I CURED MYSELF, NO DRUGS, NO LIE, PLEASE READ!!!!!!!

[NewPoster111]

YOU HAVE TO BE YOURSELF. YOU CANNOT BECOME THAT PORTRAIT OF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE. IF YOU THEN DON'T LIKE WHO YOU ARE, YOU CAN CHANGE SOME THINGS, BUT NOT BEFORE YOU'RE ABLE TO BE YOURSELF.

SECONDLY, AFTER LEARNING TO BE YOURSELF, KILL THE 3RD PERSON PERSEPECTIVE. CONDITION YOURSELF OUT OF SEEING YOUR ACTIONS THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS AND FOCUS ON JUST BEING.

I'm not going as in depth as i probably should about my history with SAD, but I'll go over the main points and hopefully, someone somewhere can be helped by this. From kindergarten to 10th grade, I was NATURALLY extroverted and willing to talk. WHen my mother died, I slowly grew into an introvert. THis progression eventually led to the development of SAD. I'd drink before social events, and constantly see myself in a 3rd person perspective of what others saw. I knew how irrational it was, but I just couldn't beat it. I couldn't talk to girls and I felt on the spot even when talking to guys. I was constantly fixated on how I was being perceived. This led to depression. There's so much more I can say, but I'm lazy.

So, here's how I cured myself. Let me say first that I think I'm a sort of a unique case of SAD, but maybe you can take something that I learned to heart. I think my case is unique since I used to be extroverted and the kind of person I am. I am really smart and a great writer (meaning I am a little better at personal reflection then the average person). I researched all medications and treatments and became a freakin' SAD encyclopedia. This didn't really help me. I went to a doctor once to get medication. He gave me Paxil, and I didn't take it.

So, back on topic. I used to try to adjust myself to who I wanted to be perceived as. I'd try to think of things that were funny to say, I'd try to tell myself to relax, and I'd try to think of topics of conversation before social events. NONE HELPED. Then one day, I took Adderall to study. I immediately noticed a feeling of having "myself" back. I had an urge to be a little more social and I could process thoughts more. The GOD DAMN BRAIN FOG, the worst symptom, seemed to go away. Unfortunately, this effect only lasted 3 hrs and, since Adderall is addictive and bad for you, I had to find a new solution.

Then came the EPIPHANY...

I feel terrible in a way saying this, but my epiphany came while doing a drug called 2CI. I in no way condone drugs and this is only the second time I had ever done a hallucinagen. The first time, I tried shrooms and realized that I was able to think differently, at different perspectives. Let me say that DRUGS DO NOT MAKE YOU SMARTER AND WILL HAVE DEVASTATING EFFECTS. Many of my friends suffer from these effects.

But something happened when I was on 2CI. The idea came in my head that maybe, just maybe, I'd be able to go into deep thought on this psycodelic drug and figure it out. Guess what, I did!

Here's what I figured out and, after 3 months of being compeltely cured, I know this is right. And you will know it's right. The cure is, you need to BE YOURSELF. Everything you are must be built around this fact. If you try to adjust to what others want you to be, you will never be cured. You need to FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE. Find out what makes you happy. This can be hard and I can't tell you how to do it. But this is the first step. THIS IS THE FIRST STEP.

THIS WAS NOT HTE COMPLETE CURE. Even though I was telling myself I had to be myself and not worry about how I am perceived, I still had trouble since I couldn't help but wanting to be liked. The SECOND STEP was preventing my 3RD PERSON PERSPECTIVE of life. I had to stop seeing my actions and behavior through the eyes of others. THis was very hard. Everytime this perspective came, I'd relax and try to think externally. Eventually, it became easier. I gained my sense of humor back. I gained my sense of self back. I was acting like I had before I had developed SAD.

I know that most people have SAD their whole life and in my case, I was able to reflect a little bit on who I was before I developed it since I only had it for four years. But I think two things can be true for many people. YOU MUST KNOW WHO YOU ARE BEFORE YOU CAN CHANGE ANYTHING. YOU HAVE TO BE YOURSELF. YOU CANNOT BECOME THAT PORTRAIT OF THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BE. FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE. IF YOU THEN DON'T LIKE WHO YOU ARE, YOU CAN CHANGE, BUT NOT BEFORE YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE.

