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  1. So it’s been over a month since I had my first panic attack due to my acne medication which also has left me with anxiety. I know for a fact I got health anxiety due to the fact I’ve been jumping from self-diagnosis to self-diagnosis but the thing I can’t shake is what if I have HPPD. The last time I took any drugs was last summer and since then I stopped taking them forever and never looked back since, drugs were never really for me anyway and I didn’t abuse them either. Only smoked weed about 10-12 times in total over the span of 3 years and took 1.5 grams of penis envy mushrooms once for my first and only time which led to an extremely bad trip. Now I mentioned that was basically last year so, after a panic attack that I had last month (might have been my 3rd or 4th) that’s when I noticed that when I stare and zone out I notice objects breathing or distorting almost but here’s the weird thing, this started a year later and again I never abused drugs like that, this only started happening after my anxiety started which again was because of my medication. So now I’m flip flopping back and forth whether I have HPPD or not because there have been 2 instances where I didn’t experience the whole breathing effect for a week straight and there are moments when I check for it and it doesn’t happen. I’m positive this is just my anxiety only because of the timing of everything but you know how anxiety is and how it’ll make you doubt and second guess everything. The only thing I have to know for sure is if I have HPPD or not as it’s the only thing my anxiety has been anchored to right now because everything else that was brought up with anxiety like death and depersonalization I’ve gotten over. Ever since I took those shrooms I’ve regretted it and never thought about taking drugs again but I’m scared of the fact that this one little mistake has ultimately changed my life forever. if you want more details about what’s going on you can check out the only other post on my account, thanks.
  2. Between the ages of 15-17 I experimented with various hallucinogens. I think that I took LSD and mescaline, because that's what people said they were giving me. I probably only took these drugs on 10 or fewer occasions. The last drug I took was most likely LSD and I took a very large dose. The experience was intense and I had difficulty managing it after 2-3 hours. At that time I thought that I was going to die, so I reached out for help. Someone helped by making me a strong drink which helped me to calm down. Then I continued to drink wine through the trip. As one can imagine, I became violently sick that night. After that experience, I withdrew from friends and any mention of hallucinogenic drugs made me extremely anxious. I wanted nothing to do with these drugs anymore, they scared the shit out of me after that. At this point I remained well, except for my instinct to avoid hallucinogens and the experience of anxiety when I was around people who wanted to use them with me. After about six months, I was at work washing dishes in a restaurant when I suddenly noticed the snow phenomena and then immediately afterward I had my first flashback. This represented the onset of my experience with HPPD.. Other symptoms included intense anxiety, enhanced color intensity, trails, melting walls, visual snow and feelings of unreality. It was difficult in 1973 to get help because so little was known about the disorder. Initially I was given Valium and that allowed me to complete my high school education, college and graduate school. Basically, Valium only addressed the anxiety, it did nothing to ease the flashbacks and other HPPD symptoms. After a few years I was under pressure to stop taking Valium which I was unable to do completely. In 1985, a psychiatrist gave me Xanax and Doxepin which helped me to sleep at night and alleviated some the the anxiety that I experienced. While this treatment did not address my flashbacks and other symptoms, I at least felt as thought that I could deal with having HPPD. My next break came around 1998 when I started taking Prozac. This med eliminated the need for any other meds. It helped me to sleep at night and almost eliminated my anxiety, but it didn't prevent the flashbacks, snow, etc. Finally in the year 2000, I stopped having flashbacks. I haven't had one in 22 years. I still have some other effects like visual snow but at a much more tolerable level. For many years I have been intrigued by the apparent similarity of HPPD to PTSD flashbacks and I have wondered if my experience represents a form of post traumatic stress. I'm in the process of reading the book "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel Van Der Kolk, M.D. The book details how traumatic experiences can cause visual flashbacks and other neurological symptoms which are a consequence of past traumatic experiences. Certainly my last trip was traumatic, and just as in PTSD cases, I withdrew from friends and began experiencing anxiety over the perceived source of my traumatic experience. Although Dr. Van Der Kolk (from what I have read so far) does not make a connection to HPPD I'm thinking that maybe it is possible. Also, one of the problems that I overcame in my ordeal with HPPD was agoraphobia. I overcame this problem after reading the book "Hope and Help for Your Nerves" by Dr. Claire Weekes. This book introduced me to a behavior based model which describes agoraphobia as resulting from the avoidance of places that we associate with anxiety. Basically, if we avoid a place because we experience anxiety there, we begin to experience greater anxiety when we do visit that place. This leads to more places that cause anxiety and more avoidance until we get to the point that we are home bound. Dr. Weekes explains that the anxiety can be controlled by gradually exposing ourselves to the places that produce anxiety. In my case, because I was afraid of having having a flashback in public places, I started avoiding places and my world grew smaller and smaller until I couldn't leave home. This technique worked for me to recover from agoraphobia and from panic attacks. Furthermore, when I began to apply this technique to flashbacks, they went away as well. At that time I was taking Prozac which greatly assisted me in this effort. Today, I no longer experience anxiety and no longer take Prozac. Of course, I don't know if this would work for anyone else but I thought that my experience was worth sharing.
