Hi All, I have a anxiety disorder. However I had a friends 21st a week ago, which as you can imagine was quite a party, over 2 days. I woke up on Sunday morning, full to the brim with anxiety, tossing and turning, couldnt turn off my mind, sweating,I do know that alcohol aggrevates the anxiety to a large degree. However for the entire week, I have been feeling in a dreamy state, really out of it, seems like im in my own little world. Derealisation!!!. Is this due to the alcohol. Its the first time this has happened to me, at first it felt like I was goign crazy, one minute I would be fine, then I would question that, and realise I was in my own little world, everything else seemed distant. It is extremely distressing, and would love some feedback. I read that this is down to to much adrenaline, (an earlier post), but is it natural for this to go on longer than a week. I makes the anxiety even worse as you continously feel like you are going mad. I have drunk before, throughout varsity, but this is the first time its happened. Can anyone help?

Jeffnice, no problem im happy to help. I like your sense of humour too (marklar - southpark). My suggestions would be, if you are really interested in this aspect, and want to find out more... - the answers are out there - there are psychiatrists who specialise in pharmacology and these are the ones you want to talk with. Not just any old psych. - there are psychologists who specialise in recreational drug use and disorders created by. I can assure you that psychosis is not the only condition that can develop as a result of recreational drug use. - there is a fair bit of info on the net. Obsession (cybertrawling) is not a healthy thing, but take a look at that url i provided you if you want some technical info - more often tha not, psychologists who specialise in drug counselling have a lot of the answers. They see many real cases. - dont forget that it is normal in anxiety disorders to obsess over a single event or problem as a cause, but the likely scenario is a combination of things that lead to the problem developing. Cheers

Melanie, I have brought up this topic with my psychiatrist, different therapists, physician, etc. All have said pretty much that there isn't enough studies and research on drug use, at least not in the states. To be honest with you I find lots of studies and reports to be heavily biased. There's always news reports here in the states about a German study or a Norweigian team of researchers found... yada yada. Studies are always going to find whatever the funding wants them to find. They can use whatever statements they want to back there claims. Mark Twain said it best when he said, "There's lies, there's **** lies and then there's statistics." I do not suffer from any form of psychosis I know that it is now 10:42 Am EST, May 16, 2004 and I am at my computer writing this response and I live on the planet Marklar...lol just kidding. Good luck, Jeff

Thank you all so much for your feedback. I have come to accept that my condition has been present throughout my entire life. My situation is that I try to pinpoint an event or something I did that caused me to have this disorder. Sky, thank you for openning up and sharing your experience with me. It's good to know I'm not the only one with similar experiences. Chipmaster, you always amaze and scare me with your vast biological facts. Thank you for breaking it all down so I can understand it better. Dunc, I greatly appreciate your support and continued help. Not many people are willing to help out strangers nowadays. I will keep on fighting the good fight. God bless you all Peace,

Taking any type of drug (street drugs) will leave us with unknown questions and concerns. However, if you feel that taking these drugs caused your panic and anxiety then why not talk to your doctor about it? He or she should have some reliable studies and this way can get the true facts. It is best to not leave this questions unanswered. I will in the meantime research this topic and will get back to you with my findings. Thanks for posting such an interesting topic! Melanie

Yeh, that's it! Derealisation or depersonalization as I've learned to call it. Dang near forgot it had name, thanks Dunc!

I wouldn't worry too much. You are very very unlikley to do any damage long term. Worrying that you might have done some damage is more likely to make you panicked than anything else. Your fear response system ids the strongest system you have in your body and it makes you feel very unwell. The effect of ecstasy on very occassional users is highly overstated for political reasons. Having said that abuse of these substances over a long period of time especially weed seems very heavily connected with psychosis. Having said that you wouldn't know if you were psychotic anyway, i assure you someone else would tell you. theres actually evidence to show that people who suffer from panic disorder etc are considerably less likely to suffer from serious mental illness. If you are panicking then you are not going crazy or dying. Panicking is a normal response which is misplaced. Its nothing to do with your brain being damaged or anything like that. With GAD, panic disorder etc its a habitual state that feels very scary but i promise you. Doing E a few times won't of done you any harm. I certainly wouldn't advise doing it anymore tho. Sky that stoned feeling you get is derealisation. I used to get it its like being in some sort of dreamstate. Its just prolonged exposure to adrenaline. I hope this helps. best regards