SECONDLY, AFTER KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, KILL THE 3RD PERSON PERSEPECTIVE. CONDITION YOURSELF OUT OF SEEING YOUR ACTIONS THROUGH THE EYES OF OTHERS AND FOCUS ON JUST BEING.



please reply and tell me your thoughts...

 

[anxiousguy83]

It's hard to know who you are when you've had this entire life..

 

[Klaus]

Last issue of "The Economist" is talking about forbidden drugs and the good impact they can have on disorders like depression or PTSD, especially ecstasy.

 

[Remus]

mushrooms just helped to mess me up further, dont touch em kids!

 

[grakovsky]

I have been thinking of taking 3 hits of acid and just trip for 8 hours to see more of the truth and beauty in this life. Do you think it will help me with my social problems? The only problem is that it's LSD but I do not care.

 

[AngelusNovus]

You don't have to take drugs to figure that out, you can read it in any self-help book on the market. Be yourself and be present to the moment, anyone can figure that out...thanks anyway (but no thanks to getting high on drugs)

 

[no1]

lol yeah. It's just I guess a drug gives you that sorta "HOLY SH*T!" feeling. plus isn't phenylethylamine like the molecule of love or some thing?

 

[AngelusNovus]

I have been thinking of taking 3 hits of acid and just trip for 8 hours to see more of the truth and beauty in this life. Do you think it will help me with my social problems? The only problem is that it's LSD but I do not care.

To add: I may die from my epiphany, ahh well what the heck! Let's all go on one big TRIP and see whether we can collectively solve the intricate mysteries of social anxiety...or all die in the process like a latter day Jones cult! I'm not trying to be demeaning, I just think there are better ways of finding solutions to life's problems that to take drugs...

 

[grakovsky]

The guy thinks you will die from LSD...wow. Taking it won't solve my problems but I think it will help for sure, seeing as i've read 100's of reports, and people come out of their trip seeing beauty and looking at everything differently (the Beatles for example). I don't know it's not going to happen but if i had a chance i think i would go for it...just forget it

 

[NewPoster111]

What I think about drugs

Last issue of "The Economist" is talking about forbidden drugs and the good impact they can have on disorders like depression or PTSD, especially ecstasy.

I don't think drugs should be taken recreationally, especially drugs that can have damaging psychological or physical affects. But, given my experience on 2CI, we DO think in different perspectives when on certain drugs and they CAN help you realize how to be yourself or get perspective on a certain issue. I think it's irresponsible to take drugs for temporary relief, but you can still be smart while taking them by trying to learn something about yourself that you can change or a problem about the way you perceive reality and take it back over to the OTHER SIDE (when you're sober).

 

[Lexmark]

It's hard to know who you are when you've had this entire life..

Exactly

 

[NewPoster111]

Keep trying

It's hard to know who you are when you've had this entire life..

THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT YOU CAN'T FIND THE SOLUTION. IT IS NOT THAT YOU CAN'T FIND OUT HOW TO ACT IN CERTAIN SOCIAL SITUATIONS, OR JUST CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE. YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM WHEN THE REAL PROBLEM IS THAT YOU ARE SEARCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. WE ALL HAVE RESPONSES TO EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. WE ALL HAVE OPINONS ABOUT EVERYTHING. THIS IS INEVITABLE. YOU NEED TO START TO LISTEN TO THESE OPINIONS, STICK BY THEM, HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THEM, AND THAT'S WHO YOU ARE.

Dude I had the same problem. I was at the point where I was typing "forgot who you are" in Google. Let me tell you how I kind of learned how to "be myself."

A little background: I took Adderall to study once in month 5 of realizing that I had SAD. I noticed that it extroverted me, gave me less social inhibition, and made me talk more. One more, important effect, was that my thoughts "kept going." I once thought it was the effect of the Amphetamine stimulant, but I was wrong.

My thoughts "kept going" because, for some reason, Adderall kept me from falling into that 3rd person perspective of myself that I was naturally living in, thereby keeping me from having the "brain fog". Instead of being internally focused, I was extroverted and my thoughts were responses to my environment More than internal depressed thinking that I was used to.