  3. About a month ago I took a 50 mg of delta 8 thc in the form of an edible gummy. After consuming the gummy, I had a typical bad cannabis experience characterized by anxiety, paranoia, and mild visuals. I woke up the next day still feeling anxious and within the week began noticing visual disturbances similar to visual snow however this snow only occurs at certain times most usually when im feeling anxious. The other symptom I have noticed is an increased awareness of floaters when i am in areas with lots of light. Since this experience I have been able to confirm the edible I took(from a vape shop) was actually delta 8 and not synthetic which helped to ease my stress however I’m still experiencing visual disturbances. In y’all’s personal experience does this experience does this sound like a mild form of hppd or just my anxiety manifesting symptoms. thanks
  4. Hi all, I’m a newbie. I found this forum a couple of months ago when I googled ‘can lsd change your peripheral vision?’ What a ride that was! After a week of intense anxiety, I retook control of my narrative and all symptoms generally subsided. So I assumed it wasn’t HPPD. On Sunday, I had a quarter tab and now I’m quite certain it is. I’m quite self-aware and I write for a living, so I may be able to put into words some of the things people struggle to describe. If so, I hope it’s useful. I think (/hope) that my case is mild but I guess we’ll see. I’ll start with my history, then the episode that led me to this forum, and lastly the most recent episode. History I’m 39. I never had drugs before the age of 37. I’ve had probably a lot of mdma, a fair amount of ketamine, a little bit of cocaine, weed four times, acid four times, and mushrooms once. I have adult ADD, which became apparent at the age of 35. I have a history of generalised anxiety, and a couple of periods moderate depression, initially managed by Lyrica (Pregabalin) and Wellbutrin (Bupropion - which was chosen because it acts on Dopamine rather than Serotonin - ADD). But it was actually mindfulness and journaling that really managed these conditions. I have ALWAYS had quite vivid dreams, often lucid. I have ALWAYS had hypnagogic closed eye visuals - waves of colour moving in concentric ‘circles’ inwards to the centre or outwards from the centre. Usually green, sometimes mixed with purple and blue. In a really dark room I can still perceive these with my eyes open. I have ALWAYS had hypnagogic auditory hallucinations. Like I’m processing everything I’ve heard that day. Sometimes it’s voices I absolutely recognise (family mostly) but saying things I don’t think I’ve ever heard them say. I’ve ALWAYS had trouble falling and staying asleep. I have often also been aware of levels of consciousness in the process of falling asleep. And it does feel like falling (like a physical sensation in the brain) from one level to the next. Sometimes, if I pay too much attention, it actually wakes me up. The first episode During the month-long run up to Mardi Gras here in Sydney, I had a weekend where I took two half-tabs of acid over the course of a day (along with a mix of mdma and ket at various times during that day). Nothing curious happened that weekend. But two weeks later, mdma behaved quite differently. I was getting the geometric visuals that I had previously experienced from lsd, but I hadn’t had any lsd. That same evening, in a fairly dark room, I began to hallucinate that each person who’s face I focused on was wearing Harry Potter-style gold wire-rimmed glasses. Which I knew was not the case and when I concentrated, the glasses disappeared. During the following week, I would sometimes catch the faintest echo of geometric patterns over uniform white backgrounds, such as walls in my apartment. Tessellating hexagons. When I closed my eyes I could see millions of microscopic red and green dots against the black background. This is what I believe translates into visual snow when the eyes are open (especially in dark rooms). In the corner of my eye I would catch a momentary movement of something dark, that turned out not to be there. Any small dark speck, like a crumb, or a stone, would momentarily appear to my peripheral vision as a tiny insect, until I looked at it directly. That is why I googled and found out about HPPD. I didn’t have ANY anxiety... until I read about HPPD. But for 48 hours it spiralled. Dark rooms at night were menacing, which made me unconsciously resistant to going to bed/sleep. Given my history with anxiety, I immediately returned to journaling and mindfulness. It took away the power that this concept of HPPD had over me, and everything seemed to return to normal by the Friday. And it didn’t recur after a weekend with just mdma. So I chalked it all up to anxiety and moved on. The most recent episode So, on Sunday I had a quarter tab. Wasn’t even enough to have a noticeable effect on the day. Monday was fine until nighttime. My sleep was restless and filled with dreams, lucid dreams, and non-REM dreams where the dream continues even in a state of being half-awake. It was the closest I came to experiencing Inception. In one dream I experienced the physical sensation of dizziness. Quite clearly. Usually dreams are conceptual and abstract. This was just like being awake. In another dream, I could read actual text (which I’ve always been told is impossible, as the language/meaning processing centres in the brain are not active while dreaming). I was sorting an email inbox alphabetically, and scrolling down to the word Seneca. I consciously spelled it out in the dream. Daytime on Tuesday was fine. Nighttime was awful. In one dream, I was in a car chase on the street where I grew up. We sped up to get away from a police car and turned a sharp corner. I experienced the centrifugal force just as though I was awake. I chose to wake up at that point. Today I have had a low-level dizziness all day. A strange dizziness that is difficult to describe, but I’ll give it a go. A dizziness that feels like it is affecting your balance. You feel like you’re staggering slightly to the right, but you’re actually walking dead straight. Only really happened when I was moving. A dizziness that feels like six pints of lager drunk, but with absolute mental clarity. A dizziness that feels like the moment before vomiting, when your blood pressure drops, mixed with the feeling of an adrenaline rush concentrated in a horizontal plane through the middle of your head, starting dead centre and spreading outwards. And a dizziness that feels like the absolute fatigue of sleep deprivation, and you have the physical sensation in your head at the point that you start microsleeping. It’s now 1:30am and I’m typing this out because I had a night terror, and what I think is a form of DP/DR. I felt a sort of paralysis in my arms, but also a field of energy that started just outside the skin of my arms up to my elbows, and I perceived it for maybe 3-5 cm surrounding the arms. This was probably in the halfway state between awake and asleep. Shortly afterwards I became aware that I was breathing very fast and shallow, like a panic attack, but I knew I wasn’t awake yet. I knew and was aware that my boyfriend was sleeping behind me. I was aware that he had stirred. But I was trapped. I yelled out ‘Help!’ but apparently this was just in my head. He woke me; cuddled me; calmed me. I can’t go back to sleep though. This is probably what I would have written in my journal, but it may be useful to others. And others may have insights that will help me. If you’re still reading, thank you, and I hope your experience with HPPD is improving.
  5. Hi Everyone! It's very rare for me to use online forums however due to this disorder being so rare I thought it'd be the best way to meet new people who have experienced similar things. My name is Neve, I am 18 years old and currently a University student in England. I've never been that adventurous with drugs and up until university I had only ever touched weed, even then it only being a round 5 times (first time being 15 years old). When I started university, naturally, I became more exposed to drugs and tried LSD for the first time and again a week later. Both trips I really enjoyed and got the typical experience (enhanced colours, sensations, patterns and sound etc..) It wasn't until I experienced 'flashbacks' on a random Tuesday night. My flatmates were smoking weed however I didn't due to feeling ill. I'm not sure if it was me being ill or the secondary smoke or the combination however I began to experience the same visuals and sensations as I did on my second trip (which was a lot more intense). I was convinced I had accidentally took acid or something.. One of the main things I noticed was colours changing/morphing into new ones, floral patterns and materials looking like they had layers; almost as if things were floating and breathing. At first I thought it was quite cool and I viewed it merely as a pleasant visual that would last a few hours. It has been almost 3 months since that experience and nothing has changed. It would be interesting to see how having HPPD has affected peoples lives. I try and just go with it, however, recently I have been struggling with it. I have never suffered with mental health issues (not that intense anyway) yet since starting university, my anxiety has been at its peak. Whenever I feel stressed or tired, my visuals enhance thus increasing my anxiety often resulting in panic attacks. After lots of research reading articles, watching documentaries etc, it seems incurable and something that I may just have to live with. Again, it would be really nice to meet people and learn about each others experience with Hallucinogenics.
  6. I got hppd a few yers ago. I'm totally fine now. But I thought about it for a while and came to a conclusion that hppd might be the disease of neurotics , ipohondriacs , depressives. Not to be condenscesing or anything , I myself was prone to anxiety and depression. And its ofc not what u are but what u do with it , in this case. But just how many of us would describe ourselves of a neurotic predicament? Not to say that hppd is fake. But I strongly suspect that there is a huge link to having a certain type of a personality. That I conclude from what I myself was prior to working on myself , on the info on the net , and also on the posts on this website. Many are ofc totally rational and sober minded, but cmon , just how many reek of neuroticism and ipohondria? Once again, I totally was in that boat myself, and who would blame a person for neurotisism who just got his world turned upside down. But I still think there is a very definite neurotic/ipohondraic 'flavour' that imbues much of the hppd-sufferers communities. So it would be interesting to know how many of you would consider themselves of a neurotic/ depressive/ ipohondriac predicament prior to getting hppd.
