Therapeutic value of phenylpropylamines?

It has been discussed that there might be value in using phenylpropylamines to help those with PTSD-like issues.  In particular I have heard about MDMA being hypothesized and tested to help reprogram deep-seatd fear/trauma response mechanisms tied to the amygdala.

Another possible use of phenylpropylamines is to overcome some type of blockage in a person’s life.  To my knowledge, there is very little actual understanding nor even acknowledgement or recognition of what such blockages are within the medical establishment.

Blockages are complex situations which probably involve a host of overlapping causative factors.  People who are affected by such blockages may suffer from them for years because any attempt to treat just one aspect of the causative factors is never sufficient to overcome the blockage.  In fact such attempts may lead to a type of fatigue thereby predisposing the sufferer from making subsequent attempts to remedy the blockage.

The fallout emotionally and psychologically from such a situation can be significant for both the individual and society.  A person in a blocked state will more than likely oscillate between feelings of despair and hopelessness, feelings of frustration, and feelings of anger.

Why is it not possible for the modern medical establishment to help much less to even understand such conditions in human lives?

Even if modern medicine is not able to deal with such blockages, it still has an essential function because it is able to understand and treat most if not all of the underlying factors which contribute to such blockages individually.

For example the knowledge of the detrimental effects to health because of environmental stresses like noise is well-established.  Here then perhaps the greatest failing of the medical establishment is its inaction in the face of critical knowledge of human health which is possesses.  With knowledge comes responsibility, and it is evident that there have been and continue to be major failures of the medical establishment in terms of its responsibility to 1) present and make unambiguously clear what health dangers are; and 2) to advocate for and be involved with actual policy changes necessary to protect human health.  Both of these are not optional, arbitrary things which the medical community is, among other things, capable of undertaking when it so has the will to do so: They are fundamental, inextricable aspects of what medicine at its fundamental core is supposed to be.

It would be easy to launch off into a political rant at this point about how, at this time, many of those in positions of responsibility in society are in fact are among the least responsible, looking out only for their extremely narrow, selfish, vested interests, and the significant detrimental harm this has for society.

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Against the detrimental effects associated with the use of many phenylpropylamines one has to balance whatever potential therapeutic benefit there might be.  The purpose of this essay is to discuss my personal experience with use of a phenylpropylamine in terms of blockage.

For many years I have suffered from what now seems quite apparent to me has been a condition which has involved a state of chronic fatigue, inability to concentrate, orthostatic hypotension, and depression.  One of the effects of this condition has been on my immediate living space and inability to organize, clean, and manage basic household tasks essential for maintaining a healthy and functional home environment.

I have calculated that the cost of this condition has resulted in the loss of literally thousands if not tens-of-thousands of dollars, in addition to the substantial damage that it has caused to my life in general.

Yet the medical establishment has been essentially useless throughout this time.  Even worse, it is clear that the medical establishment is not even interested in seriously understanding nor acknowledging what has occurred to me.  To the extent that it fails to perform its most basic function, it seems unambiguously clear to me at this juncture that the medical establishment is in fact complicit with the attack on fundamental human rights which is the hallmark of this modern, industrialist, “capitalist”, soft-totalitarian society.

In fact, such an attack would not be nearly as effective without the complicity of the modern medical establishment.  It is precisely because, not in spite of, the modern medical establishment that so many violations against fundamental human rights are able to be consistently perpetrated.

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To what extent can the use of phenylpropylamine compounds be therapeutic?  There probably is no way to definitively measure something like this given the complexity and nature of human beings.  However, based on my extensive knowledge of the human body and long-term practice of health activities including herbalism, fitness, nutrition, meditation, etc. I would like to make some observations based on my personal experience.

If there was a problem in your life which was so persistent and so substantial and was causing long-term harm to your existence and someone came and asked you if you would be willing to undergo a type of discomfort or deprivation for the sake of a temporary, immediate gain in order to be able to address the problem, would you accept it?

That for me is the crux of the question.  For it is clear that the use of some phenylpropylamine compounds clearly offer the potential to provide an immediate, short-term benefit in terms of being able to surmount otherwise insurmountable blockages which a person may have suffered under for years.

Against this is the fact that the use of many phenylpropylamine compounds has serious health consequences.  Those consequences are, interestingly enough, almost the opposite of the short-term benefits they offer, hence the rhetorical question at the beginning of this section.  For, if someone knew that they could in essence borrow energy from their future for the sake of surmounting a difficult problem in the present, is such immediate energy worth the cost of future discomfort?