Now, after finding out the first step was "being myself," I tried harder to stop thinking in the 3rd person perspective and THINK FOR MYSELF. What I found out was awesome. My "brain fog" was a direct result from my constant concern of how I was being perceived by others. I would then try to adjust my behavior, appearance, etc. so I would like how I was perceived by others at that moment. If I truly do not focus on that perspective and I am able to think externally, my thought process continues, just as it did on Adderall. THE PROBLEM IS NOT THAT YOU CANNOT FIND THE SOLUTION. IT IS NOT THAT YOU CAN'T FIND OUT HOW TO ACT IN CERTAIN SOCIAL SITUATIONS, OR JUST CAN'T FIGURE OUT WHO YOU ARE. YOU ARE SEARCHING FOR A SOLUTION TO A PROBLEM WHEN THE REAL PROBLEM IS THAT YOU ARE SEARCHING IN THE FIRST PLACE. WE ALL HAVE RESPONSES TO EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS. WE ALL HAVE OPINONS ABOUT EVERYTHING. THIS IS INEVITABLE. YOU NEED TO START TO LISTEN TO THESE OPINIONS, STICK BY THEM, HAVE CONFIDENCE IN THEM, AND THAT'S WHO YOU ARE.

 

[NewPoster111]

Try this one...

Thats awesome. :] i've had fuckin fantastic idea's like this While grillin on shrooms, But then once i come down, i forget. haha, it sucks..
But thats really cool that you found something that works for you and thats cured you...im definitely gonna have to give it a shot.. :]

I'm not surprised that you forgot. It's hard to stay focused, especially when you're having a blast. Try to think of it like this (it worked for me)...

When you're on shrooms or whatever, you're in almost another reality where you are able to figure certain things out through self reflection. When you sober up, you lose that ability and everything that you realized goes to waste. You need to focus on taking ONE THING BACK WITH YOU. Ask yourself the question to get to the source of the problem, such as "why am I depressed." My answer was "you're not being yourself." I took that with me to my sober state, thought more into it, and learned how to be myself.

 

[NewPoster111]

I have been thinking of taking 3 hits of acid and just trip for 8 hours to see more of the truth and beauty in this life. Do you think it will help me with my social problems? The only problem is that it's LSD but I do not care.

No, I don't think it will. Actually, IT WON'T. Drugs won't help you unless they're taken with the right intentions. All I know is that I figured out a pretty effective way to do it...

When you're on shrooms or whatever, you're in almost another reality where you are able to figure certain things out through self reflection. When you sober up, you lose that ability and everything that you realized goes to waste. You need to focus on taking ONE THING BACK WITH YOU. Ask yourself the question to get to the source of the problem, such as "why am I depressed." My answer was "you're not being yourself." I took that with me to my sober state, thought more into it, and learned how to be myself.

 

[NewPoster111]

True, true

lol yeah. It's just I guess a drug gives you that sorta "HOLY SH*T!" feeling. plus isn't phenylethylamine like the molecule of love or some thing?

Let me say this in response to you're reply, this was about the MILLIONTH time I had that "Holy Shit" feeling, drugs or no drugs, as if I had found the answer. But this time it was something different. I was sure I was right and there was no other way to look at it. Three weeks later, it was still right. 2 months later, it was still right. And now, I'm cured.

 

[aussie135]

True. Your story is similar to mine. When I was younger I was the alpha male in primary school and was outgoing with friends and probably the funniest bloke you will ever meet. Once social anxiety hit and I wanted everyone to like me I started going more into my shell. I didn't give two shits if people liked me in primary school. I lost my personality for a while there but its just started to come back since I've been with the my theraapist. Some days I struggle but I'm changing the thoughts that I have and it is slowly working for me.

Btw, No drugs are good if u don't want to chuck your life down the drain. I just got off weed after being addicted for a year. Stopped taking pills and smoking speed aswell. It's fucking hard to do so before you take the drug look at where you might end up. It is not fun after a while it is a just a ritual. My mates are all still on it and taking all drugs on the weekends and they are totally different people. Bloke who used to be my best mate is a lifeless piece of shit really. Everytime I see him now he's high on something and is just a weird cunt.

