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Discussion => Drug safety => Topic started by: oldcactushand on March 06, 2013, 11:43 am

Title: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: oldcactushand on March 06, 2013, 11:43 am
Wondering if anyone else has come across this?

So this is something that happened a few years ago, before the big drought. It was some of the cleanest and nicest MDMA I've ever done. We all had a great time, except one person. This person had done MDMA many times, we all had. Interestingly, he's by far the most 'rational-minded' person I know, extremely hostile to conspiracy theories of any sort. This took place at a festival.

The friend in question took about 250mg all at once. We left him alone when he was coming up (hard!) in a music tent for a couple of minutes while we went to the toilet or something. When we came back, he told us someone had asked to buy MDMA. He said he had none to sell, and that now the guy was standing near him in the tent, looking over sometimes. Over the next 20 minutes, he became increasingly concerned about this person. I thought this was weird, but hey, I didn't see this guy and maybe he did seem like a nutjob or something.

My friend goes over to security. Luckily the security at this festival were pretty on the level. The guy could tell my friend was having a bad time so let him over the barrier to sit down with him. I carried on dancing. After a short period, my friend comes back from behind the barrier. A security guard, I was told, had walked past saying "Hey, look at this!" - he was holding a hand grenade, but then hid it when he realised my friend was there. "Those security guards are fucking bad people." I told him this sounded insane, and that he was wasted, and that MDMA can cause impressive hallucinations.

Suffice it to say, this was the beginning of an 8-hour period of escalating paranoia. At first, he thought there was some small team trying to rob him. The team, he then realised, was much larger than he thought. And they could have robbed him by now. It must be some sort sick competition to kill him. There were plenty of hallucinations throughout the night: people carrying knives, people with evil faces (he could somehow tell who *they* were, and would become very scared of people), and plenty of auditory hallcuinations.

He became paranoid of even his own friends at certain points. I was running my hands through my hair. He understood he was paranoid, and confided in me "See? I'm so paranoid. Now I'm thinking *you're* giving hand signals". We have been friends since early childhood. He accepted that he was paranoid, but said he was paranoid because there was basically "an army of people trying to kill me". He did not sleep that night. I talked to him at length, making him see how his theory made no sense. He grudgingly accepted it, but said something like "I get that, but this is all so real to me that I cannot act on that assumption, rational though it may seem."

What the hell? Anyone else seen anything like this?
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: tango on March 06, 2013, 11:56 am
maybe he didnt take mdma?

Sounds like he just went into a downward spiral. you should have sat and looked after him until he was ok, not left him in the hands of strangers.

He was probably just in the wrong situation/environment at the time.

Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: oldcactushand on March 06, 2013, 12:16 pm
He definitely took MDMA, and he definitely did not take anything else. I did not leave him in the hands of strangers either, except for when he went off to see security. To be clear, it was not at all obvious that he was properly *paranoid* until he started talking about the grenade - before that, I thought he was being overly cautious or something. Like I said, I didn't see the guy he was worried about, and if he was worried, I had no strong inclination to doubt him.

We did sit down and look after him for many hours. Actually we walked around endlessly since that's what he felt was safest. We calmed him down to some extent, but he still always believed people were trying to kill him. I'm quite certain that no one could have convinced him of anything at this point. I tried constantly for hours, even making him admit that his whole theory actually made no sense. That's where "It must be some sort of game, with rules we don't know about" came from. He'd later tell us that he knew we just thought he was paranoid, so was trying to play the whole thing down. The problem was, there was NOWHERE to go that wasn't full of strangers. It was definitely a downward spiral, but I've never heard of this happening with MDMA.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: tango on March 06, 2013, 12:23 pm
Ive been in a similar state of mind before.
Was from coke though.

No amount of calming me down or looking after me would of changed anything, and as much as i wanted to stay there, I just had to leave and go home into my bed.

Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: valakki on March 06, 2013, 12:31 pm
every stimulant can give you paranoia. even mdma. tell him to do lower doses next time. maybe it was too high.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: oldcactushand on March 06, 2013, 12:38 pm
Wow, coke's an even weirder one! I remember realising that night that a camping festival is basically the only situation that you can be in where you can literally NOT get away from strangers. Hundreds of strangers, constantly.