  7. This might be a long one, but here goes. I've been looking at this site since the end of November, and I think I've found what's been affecting me. I'm 22-years old; a college student living in student accommodation away from home during term. I've occasionally experimented with drugs since I was about 15 (in social groups, never alone), but it was only in the last year or so that I ever tried ecstasy or LSD – not something I've done often but I found them quite positive experiences. Both times I took acid were quite low doses, and generally njoyable experiences. The only thing I noticed was that I often get bad anxiety from smoking weed since the first time I tripped; before acid this never happened. The experiences were so positive that I became a little bit obsessed with psychedelia; the music, the art, all the hippy stuff basically. For weeks after my trips I felt more clear-minded, focused, happy and just generally appreciative of life – even when COVID lockdowns became a part of our lives last March. After lockdown during the summer of last year I partied with friends for a couple of days straight; lots of alcohol, ketamine, and on the last day we all took a some of ecstasy. The afternoon of the day I came home I began experiencing what I think was serotonin syndrome; I got waves of panic, heart palpitations, agitation. It was very unpleasant, and it stuck in my mind long after I felt better. My current predicament was triggered by a caffeine-induced panic attack at the end of last September; I saw a flash of light in my peripheral vision after drinking black coffee, which led to continuing anxiety, visual disturbances, panic attacks, and negative thought loops – all these symptoms seem to come in waves, there's days or weeks when they're far less apparent and times when they feel overwhelmingly intense. I even got an eye test and was prescribed glasses for slight nearsightedness, but they said there was absolutely nothing wrong with my eyes from what they could tell. I had an ECG and a blood test at the doctors too, and they said there didn't seem to be any health issues that they could see – which is good news. Visual disturbances include visual snow (VS), prolonged after-images, floaters, blue sky ectopic phenomenon (a swirling or rapid movement effect on skies – especially on a bright blue day), as well as occasional perception of movement or lights in peripheral vision, “cracks” or vein/branch-like after-images in my field of vision just after blinking for a few minutes after I wake up, and flashes of light when the eyes are closed (when trying to sleep). These visual disturbances often create a sense of anxiety, and distract me from everyday tasks. The anxiety tends to get worse if I'm hungover, at night, and especially when I’m trying to fall asleep. I’ve also been experiencing occasional high-pitched ringing sound in my ears (more the right ear than the left one), heart flutters/palpitations, a slight feeling of nausea (generally worse after eating), and a sudden sense of dizziness or disconnection which may trigger mental panic or turmoil. Episodes like this don’t happen frequently, but are usually accompanied by a hot feeling in my face and an over-sensitivity to noises and sensations around me, with even a relaxed living room feeling chaotic and overwhelming. Unpleasant episodes like this tend to happen on days when I spend a lot of time ruminating about my condition. My mind often gravitates towards the idea that I may have a serious mental disorder – especially schizophrenia, despite not demonstrating the symptoms of this disorder (delusions, complex hallucinations, hearing voices, etc.). It’s more of a fear that I am experiencing what comes before a psychotic episode (prodromal period), and a feeling of helplessness and panic quickly grows out of this. I spend a lot of time Googling symptoms of various mental illnesses as way to reassure myself that I’m not psychotic, but sometimes I think I’m subconsciously trying to confirm that I am – however labored the justification may be. I think a lot of this is mainly down to the visual issues, but also the general ‘out of sorts’ feelings I’ve had. When I’m feeling particularly out of sorts or anxious, my mind tends to feel jumbled and chaotic – a fuzzy psychedelic feeling in my mind’s eye where it’s difficult to clearly visualize things properly or think clearly. This feeling can be intense and distracting, and it often makes me feel lethargic or low on energy. I also have trouble sleeping, or rather trouble going to sleep before 12 am. This isn’t a new thing; it has been a recurring issue for me for the last four or five years, but never as consistently problematic for my mental health (being due to anxiety or visual issues), and I was rarely ever kept awake when I wanted to sleep. These sleep problems often mean I wake up and fall asleep again multiple times every morning and struggle to fully get up before 11 am, and I think this effects my productivity for the rest of the day. I don’t feel well-rested when I wake up, so I think this messes with my mood throughout the day. Today I had the worst panic attack of my life; in broad daylight on a pleasant day at home surrounded by my family. I haven't taken anything (even alcohol or cigarettes) since before Christmas, so that hasn't added to my problems thankfully. I began to fixate on the sense of movement in my peripheral vision and visual snow, which set off my anxiety in an extremely intense way and it has taken all day to calm myself down. After talking with my parents we agreed it might be time to see a doctor; this isn't going to go away easily and I just want to rule out any other possibilities. Apologies for the length of this post, I just had to get it all out. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I would appreciate any advice. I will post an update if my symptoms change, and I'll try to keep up to date on any future developments.
  8. Whats is the symptom you (or symptoms) its harder for you to deal with (in my case: palinopsia, DP, Anxiety, uncertainty of where im gonna get, dizzines) ?
  9. Hello All, My name is Allen. I've browsed this site randomly over the past couple years but was afraid share. I'm in my 30's and have had HPPD 2 for 18 years. I was diagnosed 5 years ago after a seeing countless doctors through the years. Recently I found out my wife was pregnant and I became determined to find a treatment or, god willing, a cure. When I was in my mid teens I took lsd about 5 times and I was a chronic marijuana smoker. The last time I took lsd I smoked weed at the same time and I had the worst experience of my life: My heart began to race uncontrollably, my arms and face became numb; I saw long blury trails on everything and I felt hot and cold all at once. It was so intense that I thought for sure I was going to die. In desperation, I curled up in a ball on my couch, closed my eyes, and began to pray to god repeatedly to make it stop and let me live, until eventually I fell asleep. I woke up the next morning and thanked god I was alive. I swore of lsd forever. Unfortunately that didn't stop me from trying to party with my friends as usual. Every time I smoked weed after that I would have severe panic attacks and almost black out. When I'd drink alcohol I felt like I had a lump in my throat and couldn't breathe. A couple weeks after that horrible trip I woke up to a dull version of the same type of visuals I had the night of my bad trip, I was petrified and began having random panic attacks. I finally told my mother what I did and what happened since and she took me to the doctor. The doctor swore it was depression with anxiety and completely dismissed any lsd involvement. She prescribed me Effexor and xanax. The effexor didn't help at all and it made my heart race. The symptoms were not going away. I was afraid I damaged my brain beyond repair. Shortly after I withdrew from school and became a hermit. The xanax helped a lot with anxiety but the visuals remained. Through the years I saw about a dozen different psychiatrists and none of them knew what was wrong with me and continued me on benzodiazepines and ssri's. I lost my insurance and couldn't afford all the doctor appointments and medicine, so I began getting zoloft and Vicodin off the streets to self medicate. Eventually the visuals became less intense and my panic attacks were less frequent. Although the visuals and anxiety are a part of my daily life, I still manage to function. Some days are worse than others but I forced myself back into society and I got a good job in construction, and married my girlfriend who has been with me through this whole experience. I got off the vicodin with suboxone and continued the zoloft. With the news of our first child, I found a new determination to get rid of this horrible disease for good. I told my doctor that I wanted to try anything we can to make this stop and she agreed to start prescribing me different medications to see what, if anything, will work. She prescribed clonidine last visit and I started it 6 days ago. Unfortunately it hasn't helped my visuals at all and last night I began having strange thoughts and seeing weird images when I closed my eyes. I'll keep everyone updated on how it goes. I'm really hopeful that something will get rid of this for good. Wish me luck and good luck to all of you. P.s. I am thankful to whomever started and maintains this site. I hope we can get this horrible disease more attention and find a real treatment for it.