Anyway, peace.

 

[Marie1988]

' just a weird cunt' lol sorry that made me chuckle, yeh ive seen people change because of drugs, in a bad way, its probs one of the worst things because u know they done it to themselves, and u cant reverse them kind of effects.
i found your topic very insightful and i totally agree. if you try and live up to someone else, ur only going to get hurt. when you try to be that funny popular person but it just doesnt work for you, you end up thinking whats wrong with me? why does it work for them and not me? well because its not you.
i think todays society doesnt help. the message kind of is that a good looking, rich, domineering, load person is better than a kind, sensative, gentle person. its almost like people like people they percieve to be better in terms of more successful than them!? very strange world.

i know what u mean about knowing the self though. for awhile i wanted to be person everyone loved, laughed at my jokes, had best style, overtly crazy party girl etc (looking back yeh i wanted to be a bitch basicly lol) but ya know, thats never been me! people have generally always liked me, but ive always had a few close mates. and most people find my humour offensive so everyone laughing at my jokes aint gonna happen lol and my style is cool anyways so thats alright. but more to the point, im not queen bitch, im someone who naturally enjoys being nice and friendly to people, i have my moments, i can flip the lid. and crazy party girl? why i wanted to be a crazy drunk ill never know!! i guess coz thats what i thought at the time i would need to be for people to like me. truth is it attracted people that i dont like! which then i found it even harder to be myself!
Now im just being me. pure and simple. i struggle to get to know people. but once i do i come close with people. i do have a big personality, but not the kind where everyone on the street knows about it the kind that takes a long time time to get to know all of it. i was never the popular kid, never have been. im cool with that actualy coz i have real mates.
i used to worry that i didnt talk to shop folk like 'omg i cant make convo with the person at the til i must be really shy' actualy i dont give a fuck what the man scanning my beans thinks about the weather thats why i dont talk to him.
i reccomend you follow this persons advice. its good stuff

 

[NewPoster111]

ggg

ggg

 

[Klaus]

Re: What I think about drugs

Last issue of "The Economist" is talking about forbidden drugs and the good impact they can have on disorders like depression or PTSD, especially ecstasy.

I don't think drugs should be taken recreationally, especially drugs that can have damaging psychological or physical affects. But, given my experience on 2CI, we DO think in different perspectives when on certain drugs and they CAN help you realize how to be yourself or get perspective on a certain issue. I think it's irresponsible to take drugs for temporary relief, but you can still be smart while taking them by trying to learn something about yourself that you can change or a problem about the way you perceive reality and take it back over to the OTHER SIDE (when you're sober).

Yeah, the article says that.

 

[Klaus]

The article

Agony and ecstasy
From The Economist print edition

Ecstasy may be good for those who can’t get over something truly horrible

Craig Ward“I’VE been shot in the leg. I’ve been beat up. But that’s pretty minor,” says a 41-year-old American security contractor who spent four years in Iraq. “But when you get a vehicle blown out from under you and ambushed by six or eight al-Qaedas, it does tend to affect one a little bit.”

With a broken back, two broken feet and neurological damage, the man, who asked that his name not be used, spent the next three months in hospitals in Iraq, Germany and America. But though he was physically on the mend by the start of this year, he found himself incapacitated. “I was having nightmares right off the bat,” he recalls. “I couldn’t do anything. Mostly, I’d just retreat to a room and not leave.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD, is the persistence of debilitating psychological symptoms. It can include flashbacks and nightmares, increased arousal in the form of insomnia, anger and an inability to concentrate, and impaired personal relationships. Although lasting psychological damage from horrific experiences has been recognised since time immemorial, it is only since 1980, when veterans were still experiencing stress from the Vietnam war, that PTSD has been a formal psychiatric diagnosis.

By 2005 72,000 American veterans were receiving disability payments for PTSD. A study two years later estimated that 12% of American veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD. Thus far, 1.8m Americans have been deployed in those two theatres, implying 216,000 eventual cases.

