A Catalyst for Personal Transformation After a Life-Changing Rape
2016
Fifteen years ago, at the age of 15, I attended a house party where I was traumatically beaten and gang raped. At the time of this trauma I was also a virgin. I was so ashamed, humiliated, and terrified that I never spoke about it again. Until recently.
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It wasn’t until seven years after the sexual assault, and at the age of 22, that I was ready to talk. I found a therapist who specialized in sexual abuse, and in addition to one-on-one therapy, I entered group therapy for sexually abused women. After 2 years of counseling and group therapy, I assumed that since I had finally come to a place where I could at least talk about my rape, I, “was healed”, of course not really knowing what being healed looked like.
Throughout the years I continued to struggle with intimacy and trust, never correlating these deep issues to my rape. This trauma, regardless of my ability to now acknowledge it, was always difficult to talk about. Anytime it would come up in conversations I felt my sympathetic nervous system getting activated through heart palpitations and the sense of, “fight, flight, or freeze”, along with feelings of shame and embarrassment. Truth was, I was far from healed.
Fast forward to the age of 30. Through a random conversation unrelated to my rape, or even to rape at all, I was triggered and re-experienced the effects of my sexual assault. For 2 weeks I experienced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, such as nightmares and random panic attacks. During the panic attacks, that sometimes lasted as long as 20-30 minutes, I felt a strange feeling of not being safe. It was confusing and unusual. I realized I was resurfacing the familiar feeling of ‘fear of death’, which I had experienced during my rape as likely my sympathetic nervous system (fight, flight or freeze) was activated during the assault.
I had been seeing a therapist for about a year already, so I discussed this new trigger with him. We decided MDMA (more commonly known as “ecstasy”) was an appropriate therapy to explore and release this trauma. We had done two MDMA sessions before to help with childhood pain, so I was familiar. Truth be told, I now realize my rape at 15 was responsible for most of the other trauma and current pain in my life. It was the major source of my pain.
The day before our scheduled MDMA session I had a meltdown. I was terrified of feeling the pain surrounding my rape and afraid that I would be re-traumatized, given the PTSD I experienced when first triggered. I almost cancelled the session. The morning of my MDMA session, and before I ingested the medicine, I had non-stop diarrhea, sweaty palms, heart palpitations, and cottonmouth. I was unbelievably terrified to face this trauma. I’m sharing this to provide insight on how much trauma I had stored inside my body, even 15 years later.
Regardless of what was coming up for me, I was desperate to be released of this trauma and pain, so at 8:30am I ingested 125mg of pure MDMA. My friend drove me to meet my therapist at 8:45am and it took 45 minutes for the medicine to kick in. When I met my therapist at his office I was so terrified, I was holding back a panic attack. I could hardly speak as my voice was shaky and my heart was pounding full blast. I laid on his couch curled into a ball while he kept trying to help me ground myself by saying, “why don’t you go into the pain and do exactly what your body wants you to do.” At 9:30am I ingested another 50 mg of MDMA, which we previously discussed as a way to prolong the peak of the medicine and allow for more time of therapeutic work. My severe anxiety continued for an hour and a half into our session, well after the MDMA took effect. Usually after the medicine kicks in I feel good, open, and ready to share. This experience of severe anxiety was unusual for me. My therapist kept trying to get me to describe the pain I was feeling as I laid now curled in a ball on his floor. I kept fidgeting; no matter what position I was in, I couldn’t get comfortable. I just wanted to hide from the severe pain I was feeling in my chest.
I asked my therapist to bring me back to the trauma through an “elevator” meditation we have done together. I came to do this work, and damned if my fears were going to get the best of me. He had me visualize stepping into the elevator with him, and I hit the floor fifteen, which was the year we were entering. Finally, the elevator door opened and he said, “You are at a party, tell me what you see.” I shouted in panic, “Don’t leave me!” He said, “I’m right here in the elevator waiting for you and not going anywhere.” I walked into the party and began recalling exactly what I remembered.
