The real agony of ecstasy

A few days after my 18th birthday I lay in bed in a rented room, so depressed I could barely move. Three nights earlier, I had taken ecstasy with friends to celebrate the start of my adult life. Now I was paralysed by a dark despair so severe I could hardly get out of bed.

I'd taken ecstasy before but this was different. I had a massive panic attack shortly after I took the pill - and a few days later I was still in a state of terror. My body was burning up and my chest was tight. I couldn't eat and I was scared to see or talk to anybody.

I probably don't fit the stereotype of a drug user. Growing up in Oxford, I was a model student and always very well-behaved.

All my friends were conventional and anti-drugs. But then I hit adolescence. Suddenly, I wanted to try exciting things and be a bit rebellious.

I started smoking joints, going clubbing with friends and taking speed. Then I fell in love with a 20-year-old student called Lennon and took LSD with him. I decided to spend my gap year renting a flat near where he lived.

Intense rush

My first experience with ecstasy was incredible. I was at a music festival with friends, and quickly became overwhelmed with an intense certainty that I had found the meaning of happiness.

The music sounded like music from heaven and I got out of the car and ran towards it, feeling like a child again - absolutely joyful, free from all fears and very innocent. But I never recaptured that incredible feeling again. At the beginning, I only took a quarter of a pill. The first time I took a whole pill, it hit me almost immediately. The initial happy 'rush' quickly became too intense. My heart started racing and I couldn't breathe. My whole body was heating up and I felt totally out of control. I went outside and was violently sick.

I now know, having talked to my doctor, that I have a metabolic intolerance to the drug but, at the time, I ignored the warnings my body gave me and carried on taking ecstasy. If I had a panic attack or felt depressed the next day, I assumed it was bad pills - even though this was just the same E that hundreds of thousands of people took every weekend in Britain.

Then I took it on my 18th birthday, and any bad experience I'd had before was magnified tenfold. I was overwhelmed with panic and hallucinated that I was being sucked down a bloody, fleshy chute into hell. Three days later, I was lying in bed, still in the grip of the drug.

Panic attacks

Basically, I was having a terrible breakdown. I wasn't myself any more. I was haunted by a perpetual feeling of anxiety and had regular panic attacks. I lost a stone in a few weeks and couldn't interact with anyone. I thought I'd lost my soul and had no doubt that my feeling frightened was directly linked to ecstasy. My doctor confirmed I was right.

It took three months before the depression lifted enough for me to get out of bed, go home to my parents and see my GP. I felt abysmal for another six months. My doctor suggested anti-depressants but by now I was unwilling to take any drugs, even prescribed ones.

Then, one day, just for a fleeting moment, I didn't feel frightened. The next day, I had another moment of calm that lasted slightly longer. Gradually I got better but it took 18 months before I felt safe and happy again.

I've got a good job now, and have written a book about what happened to me but I still wish I hadn't taken such a risk with my health. I just hope others will learn from my mistake.