My instinctive feeling, based on personal experience, is that in situations outside of the types of conditions which I have described here, the benefit does not outweigh the cost.  But, given a specific condition which as I have described, such a therapy may be one of the very few or perhaps the only means of therapy.  As such, I believe that it is worth the cost.

How many people there are who actually are suffering from such a condition as described above I do not know and therefore I also cannot say how useful such a therapy may be for the general population.

It is also clear that the most common situations of the use of phenylpropylamine compounds is quite outside of the type of therapeutic use that I am describing.  Such a type of self-administered therapy is, I would guess, quite rare.

My subjective experience of this self-administered therapy, based on a retrospective view a short time after the fact, is that it has had a substantial effect upon my body but, given my overall excellent condition of health prior to the experience, has been limited and bearable.  However, if it had been any more it probably would have resulted in more detrimental effects to my health and its benefit would have been questionable.

What follows is a more detailed analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of the therapeutic experience:

1. Feelings of intrinsic connectedness with others in the world.  Feelings of trust for others.  Substantial increase in ability to “open up” and feel connected.

Since the experience began (unexpectedly and unplanned) in a dance club I was in an initial environment surrounded by people.  Had I not been in this environment I would not have had an opportunity to have such an experience.

While this experience seemed significant its effects seem to have been mostly short-lived.  After leaving that environment after a couple hours and going into the second stage of the experience (cleaning and organizing at home) that “glow” diminished as I became more and more focused on my work.

I am aware that this is one of the main purported areas of benefit of phenylpropylamine compounds, namely temporarily lowering barriers between the self and others and overcoming long-standing feelings such as alienation, dissociation, distrust, fear, or anxiety.

It is true that for a certain amount of time it felt blissful.  Such feelings are ones that I believe every human being – were we living in a healthy, holistic world – would experience frequently.  There is no question that humans were probably meant in some way or other to feel blissful.  But that also is not how it has been for long periods of human history, based on historical evidence of things like acts of mass atrocity and of course on current observation of the state of affairs of humanity on Planet Earth.

The situation the world is in, and us as a part of it, is the result of the condition of humanity and all the actions, inactions, concerns, and lack of concerns of people.  While there may be occasional minor fluctuations and variations in what comprises the continuum of reality, the fundamental picture does not change significantly over time and hence the factors which contribute to there being distress, suffering, and other negative things in the world which bear down upon an individual remain mostly unchanged.

Beyond this, there is always the knowledge about true sources of fundamental bliss which always remain unchanged and that these can never be bypassed.  Many of the problems with happiness, success, blissfulness, etc. is due to misunderstanding of what happiness, success, bliss, etc. really are.

Still, the occasional experience of inter-connectedness with others can give one a perspective for reflection upon what it is that unites humanity and also what it really means to be a human among humans.  Based on one’s ethical beliefs about what is right and wrong, when one feels a strong connection with others it gives one a chance to look at how one’s ethical beliefs affect one’s normal feelings towards others and how connected or disconnected one feels.

Duration of this effect: short-lived.  There may be possible longer-term effects with a specifically-tuned therapy however given the fact that the in period immediately after the therapeutic session one will inevitably experience a post-high depression – which occurs on multiple levels: physiological, psychological, and emotional – the ability for the positive effect to withstand the subsequent period of depression is probably very slight.  More than likely the result of the entire experience including the subsequent depression will nullify whatever seeming psychological benefit there may be from the feeling of connectedness.

I therefore question to what extent or even whether such a type of therapy could be useful for the purposes of overcoming feelings such as separation, anxiety, fear, etc. with respect to others.  Nothing can replace the unchanging fundamentals which are always essential to generate happiness and bliss.  Without them one may temporarily experience short-lived euphoria but, without real grounding in practice, such states are merely a passing condition.

 

2.  Substantial increase in ability to think, to organize, to clean.  This is due to an increase in stamina.  I would like to note that had I not been a person of fairly strict discipline, who does not drink nor smoke (cannabis or tobacco) this entire aspect of the therapeutic benefit of the experience, which was in fact the most substantial, might never have happened.  If I had smoked cannabis, consumed alcohol, or used tobacco the physiological and mental effects of these would no doubt have substantially diminished if not outright precluded there being this substantial benefit.

Fortunately however after the first couple hours, upon arriving at home, I was able to utilize the remaining substantial portion of the experience for this purpose.  I rate the effect of this aspect of the therapy as almost monumental.  The malaise, lethargy, fatigue, inability to concentrate, etc. has occurred for years and, for this one period, I suddenly had an ability to make fundamental changes to my living environment which I had desired to do for months and months but could never accomplish.