I can approach this question from two angles. 1) Behavioural. When you take psychoactive drugs like xtc or lsd or even speed (amphetamines) you tend to enter a different level of consiousness. This is especially so more around the psychadelic drugs like LSD. It is very rare in this day and age to actually get pure MDMA when you purchase xtc. Its more likely to be cut with speed (methylamphetamine) and or LSD, as these are cheaper substances. These types of cocktails tend to put you in a state of mind where if something goes wrong, there can be some longer term psychological impacts. Hence the term a "bad trip", which many people who use LSD in particular report experiencing. More importantly however, drugs like speed and lsd in particular, and even pure xtc, can induce bouts of anxiety and panic during the trip or after, even in those not usually prone to anxiety. In fact, they can create a state of psychosis which may involve a whole range of feelings from euphoria to paranoia to anxiety to even depression, depending on a range of factors. In short, they are fairly chaotic drugs, and whilst they typically make people feel good, it is always a bit of a gamble as they play very heavily upon your own state of mind. The way you feel when you take them will largely impact how good a time you have, and the risk of any psychological disturbance during or after (not to mention any serious events that occur while on them). For example, if you experience a panic attack whilst tripping, you will almost certainly remember this experience quite vividly, and due to your state of consciousness it could quite easily lead to agoraphobic avoidance in the future, or some other type of psychological distress. 2) Biochemical effects. MDMA or xtc in particular works by significantly increasing the levels of serotonin and dopamine in your brain. Unlike SSRI anti- depressants, which inhibit the reputake, xtc actually boosts them right up. This is why people tend to feel so good on them for short periods only. After you take them however, your receptors are left quite drained. The pathways between them can be damaged temporarily or permanently, and the ability to produce serotonin is significantly

Oh, just to clarify. I said up there that I had a panic attack which lasted for a week and a bit. Panic attacks don't last that long. What happened was a series of attacks one after the other that felt like one massive one. eek, sorry don't wanna scare anyone! But yeh, don't want anyone to read that and believe it to be something it's not.

Hi Jeffnice, I've never taken Ecstasy but I have done a lot of pot and cocaine in the past. I think after three years if the ecstasy had done any damage you'd know about it by now. I don't think you have anything to worry about there. :) During the time I took drugs I had a lot of panic attacks and didn't know what was happening. I'd always panic under the effects of whatever I had taken. I had a doozy of an attack one night thought I was going to die and thought "hmm probably not a very good idea I get intoxicated anymore" and stopped. Then about a week after I had my first sober panic attack which lasted for a week and a bit, well I was convinced I was dying by this stage! But I didn't and soon learned the nature of panic disorder. :) I often wonder if my past drug use has caused me to develop panic disorder. It probably has played a part for me, and you too. But then we don't know, it could have happened one day anyway without drugs. You gotta challenge your thinking and attitude. Tell yourself that, yeh you took two ecstasy pills at once and it was terrible, but that was three years ago and it's over. That's what I do. It just limits the amount of anxious thoughts that come into mind, helps take the severity off the fear. But you gotta keep repeating those positive thoughts "it's over" There was someone on this forum once, can't remember who it was. But they said one day on the topic of drugs that they knew a bloke who'd done all sorts of things to his body and mind in aid of research and experiment. He said that he believed the brain is quite plastic and whatever doesn't cause damage can and does repare very easily. I'd say physically theres nothing wrong with you, you just keep reliving and fearing what's happened. Like myself. I've read research into post ecstasy use too. I think a great deal of it is true. However I honestly believe they gloss over the fact that everyone is different. Also one E is different to the next as they, and anything else for that matter, can be mixed with god knows what. While I believe drugs bring out anxiety and depression. I don't believe a drug can be the sole reason for mental disorders in all cases. I think the media wrongly leads the public to believe that if you take this, it's a life sentence. I truly believe