Yet most PTSD sufferers are not drawn from the ranks of those for whom trauma is an occupational hazard: 5% of American men suffer from PTSD at some period in their lives. For American women, the rate is double that, mostly from exposure to such crimes as domestic violence and sexual abuse. Two in five rape victims are diagnosable with PTSD six months after the attack. “It can go on for ever”, says Kathleen Brady, a professor of psychiatry at the Medical University of South Carolina who studies the disorder, “but even after 30 years, PTSD is treatable.”

Treatment usually includes drugs and antidepressants such as Zoloft, sometimes combined with psychotherapy. “There is a lot of evidence supporting exposure-based therapy”, says Dr Brady, “which means re-living the events in a safe setting so patients can separate the inappropriate effect from the trauma.” Yet in at least a quarter of cases chronic PTSD is resistant to all treatment.

Gail Westerfield, a writer who lives in South Carolina, was sexually abused by a neighbour when she was a child, and later raped by an acquaintance when a university student. She suffered a range of symptoms including memory problems, bouts of depression, crying fits and tremors.

She was diagnosed with PTSD a decade ago when she was in her 30s. But she found this knowledge cold comfort. “I was probably on half a dozen different kinds of antidepressants over the years”, she says, “and they never worked for me. I’ve had this my whole life, pretty much.”

So the results of a clinical trial recently announced by Michael Mithoefer, a psychiatrist in Charleston, South Carolina, are encouraging. Twenty patients with PTSD who had resisted standard treatments—including both Ms Westerfield and the security contractor—were given an experimental drug in combination with psychotherapy. After just two sessions all of them reported dramatic improvement. The compound, methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA, is not new. Known as Ecstasy, it is illegal nearly everywhere.

Dr Mithoefer’s study is part of a broader resumption of research into the therapeutic uses of psychoactive compounds. Scientists in North America, Europe and Israel are studying the use of MDMA, LSD, hallucinogenic mushrooms, marijuana and other banned psychoactive substances in treating conditions such as anxiety, cluster headaches, addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder. They are supported by private funds from a handful of organisations: the Beckley Foundation in Britain; the Heffter Research Institute and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS) in America.

This avenue of research—as opposed to research into the damage done by recreational drug use—came to a halt in the 1970s when drug prohibition became politically popular first in America and then in the rest of the world. Though the “war on drugs” continues, the approach is gradually becoming less dogmatic and more pragmatic. Even so, research into therapeutic uses of banned drugs is fraught with political considerations, often with bizarre results. For instance, though medical marijuana is now recognised in many parts of the world—in California more than 20,000 people are registered to use it—there are few studies into its benefits.

Fun has its uses
MDMA was first synthesised almost a century ago but was little noticed until the 1960s when young American chemists began to ingest it. Alexander Shulgin, a chemist at Dow Chemical in California who had invented Zectran, the first biodegradable insecticide, had been experimenting—in every sense—with mescaline and its chemical relatives. Then one of his students suggested that he try MDMA. “By golly”, he recalls, “she was absolutely right: this was an interesting compound.”

Mr Shulgin left Dow to pursue psychoactive chemistry full-time. Over a couple of decades he synthesised hundreds of chemicals, all of which he tried first on himself and a small group of volunteers. One of his collaborators was his wife, Ann. In the late 1970s the Shulgins introduced MDMA to Leo Zeff, a Californian psychotherapist who had developed LSD therapies in the 1960s when that drug was still legal. Dr Zeff was so impressed that he postponed retirement and became an enthusiastic proponent of the drug (which he called Adam), introducing it to hundreds of other therapists in America and Europe.

But in the 1980s MDMA, which at the time was still unregulated, escaped its semi-underground psychotherapeutic milieu and began to be taken by young people for the sheer fun of it. In a panic, America’s Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), unaware of the therapeutic MDMA network, made an emergency classification in 1985 that placed MDMA in Schedule I—the most restrictive category for drugs with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use”.

Schedule I also includes marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, mescaline and heroin (though rules vary widely: heroin, for example, is available by prescription in Britain and some other countries). Cocaine, amphetamines, opium, morphine and others are in Schedule II and can be prescribed by doctors under DEA supervision. Although 500,000 doses of MDMA had by this point been used in therapeutic settings, the compound was thereafter banned worldwide.