  10. June 11, 2019 SUBJ: Faces of HPPD Survey/Research Published – RESULTS! Dear HPPD Online Community: As a mom with a grown son with HPPD, I was so fortunate to come across this forum several years ago for information and support. David Kozin, who runs this board, is an amazing man to have created and maintained this website and kept up his work/studies over the years – all the while suffering with HPPD. I would like to thank him for this platform, and well as thank those of you who participated in the survey that I launched four years ago to collect data about individuals who had received an official diagnosis of the disorder. Fast forward…. Here it is June 2019. Long overdue for the published report, however, I lingered – always hoping to gain a larger sample of subjects. I am fortunate to have a PhD in psychology, experience in research, and a heart to try to make a difference. Instead of publishing a book, it only made sense to get the results in the hands of the scientists and medical professionals through scientific writing. I am so happy to tell you… the peer-reviewed medical journal, Addictive Disorders & Their Treatment, published by Wolters Kluwer publishers, has reviewed and accepted my manuscript for publication in an upcoming issue. Last week the article completed rounds of publication editing and formatting. The article is posted at their website for advance release. Lewis, DM, Faces of HPPD: Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder Patient Survey Results and a Descriptive Analysis of Patient Demographics, Medical Background, Drug Use History, Symptoms, and Treatments. Addictive Disorders and their Treatments. Forthcoming 2019. The link is here: https://journals.lww.com/addictiondisorders/Abstract/publishahead/FACES_OF_HPPD__Hallucinogen_Persisting_Perception.99733.aspx (NOTE: This direct link will change probably in a month or two when the article is given a print-issue date – right now, it is advance copy, undated. In the future, you can search the article at https://journals.lww.com/addictiondisorders/ . While the article is available for immediate download, many of you know that publishers charge money for copy downloads (this one is $49), and authors cannot give away their copy. This, I know, is not a good thing for some within the community who do not have the funds. However (here’s the good news ), I contacted the publisher and obtained permission to publish a summary of the results (the important data!) and I created an infographic that provides you all the results. I am including it here as a .pdf file, attached. It’s reader-friendly, and I hope it provides insight. I want to mention some findings that particularly concern me: the high rate of suicide ideation (among other co-morbid psychological/psychiatric symptoms reported), and the significant number of individuals who reported being unable to work due to HPPD. I feel strongly that HPPD needs recognition as potentially disabling – and I believe there are some individuals who may need government assistance (eg, Social Security Disability benefits). My future work leads me in the direction of carving a path for HPPD as a qualifying mental disorder for eligibility for assistance. I will keep you posted on that. Again, thank you so very much for those who partook in the survey. My best wishes to each of you for good health and peace of mind, Doreen M. Lewis, PhD https://www.facesofhppd.com https://www.vellichorresearch.com Faces of HPPD Infographic - LEWIS.pdf
  11. Hi, I'm new to this forum My condition started 1 year ago when I snorted 60mg of 2C-B, that night I had a horrible bad trip that ended in a panic attack and a visit to the hospital since that day I have anxiety problems, but I never had HPPD, visual snow, depersonalization / derealization, so I consider myself lucky !!! my symptoms have been more like traditional anxiety: chest pain, insomnia, fear of dying, muscle twitching, racing thoughts, nightmares, myoclonus (jerking when trying to sleep), shortness of breath, panic attacks the first few months...I think I have some form of PTSD caused by this bad trip I've been sober for almost 9 months and the only symptom I have now is muscle twitching (like fasciculations)... it's not a big deal, so I have a pretty normal life to be honest, I cannot complain. but if I drink alcohol/caffeine my anxiety increases the following days, and some old symptoms return. So I was wondering how bad it would be get drunk once a month and cut the anxiety of the following days with clonazepam? (I can handle 2 beers without problem, but if I took more I may have some anxiety problems the following days) What do you guys think, is not worth it? Can my condition evolve into HPPD just because of alcohol?
  12. Hello guys, it's been a year since i had the same problem as you. Always exactly 1 year I took 150ug of LSD and had a terrible bad trip that traumatized me and left me sequels. I had flashbacks and I missed a lot because of it. Distorted visions in my peripheral field. All this was cured with antipsychotics, especially risperidone (I can not remember the dosage). But what it took to be cured was the emotional sequel that caused me. Psychedelic experiences transform you radically and unfortunately if you are not prepared for them it may take a long time for you to get back on track and I confess that I am not yet 100% healed of this trauma. But what I can say to you is that the worst of all this is not the visions, but the horrible thoughts that go through our heads thanks to the anxiety that causes us. And what I want to know about this post is just that. What are the thoughts that torment you because of this anxiety? Write them in the comments and we'll help each other by talking about them. For example, I used to think all the time that I was getting schizophrenic, that there would be some outbreak, over time this evolved into existential crises where I thought my soul was lost in space time and I was not living reality, just watching it (depersonalization and derealization helped in this).
