What the hell happened to me on my 40th?

[Didthatreallyhappen]

I've name changed for this as it is embarrassing and outing. On my 40th I went out to a music event with some friends. It was one of the first nights out after having ds2 who was about 2 at that point.

During the night I realised I didn't know my friends as well as I thought. They were super friendly and revved up. Halfway through, one of my friends started sharing some blue ground up powder which she said was MDMA. She was just dabbing it on her gums. I have never taken class a drugs in my life, though I did experiment with cannabis quite a few times in my early 20s.

Anyway. I did one dab on my gums. I did feel a bit of an effect so I didn't have anymore unlike my friends.

That evening I stayed away from home at my friend's house. I felt something odd like some neurons in my frontal cortex exploding. Since then it's awful but I haven't experienced the feeling of love and euphoria ever since. My sense of love of music and my sense of rhythm and dance vanished as did the natural high high I used to get from dancing. Awfully, my children no longer felt a part of me in my head and my heart, but rather almost like strangers (cute ones obviously) to me.i have forgotten a lot of previous cherished feelings. My connection with nature and my 6th sense got much weaker.

Has that micro dose of whatever it was ruinined me for ever? Am I imagining it all? Can I get those memories and feelings back? My friends seemed unaffected.
I realise it was stupid to take that, not least at the ripe old age of 40.

OP I believe you

Ignore the idiots on here who can't see beyond their limited experience of the world. I've seen blue MDMA before, infact I remember knowing someone who sold blue powder back in the day. He coloured it (I have no idea how) because he liked knowing when people were taking "his" drugs.

I think the thing you need to focus on as a first step is putting aside the feelings of embarrassment about drug taking. They're clouding your judgement here.

If you put aside the drug side of it, you have a very clear account of what happened to you 3 years ago and how it's affected you since.

You experiences a strange feeling in your head, after which you had eyelids flickering for a few days and then all the ways it's affected you since.

This incident happened. And it's not the normal affect of MDMA, which is why you need to separate it out.

It sounds very much like you've had a seizure or stroke, and I do believe you that it was the MDMA that triggered it.

A man I know died after taking Ketamine, in his 40s, it caused a heart attack. That's very rare, and didn't affect anyone else like that at the time, but he had a weakness in his heart and it affected him like that.

Similarly, it seems something about your brain was triggered by it in a way others weren't.

And if so, then you really should be seeing a neurologist.

Please, seek help for this. Imagine looking back on you now, when you're in your 70s and seeing how embarrassment was stopping you from getting help. Wouldn't you want to shake yourself and say, just go to the doctor, woman!

Wishing you well

@fastwigglylines - I think you have the best response so far!

Yeah fastwigglylines is spot on (although was your friend Walter white ;-) )

What the OP describes is not a common side effect or after effect of a single dab of mdma. Therefore what the OP has experienced is likely be something particular to her neurology, physiology or physiology that’s either been triggered by the mdma or by something else that happened within the same timeframe, either interrelated or coincidental.

The only way of knowing and getting help OP is to ask for help from health care professionals. They’ll be able to help you! Good luck x

@fastwigglylines

Exactly. I feel like a lot of people on this thread have just been keen to emphasise their own knowledge and experience of recreational drugs (and breezily dismissed the OP’s experience) without considering that even if they still doesn’t make them a neurologist or expert of any kind.

Having digested these helpful posts I think what happened could have been a perfect storm involving:

*an unusual neurological reaction to a small dose of a chemical which may or may not have been MDMA. Combined with:
*The naturally changing moods that are experinced in approaching the perimenopause and,
*A mood shift triggered by my kids getting slightly older and spending the first night away from DS2 in 2 years.
*perhaps I have some low level, high functioning depression that I am very much unaware of now. Triggered by all these events happening together.

you deinfitely need to see a doctor and dont right off anti depressants they restore your serotonin so it could possible help or make you feel even a bit better

OP, you may be right. It could be some combo of those four things, or only a few of them. But it sounds like, and has sounded form the beginning of this thread, like you’ve suffered enough of whatever it is. The next step is seeing a doctor who can determine this once and for all. There is nothing to be embarrassed about and nothing to be ashamed of, and while it’s hard to believe that emotions which seem so fundamental can be manipulated by doctors with chemicals, they can. The first step is finding out why you experienced what you did, if possible, and the second step is fixing it. And some doctors may not even worry too much about determining the “why,” as soon as they’re able to certain your brain function is safe and so are your brain vessels. Then they’ll just focus on your symptoms and quality of life. None of us can possibly know exactly what happened, but I really do believe that someone with access to labs, a CT, and an MRI, probably can, and that person will need to be a doctor. Don’t go the next 3.5 years this way.