What makes this story worse. He did not sleep that night. Accepted he was paranoid the next day, though still believed he *had* seen that grenade. He took 250mg that night as well (after we told him not to, and he said he would not. very out-of-character for him to lie about this). The paranoia started pretty much instantly again, although this time I would not see him for a couple of hours (he was with other friends).

The day after it happened the first time, he'd tell us days later, he still believed that shit had been going down the night before. Sure, it wasn't as bad as he suspected, but people were definitely after him. He believed this all day, totally sober. He didn't tell us because he knew we thought he was paranoid. He sounds like such an idiot - but really he's the least likely candidate for this sort of thing.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: tango on March 06, 2013, 02:32 pm
sounds like mdma is not the drug for him
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: Magic Man on March 06, 2013, 07:38 pm
I've seen some people act pretty oddly when on pure mdma. Sometimes it can be scary its best to just sit them down with a glass of water and a cold face cloth till they come around.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: KawaiiDesu on March 07, 2013, 01:16 am
I might be wrong, but isnt 250mg a bit much for the initial dose?
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: DiamondSky on March 07, 2013, 04:06 am
The deal with MDMA is it's magical when taken from time to time in the proper doses under good set and setting. When it's not being magical though it's mostly just an amphetamine at which point most of what you described makes pretty good sense. Maybe he rolled the night before, maybe it's just lost it's magic, maybe he just ate too much. Tough to say without knowing more.

It's by no means common. Most people just need to take more to feel good until taking more and feeling good become too much of a pain and they move on from MDMA.

To me it sounds like there was more going on. Took something he didn't mention or didn't know about. Shit happens I guess. Hopefully he can bounce back and have better rolls down the road. I hate the fact that everyone says MDMA looses it's magic because I so love the magic it has!
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: MDUK on March 07, 2013, 05:11 am
I've seen first-time users freak out from the intensity of the come-up, but I've never witnessed the kind of sustained paranoia that you talk about here...
Very strange story - I'd like to know more about the circumstances - do you have any idea when he'd last taken it?
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: dirtybiscuitzz718 on March 07, 2013, 05:20 am
Strange, cant say ive ever heard of such a thing. As far as ive always known, once that mandy bites you in the ass, its smooth sailing from there. The brief time between ingestion and the come up can be a bit unnerving, and the actual come up can be intense, but once all that serotonin begins to flow, I dont see how any way can do anything but enjoy.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: oldcactushand on March 07, 2013, 10:43 am
I'm 99.9% sure he wasn't on anything else. He hadn't taken it the night before, I can't remember exactly, but I suspect he hadn't taken it for at least a number of weeks. He had been taking MDMA and ecstasy occasionally for years, and has done so many times since then (in the same setting) without problem.

250mg definitely was a BIG dose with this stuff, and that's obviously an important factor. We've all done/seen others do "a bit too much mdma ;) " though, and in my experience it's fucking awesome if slightly debilitating...

As I said this was years ago. I don't let it reflect on my view of MDMA in any way, and nor did he after he took it a couple more times after that and was completely fine (nerve racking for me though, it was also at a festival and I was concerned it would happen all over again). I only made this thread because it's such a bizarre anomaly. If anyone who hasn't done mdma is reading this, don't let it worry you!
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: Purple_Hue000 on March 12, 2013, 09:54 pm
It sounds like he might of had something else in his MDMA dude,
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: catfishinmysocks on March 13, 2013, 12:10 am
That's a big dose and some people just start to freak out a bit when they're experiencing a new feeling. Don't think it's anything too surprising.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: MrAnonymous on March 13, 2013, 04:49 pm
Unless you had a test kit with you and tested the MDMA then I am afraid that you can't be 100% sure that it was MDMA he took.

It could have been cut with something shitty, and that particular person just ended up with the most of the cut. I've never heard of anything like this happening on good, clean MDMA... And if it was actually MDMA, then it's not the drug for the poor bloke!
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: bealzebobs on March 21, 2013, 09:46 pm
I've had some really bad paranoia from MDMA a few times. Its not very nice at all. Smoking industrial amounts of weed while high was the cause in my opinion. If i start feeling edgy or the beginnings of some kind of anxiety I always take some benzos - diazepam or clonazepam whatever - they bring you down smoothly.
Title: Re: Extreme paranoia on MDMA?
Post by: bealzebobs on March 21, 2013, 09:47 pm
Drug induced psychosis is the correct term I believe.