MDMA, the active ingredient in the drug Ecstasy, has been reviled as a menace and even a killer. Now some therapists claim it can help light the way out of a traumatic past.
Sarah lived in a basement for a few weeks when she was a child. But in a way, she lived there much of her life.
Her father terrorized their family. He hit her, threw hot coffee at her, locked her in closets. Once, he held a gun to her sister’s head. The winter Sarah was 11, she brought in the wrong wood for the fireplace, so her father locked her in the family’s unfinished concrete basement. Her meals were brought to the top of the stairs. It was a freezing Christmas in Pennsylvania, more than 30 years ago.
Sarah eventually left home for college, earned a master’s degree in education, had a son. Surprisingly, she stayed in close contact with her parents. But the sound of a door clicking shut made her heart pound; if her dog barked, electric sparks shot through her limbs. At a party, she’d struggle to follow the conversation; the room would spin and the lights would smear; her ears rang with blurring voices. She slept badly, and always with the windows open and the doors unlocked. “I couldn’t stand to feel trapped,” she explains. She was often irritable or paranoid, short-fused, consumed with self-loathing.
Read more: http://www.oprah.com/health/PTSD-and-MDMA-Therapy-Medical-Uses-of-Ecstasy
