they actually worked when it came to the anxiety (it took me a while to trust the guy), but the symptoms of heavy headedness and other random little twitches that my body makes would not go away, I'd just not be scared of it and kinda 'welcome' it if you will.
I've been able to go on with this technique for a while, until I started reducing the Xanax and things started getting a bit confusing again, but I bet it's just because of me being accustomed to the way I'd feel on Xanax and slowly taking away from that kind of feeling has me derealizing in a stronger way, so I decided with the suggestion of my therapist to stabilise the medication at half of what I'd get until the next session, which seems reasonable, it would have been a very quick descent otherwise.
I'm still happy that I got around to reduce it by half anyway, it's already quite something.
I don't do any meditation.. I'd initially often go to the pool and swim a bit, so that I could feel better, but I was in a far worse mood and situation mentally, so much so that I needed to do stuff like that in order to properly wake up from this depression that had taken over. I still try to exercise regularly though. It doesn't always work out, but once or twice a week I force myself to try and run and I usually do for about 20-25 minutes, before I start either getting scared or "tired" (it's more of a head thing, not body).
I hope your tests are going to come out fine as well :)