  13. Ever since I've developed HPPD, I've noticed that my dreams have become much more vivid and just overall... strange. I've always had vivid and memorable dreams, but nothing like this; I'm dreaming multiple dreams a night that are all distinct and just... odd. They seem to have no basis in reality and are very very bizarre, often having nightmare undertones. Is anyone else experiencing this symptom? If so, have you found anything that gives you relief? please let me know, as it causes me immense anxiety before going to sleep /:
  14. Hey guys, so recently I have been feeling very bad about where my life is at so I figured I would share my story, maybe I will feel better if I talk about it and in this day and age this is talking. Anyway, I have been a psychedelic user since the 11th grade, started with some gummy bears that had "LSD" dripped on them, they tasted like battery acid but I knew very little about the drug at the time. I ate about 10-12 of those in all on 3 separate occasions before I actually tripped, and to this day I can truthfully say it was the weirdest trip that I have ever experienced in my life, the feeling that I describe as synthetic. I then did LSD about 15 times and mushrooms about 20 different occasions. The last occasion that I tripped I ate mushrooms, i was at my friends house and we decided to eat 2 grams each, and we were gonna hangout there and smoke all night and just trip, and about 15 minutes after we ate them before we started tripping a group of my friends show up maybe 6-7 of them all telling us to come over to the one kids house to trip with them and party. I myself didn't want to go because i didn't like tripping with more than one or two people at a time, so I was already out of my comfort zone, but I ended up going. We got there and I knew every single person there but I was feeling a little social awkwardness due to the fact that maybe five out of the fifteen people there were tripping, at one point I had a friend come up to me and another kid and asked us if we just wanted to go down and smoke in his house, so we went and I started feeling a lot better. We will call the two friends i was with J and G, me and J get along very well and J was the friend i was with at the beginning of the night, G and I on the other hand don't get along as well but are still friends. We started watching Family Guy and G pulled out his dab rig and took a dab then proceeded to offer both me and J a dab, I of course accepted and this is where my night really started to go south, I started tripping really hard, and none of us were talking we were just watching an extremely old family guy episode, one of the ones where only one character moves at a time, and if they speak only their mouths move, and it just kinda weirded me out watching that, in fact it weirded us all out so we decided to go for a walk, G went back up to the party and me and J accompanied by two more friends who were NOT tripping, and started walking, we will call this friends B and A, so me J B and A were all walking down this back road in some Pennsylvania woods at 3 am. We started walking and B and A started asking me about my life overseas, as I started trying to explain what life was like i began to get stuck, I was trying to describe to them the feeling of being overseas and obviously they weren't able to perceive the depiction that I was providing, I got a little anxious and stopped talking about it, we continued to walk when me and J ended up being about 13 feet behind them, I felt some sort of psychological connection with J, we couldn't telepathically read each others minds or anything but we just felt the fact that we were both perceiving on a completely different level than the others. All the sudden I hear A and B talking, saying things like, "I feel like they are retarded, I feel like im talking to a third grader." and then laughing, I didn't take this lightly and said something like "hey how about you keep your mouth shut and quit talking shit", I really made things awkward now, and there was no talking. When we got back from our walk we were sitting on a few big rocks just hanging out, I had already apologized for my first out lash and everything is back to normal, as we are sitting there B says something very slightly provocative (i cannot remember verbatim what was said" and I snapped out, I couldn't control what I was doing or saying, but I was standing up pointing my finger at B and cussing at him telling him to shut the fuck up or fight me, what was really weird was the fact that I had no control over what I was doing, the whole time I was thinking in my head "what am I doing? Why am I doing this? I need to stop yelling at him and let it go. Whats happening to me. I'm never gonna stop tripping. After that night I was kinda weirded out by the whole incident so I stopped taking any type of psychedelic, after a few months I started noticing that I was tripping constantly, especially in situations that made me nervous, like going to a court hearing, i was looking at the floor and i was seeing waves everywhere and books sliding in and out of the shelves. This constant tripping lasted for a while, I became a different person, It was like i developed ADD and anxiety, and my depression had worsened a lot. Me and my girlfriend broke up while i was going through this as well and it was extremely hard for me, I plummeted into a deep depression and didn't think I had ever truly loved myself. I was a big time party freak before I met my girlfriend and kinda mellowed out the year we were together, so after we broke up I kinda jumped right back into it, I started doing a lot of benzos because they made me feel numb, in the HPPD state I feel everything and the feeling is multiplied, so these were a quick addiction for me, although my HPPD subsided. I continued partying and doing drugs until I went to my freshman semester of college at, you guessed it WVU. As soon as I got down there I made some bad friends and was robbing people and doing pills and smoking like never before, I eventually had a close call and dropped out and returned home, when I got home I did the same old thing, robbed people and did pills, and I really needed something to change my life around quick. Then one night I was staying in a motel with a friend when he pulls out an ounce of mushrooms, Ahhhhh my friends at last. He asked me if he cared if he ate some, and i said as long as I can eat some with you. It had been really long since i tripped and this friend was my best friend for the past two years so I decided i was in a good environment with one friend, fuck it. We started tripping, and it was a trip like I had never had before, I ate 4.3 grams of caps and we blasted off into the unknown, after a while of tripping and happy laughs good visuals, we had to go sell a half ounce to someone about 20 minutes away, so we drove there just talking, no music the whole time. We talked about life and about where we were at and if we were happy. On the way back i started to notice that my eyes were going lazy and i was seeing one road for each eye that I had, So I was double visioned basically. I found it extremely hard to fight this so I just focused on one road and drove perfectly all the way back, when we got there we were still conversing and heading to get food, all the sudden, epiphany after epiphany, my vision closed in and formed one extremely clear picture, like I have never seen anything before and It was while I was saying how I needed to quit doing drugs and focus on my body and spiritual health, My friend says we opened our third eye, and I believed it, my whole life changed that day and i started loving psychedelics again, buying and using daily, I would micro-dose, i would take .5 in the morning and .5 around 3-6 pm, even though i wasn't doing it right i thought i was okay because i was only micro-dosing. I started getting into meditation and yoga and all these spiritual things, I had a few epiphanies while meditating that were very radical, like one was I felt a telepathic connection with the universe and was thinking with consciousness, I say consciousness because the image that came along with the thought was telling me that consciousness is one, we are all the same, so the first thing i thought to ask was whats the point of life? The response; Love, the point of life is to love everything and everyone, because no matter if I am human and dog is dog, we are both alive, thriving on this planet together, so If i have the knowledge to care for life on this planet I must. This short lived high point in my life quickly faded weeks after when I noticed that I was tripping all the time again... It has been about 4 months since then and I am in the worst place ever, I cannot get myself to work, I cannot eat, I sleep surprisingly well though still. I have had crazy thoughts that pop into my head along with my visuals, like i saw visual snow, and i thought "well what if it is really something out there that I can see but nobody else can.." or "well if i believe that this room is moving then in my reality.. it really is moving.." And i become scared of these thoughts even though I don't believe them, It scares me to know that my brain is thinking them. I have debated suicide many nights, I consider myself a fuck up and a failure for all these evens that have happened, and now that Im thinking so much i begin to debate whether or not I am going crazy, I used to be such a smart kid, being able to off any teacher because I would find ways to prove them wrong, or being able to win any debate with friends because I knew more about the subject, I went from that to being the awkward kid who doesn't really talk a lot and has been sick twice in two weeks so he missed four days of work. I am beginning to fear that I can no longer do this. Hope this story was put together decently for you, I tend to get off topic sometimes, any thoughts comments would be appreciated dearly. -E