Some therapists went underground, continuing MDMA treatment illegally, using illicit supplies. “It’s a very simple compound to make,” remarks Mr Shulgin.

Ironically, once it became illegal, MDMA’s recreational use exploded. The UN estimates that at least 9m people—compared with 12m heroin and 16m cocaine users—consume round about 100 tonnes of MDMA and related compounds worldwide each year. The criminal nature of the business makes it difficult to assess the dosage or purity of the MDMA being consumed and it can have lethal effects. But millions of people, rolling about on fake fur pillows or waving glowsticks to electronic music, attest to feeling good. “The first time I ever did it was literally the first time in my life that I felt good in my body,” says Ms Westerfield, who took MDMA recreationally in the 1980s (half the study participants had swallowed the drug occasionally in the past).

In 1986 Rick Doblin, one of Dr Zeff’s students, founded MAPS with the goal of ushering MDMA through the formal drug-approval process of America’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and so bringing about its rescheduling. Drug approval often takes big pharmaceutical firms a dozen years at an average cost exceeding $1 billion. But Mr Doblin, then a student, had time and enthusiasm on his side.

“Our whole approach is based on the idea that science matters at the FDA,” he says. No studies had been performed on the effects of banned psychoactive drugs on humans since 1971 (though a thaw came in 1990 with a study to assess the relationship between schizophrenia and dimethyltryptamine or DMT, a potent hallucinogen that occurs naturally in the brain). Mr Doblin explains that since the FDA insists that psychedelics should be treated like any other drug, “we had to start with a Phase I safety study, where the drug is first used on humans—even though millions of people had taken MDMA by then.” The study got going in 1992 at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The results were positive but by the mid-1990s, when the study was complete, MDMA had become even more controversial. It was not until 2000, when Mr Doblin met Dr Mithoefer, another of Dr Zeff’s former students, that the opportunity arose to propose a Phase II study on the efficacy of MDMA in treating PTSD. Treatments began in 2004.

Dr Mithoefer’s Phase II research, which used MDMA from the only legal source—a chemist at Purdue University licensed by the DEA to distribute controlled quantities from a supply synthesised in 1985—is directly descended from the first generation of LSD psychotherapy. Subjects were given MDMA while attended by Dr Mithoefer and his wife, a psychiatric nurse. They rested on a futon, listened to music and were encouraged to revisit their trauma.

“I was blown 15 feet through the air, and forgot the ride upwards”“I remember feeling incredibly safe and very motivated,” says Ms Westerfield of her first session. The security contractor from Iraq concurs. “It helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together,” he says. “I was blown 15 feet through the air in a vehicle, and I forgot the ride upwards. It made me remember it.”

The patients who received MDMA showed statistically significant improvement of their PTSD symptoms compared with those who received the same day-long therapy sessions with an inactive placebo. “All the major approaches involve revisiting the trauma in therapy”, says Dr Mithoefer, “but patients may be overwhelmed and retraumatised.” He believes the fear and defensiveness that characterise PTSD are obstacles to treatment, and that it is MDMA’s attenuation of these emotions that permits concurrent psychotherapy to be effective. He will publish the study shortly.

Several additional Phase II studies organised by MAPS are about to start in Israel, Switzerland and Canada. A Phase III trial, in which the methodology is extended to many more therapists and several hundred patients, is still more than two years away. But eventually, if two Phase III studies are successful, the next step would be rescheduling MDMA. Dr Mithoefer is cautious, suggesting that looking that far ahead is premature. “There’s reason to think this may be an exciting new treatment at some point,” he says. “But it’s a long way to proving it in larger trials.”

“We don’t have failures”, says Mr Doblin, “because we’re working with drugs that have been tested in the underground, and work.” Government research into the harmful effects of these drugs has, curiously, helped his cause: “There are over 3,000 papers on MDMA that have cost more than $200m to produce,” he says. He estimates that, thanks to these bodies of formal and informal knowledge, MAPS can take MDMA through the approval process for only about $10m.

While the bureaucracy rolls on, a few people are watching the results with personal interest—and impatience. “There are other things that I would still like to work on,” says Ms Westerfield, whose last MDMA-assisted therapeutic session was four years ago. “That’s why I hope it gets approved sooner rather than later.”