Finally, at this one point, I found myself with the ability to take on all these major tasks which needed to be done.  Instead of feeling anxiety about not being able to accomplish them or about how much I would be capable of doing before becoming too fatigued or unfocused, I felt cheerful and upbeat.

There have been many times when before I could even begin to try tackling the massive organizational mess that has been my living environment I would end up crying, feeling despair and anger.  This is quite the opposite of how I felt during the therapeutic session.

This has been unquestionably a great benefit to me and I believe that its effects will be lasting.  However, given the post-therapeutic period of depression, it has been a bit of a challenge to get myself back to a minimally functional state to be able to continue with where I left off.  Hence, the post-therapeutic depression is a substantial threat to the continued benefit of being able to tackle major problems and clean and organize.

As I wrote above, things could easily have turned out differently had I not been strong enough to resist harming my body through the use of alcohol, cannabis, tobacco, or perhaps even worse things.

Even though the period of depression has lasted quite a few days and been substantial, I will say that it has unquestionably been worth it to have been able to overcome monumental and long-term issues with respect to organizing my home environment.  I really wanted to write about this because I feel its important.  It is the main reason I choose to write this post.

3.  Ability to recognize and fundamentally shift entrenched patterns of responding and doing things.  This connects very deeply with all of item 2. above.  Not only was I able to tackle things which would have been nearly impossible before, but I also realized that I started looking at everything in my home as if it was the first time.

Instead of just placing some thing in some location, every time I comported towards anything around me I thought about what it was, why or how I use it, and where it should be.  This is radically different than just placing things in one location or another out of expediency or thinking that it will be placed there on a contingent basis, to be properly dealt with at a future time (which never came).

I don’t know if there’s a name for this type of thing, but this I feel is an important thing.  Although this benefit seems to have become totally submerged during the post-therapeutic depression, now that its over I am hoping to find a way to bring it back, to extend it, to re-activate it so that I can continue with this process.

A few days ago (during the depression) I was watching a documentary about Hong Kong and there was one segment where Jackie Chan was talking about innovation and he was showing some cool things in one of his restaurants.  When I saw this it immediately flashed a resonance with what I had just experienced a few days earlier.  I had the realization that some people are able to have this kind of energy and ability recognize and fundamentally shift patterns all the time.  How I envy them!  Because it feels like so much of my brain goes to waste, so much of my creative flow is blocked in stagnation when I am just bogged down and unable to function.  But I also want to think that there is a reason that I am the way I am even if I have had to carry a heavy burden through this life.

I can only say that I am beginning to start to think about and hopefully have more realizations about this whole topic.  How can I as a human being undertake fundamental shifts in not just my thinking, but in the ways I am active as a human being?

I am starting to recognize that a significant aspect of my condition is based on patterns that are deeply ingrained.  Feeling tired when doing certain things.  Worrying that I’m going to sputter out of energy and crash.  Things like this become ingrained in how I operate and I become more and more restricted.

Somehow I need to find ways to radically rethink everything about how I orient myself towards everything from the moment I wake to the moment I sleep.

I really know of nothing whatsoever in the medical establishment that comes close to touching on this.  Nor do I know of any alternative healing methodologies which really deal with it.  But I have no question now that it is very real and very significant.

I feel that I need to reprogram myself at a fundamental level that is somehow physiological, tied to activity, glands, and the nervous system.

We all know about the HPA axis and how important it is, but I feel like that is only the tip of the iceberg and, during my therapeutic experience I became profoundly aware of and in touch with knowledge about how there is programming in us that affects our bodies and our movements and actions at fundamental levels.  It not just like certain glands are functioning correctly or not.  Its that there is a level within the body/mind where these things develop which are like habits, sort of like ingrained physiologic expectations about what we can and cannot do, why we are feeling the way we think we feel at any given time, and what we think we are or are not capable of.

I believe this can all be fundamentally rewired but I also believe that an intense therapeautic session such as the one written about here can only serve to help to start to awaken a person to it.  To really fundamentally change it will require much more involvement over a longer period.

While I feel disappointed that something profound like this is not even really recognized nor understood, I’m also enthusiastic about developing a new understanding about what it means to be a living being and how our bodies and minds fundamentally work.

Will I decide to undertake another therapeutic session in the future?  After the past days I can say that I have no immediate plan to.  But perhaps in the future, in a more controlled setting I will experiment again and see if its possible to derive positive benefit from an experience while minimizing the drawbacks.

Because my memory of the experience is still strong I want to explore what was involved in the shifting of patterns and re-aligning of energy and perhaps find gentler, more holistic ways to initiate it.  Perhaps I only needed that one experience to disperse a long-term blockage.