  15. Hey guys.Im 19 and last weekend (4 days ago) i used ecstasy for the first time. I took less then 1/4 of a pill and 3 hours later 1/4 again. At most it was half a pill (not tested, i know thats really stupid). I have done weed before but between every smoke there was about 1 to 2 weeks break.Now my questions is do i have hppd?The moment i woke up the next day of taking ecstasy i was scared that something was wrong with me. I had some blurred vision and a bit of a headache. So i started looking online and found out about HPPD. Now i am trying to see if i have the symptomsbthey discribe and guess what? i do have some of the symptoms.I have the visual snow one but only if i focus on it but yea its still scaring me.I do have afterimages but only when i look in really bright lights and itbonly stays for 0.5 second. And some bright car light have like this star shape but i think i had that as a child aswell.So yeah what do you guys think?I also want to mention that during the trip i didnt halucinate so im not sure if i eveb can get hppd without having halucinated. And the trip was good.The thing im most scared about is that i will never be able to drink a beer and smoke weed again. (i read that people with hppd cant to that anymore cause it increase the symptoms).What i dont have is things morphing in stuff and i dont halucinate. I dont feel disconnected with myself.Am i overthinking stuff or what?Thanks for reading,Henkneedshelp
  16. One of my therapists got me thinking about the role that guilt may play in sustaining my HPPD. I've realized that my obsession with my "HPPD" - visual in my case (for more info see here) - is connected to a general feeling of guilt for doing drugs and doing other things that go strongly against my religious upbringing. I'm wondering if the fixation on various parts of my body is a sort of "alchemy of guilt" - intense guilt finding its way into an obsession over physical phenomena. Please answer the poll, curious about this! Feel free to ask questions if you're not clear where I'm coming from. Thanks =)
  17. I took hppd about 2 months ago and ever since I’ve been very aware of what I’m seeing. Like at night when I’m in the car driving, I’m not sure if it’s been there before but street lights or any sort of light kinda has a glare to it, like very shiny and has like a glow to it. I’ve noticed that when I look at the moon. There’s another moon next to it but half of the size, like a glare. I suck at explaining but am I getting hppd or is all this normal? I’ve been stressing over This for a while now and I’m going to a psychologist to get checked out. I forgot to mention that I only taken lsd once. I’ve only smoked weed before .
  18. Hi all, So on August 6, 2017, at around 10pm, my friend basically forced me into doing acid for the first and only time. I didn’t really want to take it, my girlfriend had just broken up with me, I had gotten blackout drunk the night before, I had just eaten, and I was also afraid of the drug because I had always been told it fries your brain. So anyways, I took one tab of tested (not synthetic [excuse my terminology I know nothing about this stuff]) in order to get high, which is the wrong reason to take the drug. I didn’t really feel anything until I started getting some minor visuals a few hours in. Then at about the 5 hour mark, the trip turned terrible. I started freaking out, I got constipated, and I began to freak out begging my friend to take me to the hospital. After about 4 more hours of this, we both agreed to take a single Xanax bar, and that helped me finally go to sleep. The next day I felt ok, things seemed a little different and I guess I knew to expect that temporarily. The day after that is when all my problems began to surface. I began to see an abnormal amount of floaters in my vision that move with my eyes, not on my own, and I also began to see afterimages of everything and I have also developed blue field entoptic phenomenon as well. These all pale in comparison to the anxiety which controls me. It’s now been 2 months (October 11, 2017) as I write this, and I haven’t been able to get good sleep on a consistent basis and I am extremely concerned that this is tearing my life apart. I can’t get the fact that I used acid out of my head. The floaters never subside unless I am in a dimly lit room, and I become extremely anxious and am not able to sleep easily at night. My social life has significantly deteriorated as well, as my friends love to smoke pot but I no longer do because I am afraid it will aggravate my HPPD. The girl who broke up with me the day of the trip gave me a second chance, but after acid I became completely obsessed with her to a point where it became necessary for her to remove me from her life, despite the fact that I was never like that with her before tripping, and I convinced myself that I could not live without her, which is downright creepy and not like the old me at all. She has called me psychotic on two different occasions since the breakup despite me not telling her anything I am suffering from. It has now been 3 weeks and my thoughts are still consumed by her and my HPPD. I haven’t smoked pot since 6 days before the trip, and since the trip I have taken one Xanax and drank on several occasions, which I have now stopped. I use an e cigarette every day and but I don’t drink caffeine. I have committed now to complete sobriety aside from the e cig, which I had quit previously for about 3 days, but did not alleviate any symptoms. I’m only 17 and I have my whole life ahead of me and right now I feel like it isn’t worth living if I have to deal with this. I made a mistake, one tab of acid, and I don’t know if I can deal with the reality that this may haunt me for the rest of my life. If this is truly permanent, I can’t see why I would want to continue to be a part of this world as it’s only been 2 months and the symptoms, however minor, are now unbearable. I cannot get professional help as my parents are non-believers in western medicine and would not send me to a psychiatrist unless I went full-blown insane. There is also no history of mental illness in my family. Any suggestion is welcome.
  19. This is mainly to the newcomers like myself. For those of you just entering your days of hppd, take it from someone who also hasnt had it for very long, ive only had it for 3 months. The first month to months could very well be a hellish ride straight to satans throne. But one thing id tell you is to not lose hope, insert yourself into discussions with friends and on forums(not just about hppd but anything) take some recommended vitamins like vitamin d3 and b complex and magnesium, get a therapist you can talk to and stay active, all these things will help you get better. While my visual symptoms have not subsided, my physical symptoms on the other hand have. Ive always had social anxiety tho, so for the most part i would say i definitely feel like myself again. I attempted suicide in my first month and its now my third month and im so glad i never did. If theres three things of most importance i could tell you to do 1. Acceptance(accept this is your life as of right now, you cant dwell on the fact you MIGHT have this for the rest of your life because you also MIGHT NOT. My girlfriend told me i just need to take it one day at a time, we live day by day not month by month or day by month, you dont know if youll have this tomorrow or a month from now or a year, which leads to my second) 2. Never give up hope (Accepting that you have it in my opinion is a great step to recovery. But also being hopeful in the possibility of recovery is very important) Acceptance and being positive/hopeful are two great things to feel towards hppd. Its at that point imo you can feel true improvement and recovery. 3. CEASE ALL DRUGS. I cant stress that one enough, let your brain rest. Those in my opinion are the three best things to do when faced with hppd. Granted i may have it milder than a lot of hppders but i do want you guys to know i havent smoked or dosed since the onset, i drank maybe 3 or 4 times(avoid that too if you can) i also have a foot injury right now but most of my improvement came when i was going to the gym and running and sweating like a dog. Hppd isnt the end, but in a lot of ways its an eye opener.
