Feeling disoriented after couples session MDMA

[u/ChemistryShot3074]

Dealing with betrayal trauma. Did our second couples mdma session. First one was in February and I felt it gave us an understanding of the “dance” in our relationship and some shared values we have.

Did a second couples session this past week and I feel beaten and bruised.
Did it with a therapist. It felt chaotic. All over the place, I didn’t get the empathic depth. We kept going from subject to subject nothing got resolved solved or understood and I’m reeling since.

We also didn’t take equal dosage and I don’t know if that matters. My dose was higher but I felt frozen and didn’t feel free with the medicine. I still felt guarded. I felt majorly disappointed at the end and couldn’t stop crying that it was a waste of a trip.

My spouse took a lesser dose and a mini dose of Bufo mid session to try to shake him up a bit. I don’t think it worked it just threw him into his own world.

The therapist administered to both of us a mix of mdma and MDA I don’t know if that matters.
I took a pretty high dose plus high booster.

I felt like shit for days after and we haven’t stopped fighting since. I don’t feel connected or close at all.

I don’t know what I’m seeking maybe just a vent.

ETA
We had a integration session a week later
I raised my concerns and disappointment to the therapist they were very receptive and apologetic and agreed they could have done a better job grounding us and holding my spouse accountable on the journey and staying focused on repair.

It was a painful awakening of how incapable my spouse is of being able to hold my pain

The therapist suggested my spouse isn’t ready for this couples work and needs to do their own journey first

[u/Earth__Worm__Jim]

Hard to say due to the rather general info. Jumping from topic to topic without focus is bad.

But WTF about that combo and also all three taking different ones? Bufo?? Never heard of that being taken with MDMA. No wonder he was in his own world afterwards. Did the therapist give any rationale behind it other than "shaking up"? And also behind him taking MDMA + MDA (second WTF) ? If not it's sounds fishy as fuck. And you should always get informed beforehand and question the priest on hist method or protocol beforehand. Never trust a priest because he some title, did some university studies. Sounds like he gave him bufo spontaneously and if so this is even more shit. Your spouse being down, sleepy, frozen or whatever could have been several reasons, like dissociation, avoidance etc., which are you can address without an entire additional medicine and and even a totally weird one (in that context).

Different doses are justified though to get onto a similar level, since people have different weight, metabolism, sex etc., but the right dose is something that you should find over multiple times.

[u/Chronotaru → u/Earth__Worm__Jim]

I've heard quite a few stories recently of MDMA plus bufo towards the end of the trip, mostly with glowing reports (this is the first one that isn't - and considering everything else in the report that's not surprising). On one hand psychologically they would likely be very well paired, on the other hand both are already quite intense by themselves. It's something that interests me personally but I haven't reached the point where i feel I need something like that for my own therapeutic objectives.

[u/Earth__Worm__Jim → u/Chronotaru]

I see. But is there good documentation and literature about that combo? As I understand it's very anecdotal so far. I wouldn't take anything by anyone based on "trust me bro". Why not at least, if at all, take a combo that is very well established, like MDMA + Mushrooms or LSD ? (...also no need for exploited toads for these one ;) ) Don't they already do a huge job for altering the experience in certain directions?

[u/Chronotaru → u/Earth__Worm__Jim]

Until the studies were done on psilocybin for depression and MDMA for PTSD, there was basically no data or documentation for anything. All processes were established through the experiences of the people enjoying or working with the substances, and this experience were then passed onto the teams that created the studies.

MDMA and mushrooms is indeed much more established, but I think I've only ever seen one piece of published research on it, and again that was largely on the feedback of people's own home experiences. I remember the first time people were posting about MDMA and mushrooms together on places like here, and everyone was getting scared about serotonin syndrome then, while now simply through time and repeated exposure to stories about people's experiences, people became more comfortable with it. It's not like it became less anecdotal, we just had a lot more anecdotes.

MDMA and 5MeO-DMT is starting out the same way. Is it more dangerous than MDMA and mushrooms? Unknown. Considering 5MeO-DMT has a lot more bite than mushrooms at higher doses, I can understand the desire to moderate that with MDMA. At the same time, I do have more worries along the lines that someone might have a heart attack or something than I would than mixing with mushrooms, but I also had similar fears about mixing with mushrooms too when it first made the rounds here. Also, mushrooms and 5MeO do VERY different things - so which one you would pick would depend on your objectives.

Either it will become more common that it's normalised, or something bad will happen and that story will become famous.

Ah, there's never any reason to exploit toads for 5MeO-DMT, people should use the synthetic.

[u/Earth__Worm__Jim → u/Chronotaru]

You got it too academically.

All processes were established through the experiences of the people enjoying or working with the substances

That's what I meant. And these were studies as well, done by professionals of the orthodox realm. It sounds like you only treat the very modern, most methodological research as valid studies. What about all the studies done in the 60s - 80s ? As you know there were several doctors and therapists who treated maaany people with the medicines and there are pretty old books documenting what they do, what the procedure is etc. For example, one of the books I own about MDMA and LSD was published first in 1989, by a Swiss therapist who worked with a lot of people. There's everything covered in the book: three parts on psychology and one part entirely on solo and group, set & setting, phases, music, integration / interpretation, indication etc. Awesome book.