I think the stroke is most likely. A MRI will still show this up.

Why have you discounted this?

OP, I’m going to ask you some questions here.

First, are you not in the UK, so it’s more difficult or expensive to access medical care? I could understand if you are temporarily in the US or somewhere that this type of care could be expensive, so why you are hesitant, but if you’re in the UK, you shouldn’t be worried.

Second, you start your post saying it’s embarrassing and outing and mentioning it was your first time leaving DS2 in 2 years? I personally don’t believe what happened was because of your DS. I think you had a neurological event. Did you previously have a lot of anxiety about him, or concern? Most people usually go out before the two-year mark (though I do understand you maybe just didn’t have a chance, maybe single parent, who knows). Are you concerned if you mention to a doctor that you took class A drugs once at a 40th birthday that SS will be called or something? I can assure you this is NOT the case. Please do not less this stop you from seeking help. Also, please do not let this be about guilt. Maybe you had a neurological event the night that you went out for the first time after two years. But maybe if you had stayed gone out that day, you would have had it anyway. We can never know. The only unfortunate part is that if it had happened without you going out, I think your guilt and embarrassment may have not kept you from seeking help for so long.

There are thousands upon thousands of mums who have had to walk in and say to their doctors, “Something has happened and I am not connecting to my child the way that I used to,” and no doctor calls SS over that, and they are NOT considered bad mums. So if this is part of why you seem to be reluctance to seek help, please don’t let it be. Something has happened to you. Personally, I really think you need some brain imaging. You can do this. Sometimes asking for help is the hardest part, requiring the most strength.

@Didthatreallyhappen

Having digested these helpful posts I think what happened could have been a perfect storm involving:

*an unusual neurological reaction to a small dose of a chemical which may or may not have been MDMA. Combined with:
*The naturally changing moods that are experinced in approaching the perimenopause and,
*A mood shift triggered by my kids getting slightly older and spending the first night away from DS2 in 2 years.
*perhaps I have some low level, high functioning depression that I am very much unaware of now. Triggered by all these events happening together.

Possibly. Or maybe you had a seizure or stroke and you're still experiencing the fall out. Like others say, a scan can confirm or deny this.

Please remember to tell your GP about the eyes flickering thing as that can be a symptom of stroke.

Your changes in experiencing emotion may also be because of stoke or some other event in the brain.

This article in the British Journal of Family Medicine, for example, is about a man who lost the ability to feel sadness after a stroke, not what's happened to you, but this quote at the bottom is relevant:

"Luke Griggs, a spokesman for Headway, the brain injury association, said: “Emotional and behavioural problems are not uncommon following brain injury.”

“Problems [related to stroke] can include apathy, agitation, explosive anger and irritability, and a general inability to control emotions.

“It can also result in a loss of empathy or even the ability to connect with one’s emotions, thus inhibiting feelings of sadness.”

Yes, it's possible that there was a "perfect storm" of conditions that led you to feel this way. But it also seems very possible that a single incident in your brain (probably triggered by the MDMA) has done this.

And even if it wasn't a stroke or seizure, you really do need to rule this out. Because if it was, you can start to get appropriate treatment and you may well be able to start getting back to the old you. And also you need to know if you're at risk of strokes in the future and what you can do to minimise this risk.

Please don't let the doctor fob you off with saying it's peri-menopause or give them any reason to use being a mother as an excuse. Women often get serious conditions unrelated to being female hand-waved away as "women's problems". Until you've had a brain scan, stroke can't be ruled out.

Wishing you luck. Well done for taking the first step to deal with this.

I think I'm going to try to let myself be inspired by you and post on my own issues I've been putting off! The first step in getting help is asking for it, isn't it.

@Didthatreallyhappen

This came to mind today, with concern and I wondered whether you've contacted a doctor yet?

I'm not a medical professional but wondered whether you'd had a stroke.

What really hit me is essentially 'correlation does not imply causation'.

You had a night out and experienced a strange and debilitating physical change inside your head, with lasting consequences. On that night you took some substance.

You have described this event as if there is a causal relationship between substance and physical event. You don't know that. It could be pure coincidence.

I think you need to put your symptoms in front of a doctor and let them investigate.

Unless you are a doctor, I can't see that you're in a position to make any meaningful statements about what happened, or whether there is any useful therapeutic response available.