What MDMA Taught Me About Human Connection

When I force myself to think back on the 2020 COVID-19 lockdown, a few key memories come to mind: Me, endlessly checking the news for the latest frightening updates. The eerily quiet streets of Brooklyn, save for the sirens of speeding ambulances. Nights spent toggling between insomnia and vivid nightmares. At the core of it, though, I felt profoundly disconnected from the community around me—and to some extent myself. Knowing that so many other people were going through the same thing as me was of little comfort because they felt completely unreachable. Sure, I could hang out with friends on Zoom, but those stilted, pixelated interactions somehow left me feeling even lonelier. We were all prisoners of our own isolation, numb from a lack of genuine human contact and cracking under the weight of worry. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] Then, a month or so into lockdown, I had an idea. Why not take a little vacation—a vacation of the sort that wouldn’t require actually leaving the house. Why not, I thought, take some MDMA? Also known as Molly or Ecstasy, MDMA exploded into American public consciousness in the 1990s when it became the fuel that powered all night raves. National hysteria broke out about MDMA’s impact on users’ health, including erroneous claims that the drug made holes in people’s brains and that it could cause Parkinson’s disease. The conversation is much different today. Although MDMA is still a strictly bann...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized freelance health Source Type: news