Strangely, all these years I have never been able to remember exactly what happened that night. It was always very foggy. Interestingly, while on the MDMA I was able to recall most of the night. My visual memory was sporadic and I didn’t always have an image to match the words coming out of my mouth, because I believe the shock blocked it out, but my mouth was confidently telling a story I had never heard before. I remembered conversations, specific faces, and even feelings that occurred for me throughout the night. I seemed to actually remember many fine details. I’ve read MDMA allows memories to resurface since it shuts down the amygdala. We got to the actual rape and my body started playing out the incident. I started screaming in my therapist’s office, “No, please, stop!! Someone is hitting me! Someone else is also in the room! They are just watching! I’m terrified! No one is helping! NO ONE IS HELPING!!” I felt this burn in my chest. It was cold and at the same time felt like heartburn. I felt actual pain of pure terror, which I now realize was the fear of death. I realized that the night I was raped I thought they were going to kill me. I recognize that my reaction the day before and morning of this session was because the trauma was surfacing. I’ve carried around this terror in my body for 15 years. As I started shouting, “NO ONE IS HELPING!!” all of a sudden my inner thighs began to tremble, where in my meditation I was being penetrated. Then my legs, chest, and whole body were shaking viciously. Scared, I shouted to my therapist, “What’s happening!?” He calmly reassured me, “It’s okay, your body is just releasing some trauma.” I must have shook for a whole 5 minutes and imagine I looked like a fish out of water to my therapist. The shaking eventually slowed and I took a bunch of big deep breaths. I turned to my therapist and said, “WOW, what was that?!” His reassuring smile told me that he had seen this before. It’s obvious that I was releasing shock, and of course, deep stored trauma.
*Trauma, when experienced, actually stores itself inside the muscle fascia. It’s our body’s natural reaction to shake out the trauma and if you watch animals after they experience trauma they too shake it out. However, due to shame and embarrassment, we push our feelings/shaking back down. Today you can find Trauma Release Exercises where people shake their bodies in an attempt to release the trauma.*
After the first shaking episode we went back into the meditation and I continued to role-play the traumatic event. The shaking continued each time I approached another feeling I had stuffed deep inside. Just after the rape reenactment finished I felt intense humiliation. I remembered that after I had been raped I was left lying on the bed, alone, naked, and in shock. My friend, who later found me at the party, was trying to talk to me but I couldn’t respond. She thought I was unconscious but really I was in shock and couldn’t speak. I began to feel that SAME EXACT humiliation I felt 15 years earlier. Finally, to be in touch with that pain again was phenomenal. I wanted to hide from the feeling, it was literally so painful in my chest, like heartburn. As I said out loud, “Ugggghhh the humiliation, it hurts! Humiliation!”, my body began to compulsively shake again, and I shook out all of the humiliation.
I then began reenacting how I felt the day after the rape. The morning after, I remember seeing blood between my legs, and a little on my shirt from my bloody nose. I also had a black eye for about a week. I remembered lying in my bed at home, in shock, feeling so much shame. I felt dirty and unlovable, and I didn’t think anyone would ever want me. I was now no longer a virgin. I said to my therapist, “I feel deflated”, and lay on the floor of his office and reenacted feeling deflated. Just then I felt a pulsation of deep shame and again, a cold yet burning pain in my chest. Like clockwork, my body began to shake out the shame. With each shake I could feel this break of energy. I literally felt lighter.
Thanks to the MDMA, I wasn’t further shaming myself. After each shake I would tell myself that the men who raped me should be humiliated, not me, and I am so lovable and have so much to offer. I let myself know that today I had nothing to fear and could let go of my paranoia surrounding close relationships. These were all things I needed to hear after the rape happened, and finally I was able to offer it to myself. It’s one thing for a therapist to tell you that you have nothing to fear, but it’s another to believe it and hear it come from yourself.