  20. Well, no easy way to say this. I think I have hppd. I took extremely small doses of acid in my sophmore year in high school. One 50ug and one 100ug. That's it. Prior to trying lsd I've had experiences with dxm, and weed. I only did both of these substances every now and again. The visuals of today might have started a week ago, I felt no anxiety just was kinda trippy to still see stuff. Symptoms below* -trails -slight flashing in my peripheral -negative and positive in prints -Halos -Closed eye shape-ish movement when I try to sleep -I sometimes right when I'm about to fall asleep I imagine noises. Last night I smoked some weed, after 15 min I had extreme anxiety. Felt as if I was having a panic attack, the visuals were too strong for me. I closed my eyes (still tripping) then I fell asleep. I woke up feeling neutral, just slightly anxious. All of today I've had on and off anxiousness, when I'm occupied I'm fine, down time is when I'm anxious. Been going to the gym, eating well and I plan to never do a substance again in my life. Have a party tomorrow and I want to see if my anxiety will stretch socially where it never was before. Any piece of mind from individuals here would be appreciated. Thank you for reading
  21. Hello everyone, my name is Matt. I'm a student and I also work alot alongside school. I have experimented with a lot of drugs in the past and have developed considerably difficult anxiety and what I think could be HPPD. This has an effect on my life, work and school. I never had any problems with my drug usage until after I saw one of my best friend leap over a balcony during a mushroom trip. My visual symptoms are tracers, after-images, halos, also got tinnitus (although that was caused by a fireworks accident) but has been excacerbated by what I think is HPPD. My eyes are very sensitive to bright lights and I see bright flashes when staring at something bright, like the sky or my computer screen. I really want some answers because this is pretty frightening for me. I'm pretty much always anxious from day to day, and I was wondering if anxiety could make HPPD symptoms worse. I have researched a lot about these disorders but there isnt alot about HPPD anywhere. So I ask you, anxiety and HPPD = worse symptoms? Thanks in advance, any help is immensely appreciated!
  22. Hi everyone, i really dont know how to start and i hope you can excuse any mistakes in language as im from europe and i even have problems using my mother language at the moment due to my mental situation (If you want to skip the detailed story you can scroll down to my current symptoms, which basically began after one weekend of smoking too much weed where i had something like a panic attack while smoking alone.) Maybe i just start with a review of my past two months where my current state began and a little about me and my drug usage. Im 22 years old and started with drinking alcohol with 14 like all my other friends, sure i often drunk too much in the future but only at parties and never drunk alone or had the feeling that i need alcohol, pretty normal i guess. Last year (2016) i started smoking weed (just smoked one time before i was 21 and felt nothing so i had no demand doing it again). Due to new friends and an interest in weed because i found out my father smokes pretty often i started to smoke with friends occasionally and somehow i liked that feeling now. I would even say that after a few times i started to love that feeling. Alcohol was no more fun and i said to myself that its better to smoke sometimes and dont drink anymore except a beer or two sometimes (even my father said that to me). In fall last year i moved from my families house to my own place with a friend. That change in life was awesome i was so motivated, happy and loved the new freedom. Someday i bought my first own weed (maybe because it was possible now to do anything without the parents near) and i couldnt resist trying it out alone. It got more often and between november 2016 and march 2017 i smoked almost everyday i got time but i was still going to work everyday and university (sober). I think it still was a „normal“ amount and sometimes i didnt smoked for 2 weeks or so without a problem. In March a friend of mine died i didnt knew him very good because he lived in another town but somehow it bothered me a lot (dont know if this has something to do with my problem). Smoking weed after this incident was almost the same except that i felt a little tension in my chest and when i tried to sleep it took a while. Then there was the weekend whereupon everything started. On saturday march 25th two friends came over to have a nice evening and smoke some weed. I already worked the whole day and was awake since 5am but i didnt smoked for a week or two so i was excited. It was a great evening but after a while i was really tired and fell asleep for a few minutes when my friends were still there. I got some new weed and they left early like 11pm. I dont know why but instead of going back to bed i smoked another one alone. I felt again an odd tension in my chest and was a bit nervous but after a few hours i fell asleep. The following sunday my girlfriend had no time and i had new weed so the first thing in the morning was smoking again. I smoked three joints over the day i think and felt pretty normal (just normally stoned the whole day). Only in the evening the tension came again but harder this time and there were some „stitches“ in my chest. I was getting nervous but was able to calm down myself. Again it was harder to fall asleep this evening. It was like starting to dream while still awake and realizing it and wake up due to this feeling. The next morning i felt normal again i think and at midday i smoked another one with my flatmate because our internet was broken and we didnt know what to do. Suddenly i felt like being between stoned and sober and i just wanted to be fully sober. Everything felt a bit unreal like a dream somehow and the fact that our internet was not working was strange in my eyes and made me ask myself „is this really happening?“. But i managed to keep calm and said too myself that everything is normal that im just stoned and that i will be sober after a few hours. At the evening the internet suddenly worked again and i felt good again as far as i can remember. But instead of asking myself why i felt so strange and why i had this chest tension and stitches the last days i smoked another joint at this evening. Afterwards i was with a friend on skype playing a videogame when i suddenly had the feeling of getting a heart attack or something i had to lay down and was very anxious (i think this was my first little panic attack). The feeling came like in waves but i was able to calm down myself. It was a strange feeling i felt like not getting enough oxygen in my lungs, couldnt sit still and i just wanted to go outside. I took a walk but back home i didnt felt better. The „getting a heart attack“ feeling came multiple times again. Later it got better somehow and i was able too sleep (its hard to remember details since my memory is one of the main problems now). After this evening everything began and before you ask i never smoked or drank again after this evening (2 months now). The next day i said to my girlfriend that i feel strange somehow but not bad it was a strange feeling in my stomach like being a little sick and nervous. But the day was okay i even was in the city buying some led strips for decoration but when turning them on i realized that it make me feel very sick when the lights were flashing fast. I also got that same sick feeling in my stomach when i tried to focus small text. I thought that this weekend was just too much and its like a small withdrawal. The next they i went to university and in the train i was getting a bit nervous and was glad when i got off but otherwise everything seemed good i could concentrate just like normal. The only thing i noticed was that at midday a had to yawn like every 5 seconds for about an hour and felt a bit light sensitive (but it was one of the first sunny days so i thought my eyes just have to adapt to the new light condition). Back at home i started to feel strange and very nervous again, my heart started to beat very hard and fast and i thought again that i dont get enough oxygen. I went to the hospital because i couldnt calm down. I was so nervous that i was a bit confused, they checked my heart and blood values but everything was fine. After a while i got calm and was glad about the results. I left the hospital and felt pretty okay but was scared to stay alone. The days after i started to feel dizzy and extremely anxious and thought that something really is wrong with me i cried the next days very often for no real reason i felt hopeless and empty (hard to describe that emptiness). I went to my father because i couldnt be alone. At this time i knew something is different and everything felt strange and unreal like a nightmare but i couldnt really