Comfortably Numb

Nice, I'm actually not old -- I'm 24. But I got my HPPD freshman year of college, when I was 18, which makes me a six-year veteran (can't believe how much times has passed with this son of a bitch). Glad some of you are in the area. It's just struck me as more and more bizarre that I've been facing this private, unique issue in silence -- at least in "real" life -- without being able to really share it with anyone. I've told a few friends and stray people, but the reaction is predictable: "Huh?" None can really grasp it. Reminds of the famous line of Alduous Huxley from Doors of Perception: "We live together, we act on, and react to, one another; but always and in all circumstances we are by ourselves. The martyrs go hand in hand into the arena; they are crucified alone. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude. Sensations, feelings, insights, fancies--all these are private and, except through symbols and at second hand, incommunicable. We can pool information about experiences, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes." I've carried on nonetheless, like all of us have to. But the whole idea of it is somewhat depressing.

Hey things can change over time, but there's always a ceiling on how bad the visuals an get. I think my visuals too got worse for probably a year or two. But then it will stop changing and become predictable and routine. What's true in general though is that the visuals are not so bad -- it's your mental state that can make them oppressive. When you are happy, having fun, stuck in an engrossing conversation, playing sports, etc. you won't be obsessing about your visuals and even if they are noticeable they won't be that bothersome. It's when you dwell on them and get worried that they take on some horrible characteristics. I know it's easier said than done when it comes to not caring about your visuals. Having depersonalization -- which is what it sounds like you have -- is awful, and when paired with anxiety it makes you feel like your going clinically insane. It's always a battle, but it's a battle that gets easier.

I used to get a lot of closed eye visuals while trying to sleep, which made it hard to go to bed. I found having a little bit of light on in the room made it largely go away. Also, having some sort of mental distraction like talk radio on helps too, since you won't just be focusing bout the things on the back of your eyelids.

Hey don't worry. The main thing to avoid is having a vicious anxiety cycle where you start thinking things are getting worse, and then you start to freak out and obsess about it, and that, in turn, makes thing seems so much worse and so you start obsessing about it even more. It's a really common loop for anyone with anxiety in general, and for anyone with HPPD, in particular. Things do "objectively" get better and worse in the short term. Some days visuals are worse than others, some days we just don't feel as good mentally as we do during others. But your best bet is to stay above these changing currents to the extent possible and just trust that the unusually bad spells will pass. These spells are the worst when there's no real reason for them that you can identify -- like what you're going through now. But just trust in the kind of terrible, but reassuring, predictability and repetitiveness of HPPD that things don't just start permanently getting worse all of a sudden.

Hey congrats! I got my HPPD toward the end of my freshman year of college, and my biggest worry was that I'd be screwed for all practical things like school work and a job. That was five and a half years ago, and I finished undergrad with perfect grades, did a master's and am now in a graduate program -- all of that with a case of HPPD that, visually, is probably the worst I've heard of. You just gotta keep treckin' Congrats again!

yeah just gotta roll with the punches

Hey man it's all good. I am back on this forum just like you, after not posting on any HPPD forum for 3 years, because I've felt pretty awful lately. I think we all face some sort of "relapse" from time to time, no matter how much it might have seemed like we've totally conquered this shit. The past few months I've had anxiety like I haven't had in probably 3 or 4 years, and my visuals seem pretty nuts -- and that says a lot, because my visuals have always seemed way worse than just about what everyone has described on the HPPD forums, and I was nevertheless doing relatively fine. My depersonalization is really intense too. So I've been feeling like I've been hammered by the cluster-fuck that is HPPD lately, and having crazy fears accordingly -- like that I'm losing the battle I thought I had already won, and that I'm slipping back down that awful slope. I needed to once again be reassured that I'm not alone, so I came back to the forum (well, actually came to this exact forum for the first time). So I'm right there with you, and you're right there with me, so we'll pull through this shit and get keep calm and carry on like before!

Hey, I was on the old -- and I suppose now defunct -- forum for a few years as page of zeppelin. I moved to Philadelphia for grad school. I've had a pretty serious case of HPPD -- worse visuals than I've heard anyone else describe -- for about six years now (and still made it to grad school...phew), and have still yet to meet someone in person with HPPD or even depersonalization. Anyone around the area?

Mine was 5 months after my last trip. One night I was going to bed totally sober, and noticed closed eye visuals. I tried to ignore them for a while, but they got more and more intense. Then I jumped out of bed, worried, and noticed my room was filled with "static" and I went into the hallway and saw that it looked like the light was flickering (it wasn't). The rest is history...

Boogres, you're the only other person I've ever heard say that they got their HPPD a few months AFTER their last trip. That's a big deal, since I was on the old HPPD board for a few years...Anyway, mine also appeared 5 months later, with zero warning, while I was entirely sober -- and doing no substances otherwise, aside from occasional drinks and occasional weed. And ever since that fateful night -- some five years ago -- everything has been here to stay.

hey man, I remember you from the old forum. I just made this account too, for old time's sake. I was Page of Zeppelin on the old forum.

Oh, and I should also add that it went away after several months. It's connected to anxiety, so to the extent that you can minimize your anxiety, your tinnitus should get better partly or entirely.

I developed a quite terrible case of tinnitus maybe a year or so after my HPPD started. It really drove me nuts when I was trying to sleep. I found the best thing that helped was falling asleep with some music on or TV in the background. Tinnitus is the worst when there's zero sound...