I could feel I was now at the peak of the MDMA medicine. Next I moved onto rage. I said, “I feel so used! They used me!!” I grabbed a pillow and screamed into it at the top of my lungs. Never in my life did I think it was possible to get angry and scream while on MDMA. We had previously discussed in therapy that “being used” was a trigger for me and anytime I feel used in my day-to-day life, I experience intense rage. It was such a huge release to finally let go of that deep anger, the source of that trigger, which has affected me for YEARS. Finally, I understood how much baggage I had been carrying, and FINALLY, I was removing it. With the help of the MDMA I was able to see my own worth.
Unbeknownst to me, there was one more thing I needed to reenact to receive peace from this traumatic story. I needed and yearned for reassurance from my father that I was a lovable person, he wasn’t disgusted or disappointed with me, and that he loved me. Not receiving this, as my father never talked to me about my rape, greatly affected how I learned to cope with this trauma. To this day, that effected my relationship with him. Well, having worked with my therapist for a year, I at times looked to him as a father figure. When I came down from the MDMA I asked him for a hug and mentioned that I felt like a disgusting person for what happened to me. He held me, rubbed my back as a father would to their child, and reassured me that I am not disgusting, and that I am a good person. While some professionals may see this as crossing boundaries, we both had healthy boundaries and trust for each other that had built over the course of the year. This transference was imperative for me to release the last piece of my trauma that has haunted me for years; that my father didn’t love me.
I sat back down on the couch and felt profound, absolute bliss in my chest, after a morning of intense pain. It felt like I had multiple knots inside my chest that had FINALLY been untangled. I was also able to breathe easier and deeper. I was feeling so overwhelmed with love for myself, a feeling I had not experienced before. Instead, I traditionally experience a recorded tape of self-hatred that has been on repeat for 15 fucking years, that it was my fault, I was unlovable, I should be ashamed, and I’m damaged goods. Finally, I was free from it. Without the MDMA I don’t think I could have faced those terrible and physically painful feelings. My body literally would not allow myself to go there during regular talk therapy. My fear response would sound off before I could reach inside the feeling.
We usually plan our MDMA sessions to be five 5 hours, however I felt done with all the work I needed to do and recovered from the session, in just 4 hours. Typically, the MDMA will last for 3 hours, and I am slowly coming down over the next 2 hours. For the first time, I felt clear and sober in a shorter amount of time. At 1pm my friend came and picked me up and stayed the afternoon with me while I napped. I felt exhausted from all of the exertion of energy. Companionship following an MDMA session is essential to ensuring you feel safe and supported while continuing to come down off the medicine. I’m never fully sober until about four hours after the session ends.
Later that evening I noticed that my chronic shoulder, neck, and back pain that I’ve had for years is completely gone. For YEARS I have always ached. I figured it was because I sat at a computer all day, but now I realize that it was stored trauma in my muscles, causing knots in the body. I also slept a solid 9 hours the night of my MDMA session, which was rare for me. For months leading up to this session I would wake up throughout the night with anxiety. I woke up the next day feeling content, and at peace, something I haven’t felt in a while. One of the most profound effects, was my ability to breathe deeper in my chest. Today, three months after, the pain in my neck and shoulders is still gone. I can also tell my rape story without feeling heart palpitations or being triggered.
I am incredibly grateful for a therapist who was willing to look beyond the restrictions placed on this medicine, MDMA, and grant me the healing I so desperately needed. It pains me that therapists are forced to risk their license while using this incredible tool. So many other people are carrying around their trauma, and will continue to for the rest of their lives, if MDMA assisted psychotherapy is not made available to them. I lived with this pain for 15 years. FIFTEEN FUCKING YEARS! It is one of my greatest hopes that other people with intense, stored trauma will be able to access this same kind of healing. I urge therapists and people suffering from trauma and PTSD to begin to educate themselves on the potentials of pure MDMA when used therapeutically.
For more information on MDMA-assisted psychotherapy, please visit www.maps.org
You may reach out to me for comments* at: healingwithmdma@gmail.com
*Please note, because this substance is unfortunately still illegal I have to protect my therapists identity and will not identify or recommend my therapist.
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