describe it and had no idea what was going on. After one week since all started i couldnt focus my eyes on anything for longer than a second and felt like seeing everything with 10 fps also every flickering light made me nervous and feel sick. This got better after a few days but i realized a lot new symptoms which stayed since then. So here is a list of what i noticed after the first strong fear was gone: Visual problems trails but by now only in dawn light condition every light and reflection blinds me and glares, even car, bike or traffic lights at daytime long afterimages of everything, positive and negative lots of grey and normal floaters in every light condition starbursting if the environment is dark around the light sources, gets worse if the light is far away ghosting, especially if its dark and there is white text on dark background everything seems a bit oversaturated at daytime very little static my eyes seem flickering and unsettled the whole time looking at a display is hard feels like looking through a slot or that something semi transparent is diagonal about half the display difficulty to focus my eyes on something for a time longer than a few seconds the feeling that my eyes are to slow if scrolling a website or something sometimes one of my pupils is almost double the size of the other one Other problems tinnitus (had tinnitus on one ear before but now worse and on both ears) constant tension in my whole body sometimes my muscles hurt even without doing sports at the beginning it was very hard to eat constant dizziness not strong but its there everything and everyone seems foreign, especially when looking in someones eyes i feel anxious and sick (maybe dp/dr dont know) cant really sleep, it feels like i instantly start to dream when i close my eyes but never get deep sleep, i wake up every 2 hours and sometimes i cant fall asleep again i feel dumb and cant concentrate at all (brain fog?) it feels like i cant think at all if i want or have to my brain just "does nothing" im really depressed i could cry every second but only because of the thought "you ruined your life, you had everything" no feelings except the one above, i feel like a robot and act the right way only because i know how to but i dont feel it (is this dp?) everything feels like a nightmare sometimes i think im still in my bed and its still march and i hope to wake up, i know this is stupid but im somehow not sure if its not true no sense of time at all, if something happend a second ago and i think about it it feels like it happend years before, i dont have feelings connected to the memories, and they all seem to be far away (anyone know this feeling?) my own thoughts "scare me" and feel also kind of far away, even if i plan to take a shower it feels strange in my head somehow old memories are suddenly in my head even if they happened 15 years ago, they are as clear as things which happened minutes ago, also if i look at something i instantly get a memory in my head which my brain seems to associate with what im seeing (i think this is one of the reasons why i feel like im in a dream and im not in here and now) i see faces and eyes everywhere even without looking for them like my brain searches for them without my control, i see them in trees, walls etc. i can say "its just a tree" and i dont see real faces or eyes but i cant see objects just like they are without my brain starting its rollercoaster drive of thoughts and associations (pareidolia i think but its extreme) i feel like the most important filter in my brain is messed up, in the city i see every reflection, movement etc. also sounds seem louder than before and i cant ignore them (i even hear sounds i didnt heard before, they are real but i think they were filtered out before, maybe hyperacusis) sometimes i think about suicide or behaving strangely and because everything feels unreal and like a dream im scared i will do it, i feel disinhibited somehow i feel like i have forgotten how to think, all i do is associate old memories and compare all the time how things were before 2 months Last week (i think) i found out about HPPD and found many of my symptoms which werent explainable with other disorders, especially those visual problems. I would love to hear some opinions about my symptoms and if they are typically for the HPPD related things like dr/dp, anxiety etc. friends say that i behave just normal only a bit sad and not as happy as before. This is what gives me a little hope because sometimes i thought i become insane. Tanks for reading.
  23. About 7 months ago I had an acid trip, it was a very small one. Since then I've had these symptoms: visual snow, after images, slight tracers, and light sensitivity. I've also been very spaced out, everything seems kind of Dream like, and stuff like that. Since my visual symptoms aren't really hallucinogenic and mainly just visual distortions, could these be visual symptoms of derealization, or is this just mild hppd? How long should this last
  24. I am new to this forum so it would only be polite to say hello to everyone and if anyone could help I would be very grateful. In 2011 I had a very bad acid trip after my 1st time taking the drug, like other people that have had bad trips I will keep it short by saying I saw some pretty crazy things and it took me three days to come back to normal, which I thought never would happen. I haven't taken acid since 2011 and I never will again as it was the worst experience of my life, however from 2011 to October 2016 I was a regular consumer of cocaine, weed and at some point mdma every weekend for 6 months. Anther drug I have tried only a few times is Ketamine which again sent me into a crazy trip, it knocked me out (k hole) but went when I woke up. I feel I should add from 2014 to 2016 I smoked a lot of weed, like a half OZ every couple of days, and not just any weed, this was some strong stuff. Anyway getting to the point in October 2016 I was taking cocaine and smoking weed with my cousin, I didn't sleep and went to work the next day but went home early as I felt really bad, laying in my bed thinking I was going to have a heart attack. From that day I developed what seemed to be exhausting health anxiety, I got head pains, chest pains, pains in my arms couldn't breath, went to A&E and they said I had anxiety. I eventually moved back home as I couldn't be by myself. I went to my local doctors who said I had anxiety and depression and prescribed me propranolol and citalopram. The propranolol helped calm me down but the Citalopram really messed my head up and to this day I am convinced I have some sort of HPPD, and am looking for someone to agree with me or convince me otherwise. Since taking citalopram my vision changed, I see noses and ears slightly more pointed, and still persists to this day, my ears are constantly ringing, floaters which are noticeable all day, Visual snow ,eye strain, I'm sensitive to light, headaches and light trails aswell for example if I look at the TV and look away I can still see the TV light. I know from reading other stories on this forum that my symptoms are very mild compared, but I am not convinced that it is just anxiety. I have stopped smoking weed I still smoke cigarettes, and very stupidly I have taken cocaine twice in the last 5 months which left my body on edge for over a month a time. I also cant consume sugar drinks because it makes my body really on edge, caffeine, I cant even drink tea without feeling like Ive just drunk 10 espressos. Seen a private psychiatrist who diagnosed me with anxiety disorder, but I have never mentioned HPPD to him as I didn't feel confident enough to. Last thing I will add I suppose the thing that makes me think I have some form of mild HPPD is the Vision changes in peoples ears and noses that convinces me the most, especially after trying an SSRI, its a very strange side effect which my doctor cant really explain. I'm trying CBT next week to see how I get on but if anyone could relate, or at least give me some idea on if I have HPPD or similar to what they have read before it would be a great help. I have accepted that something is wrong with me, but the way I see it is if you want to get high then there will be consequences, and I am feeling them now. Thank you for your consideration G.C
  25. So I have minor dp and pretty bad anxiety from hppd but it always feels like there is this negative stress or anxiety surrounding my thoughts. It literally feels like it's trapping me and idk if it's physical or mental but it feels like I'm being mentally weighed down or something. Like something is preventing me from being free and happy and I can't relax or enjoy the moment. Is this anxiety or something more I need to worry about? Also, is it common for people with dp to not be able to like picture themselves in their mind? Like what they think others think about them? Or is my ego dissolved or some shit like that? Thx for all replies
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