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I’ve been suffering from constant DR with hppd and its driving me insane. I hate it so much it makes me so depressed and anxious. How do i help it? Its a daily thing and usually comes on when im tired or anxious or even just thinking about it makes me feel like im in a DR state. Nothing feels as normal or “real” as it used to. I sometimes question if im even alive. (Im on lexapro 5mg and abilify 2.5mg)

Hello everyone, in advance I wanna apologize for my non mother tounge English and for not really coming to an end with telling my story and maybe using the wrong tread for that post. I‘m not quite sure yet if a self diagnose with HPPD is appropriate for me but I want to tell you about my story, my seizure-similar experiences and my worries about taking meds. i don’t really know when all of this started. I‘m 24 now and I’ve been smoking weed regularly since 2015/2016, never had any noticeable problems with consuming it but could always keep it on a kind of moderate level, smoked everyday but usually at night time and never had problems having breaks inbetween for weeks. August 2019 I went to Indonesia/Gili Islands and „of course“ I had to try one of there mushroomshakes there, Even though I never had drug experiences besides 3 times of mdma and the weed. However, the first mushroom trip was quite pleasing nothing as how I experienced it and the dose was very low as I wanted it to be so I nearly had any hallucinations, my mind felt very clear and I did feel kind of creative. That good and light experience might have taken the my „respect“ of this drug so on that same holiday 2 weeks later I drank another mushroom shake, at night, in my hotel were the atmosphere wasn’t that nice, furthermore my friend I wanted to take it with didn’t notice anything and the dosage was a bit to high for me I guess. I wouldn’t call it having a bad trip, but all of the circumstances kind of freaked me out and I really had to calm myself down throughout the trip. Anyways when I came back to Germany, my home country I ordered some mushrooms from the Netherlands, because I wanted to microdose them, for „selfhealing“ my selfdiagnosed depression that I was to scared to go to a doctor with. In December 2019 I started microdosing for nearly three month, I didn’t feel so much of the positive effects promised but I didn’t stopped smoking while doing it which might me the reason for that, sometimes the day after taking it a felt kinda dizzy and I had that thing called mouches volantes I guess, that seemed like little flys/black dots infront of my eyes, next day I didn’t have anything. Sometimes when I took the dosage in the morning and smoked werd afterwards I got really sensitive to noises which also kind of made me aggressive or I felt like I had to leave the situation. However, all of that stopped when I stopped with the microdosing. At that point I want to say that I hadn’t felt really depressed ever since, anyways I feel like I kind of changed ever since, which I haven’t really noticed as a Problem till a few month ago, that’s why I don’t know if i‘n actually having the HPPD or what it’s caused from. in the past year is started getting more annoyed of people or not really „getting“ their way of living life, I started feeling anxious about talking infront of others and felt Kindle confused when I had too, but it was just in front of my class (i’m studying health science - how ironic I know) and I started isolating myself more, but just felt that I wasn’t as dependent on others as I used too. Then suddenly I started hating the smell and taste of weed, I didn’t like the “relaxing” effects it gave me because I just felt unsatisfied with myself and not good, summer2020 I went on a vacation with my family and didn’t smoke fore 2 month, everything was fine, don’t think I ever felt that good and stable during a vacation in a long period of time. However when I came back to the city I’m studying in and to my circle of friends who is smoking weed excessively I started smoking again too, with the differences that I felt that weed didn’t have any effect on me anymore, I couldn’t smell it, didn’t really taste it, it didn’t make me tired anymore, there was still a slight change but I don’t really know what made me continue smoking, I also noticed that it got kind of Heard- for me to not smoke for a few days because it made me feel really weird, I thought I couldn’t focus as much anymore and I thought I needed it to write on my assignments, I don’t really know. I felt kind of anxious at some points when I was smoking and had those weird episodes which makes me think there might be more connection to seizures. in the past 6 month it had happened that when I smoked time seemed to pass on “double-time” like really really fast and voices of YouTube videos sounded quite weird, sometimes when was reading it felt like it takes me less then 3 seconds to read through a pages and sometimes I could hear my heartbeat really really loud and thought it was really fast but when was measuring it everything was fine. I found this forum where people are describing similar situation but there is not a clear diagnose to it yet, some people are talking about DEREALISATION but some people are also diagnosed with SEIZURES due to those episodes were there was also found proof for it in brain storms. I can’t find an English tread where it’s described but if you type in everything feels loud and fast into google you can find treads liked to derealisation but also to partial epilepsy. on New Years I took mdma and it was kind of weird because I needed nearly double the dose of my flatmate even though I didn’t consume it for 3 years in advance, everything felt fine and I felt happy as I always do on mdma. Next day was fine too, but that’s when I started questioning myself more and more, especially because I felt like nothing really had any effect on my mind or my body, like I was non existent. With that I’m talking about the not getting stoned anymore, being able to take very high mdma doses and just stopping to smoke cigarettes without really caring or feeling any withdrawal about it after smoking around twenty cigs for the past 8 years. I got really worried about myself even though I felt good in general, but somehow too good, like nothing really bothered me or could get close to me without the feeling of being depressed. the experience I made that made me stop smoking weed and being scared of ever wanting to take any kind of drug ever in my life again, also made me go to a psychologist since it made me really panic. I started blaming the weird effect of the weed on me, that I couldn’t taste or really smell it on the weed because I know there was going some bad Chinese chemical cannabidoids around close to the town I’m studying in, anyways when I went to my hometown I brought some of it because I somehow got really used to smoking weed and with that I mean a lot of weed, even though I never had a tolerance with it before or anything I started rolling blunts without feeling anything the weeks in advance. Since I was kind of unsure about the weed after I heard about the chemical Chinese thing I rolled a joint and just put a little tiny amount of it in the joint, when I hitted it first I already felt anxious about it, after 4-5 hits I had to stop smoking because everything started feeling very weird for me again, I tried to do some anxiety meditation and while I was sitting on my Yogamatt my whole body started shaking even though I felt relaxed, the speakers voice got so loud even I lowered my laptops tone to the lowest and everything started speeding up, my environment started looking weird as I everything was drawn (now I know that that’s how it looks when you are derealized) but it was just so much worse then my worst state of derealisation, but somehow feeling calm meanwhile. However, that’s when I told myself I need to stop, I already had made an appointment at the psychiatrist before that situation but there were still a few days to go which where really horrific. I posted about those “fast and loud” situations on an neurological Facebook page where people told me about their kids having experienced the exact same and then were diagnosed with epilepsy. now to the current situation: I got really really anxious about what could be wrong with me, I thought I just got schizophrenia or really bad psychosis, but it was just a really bad state of derealisation and an extrem depersonalize where I couldn’t feel myself anymore and felt like someone else was talking and people started looking differently and so on and I felt tense and sweaty 24/7. The psychologist I’m still seeing weekly ever since diagnosed me with an anxiety disorder, depression and derealisation symptoms caused by a childhood trauma (my dad was killed when I was at the age of two). She prescribed seroquel/quetiapin at the lowest dose of 25mg, mainly because she thinks it heals for the derealisation which is kept up by anxiety and to relax my mind again. I took it at night before going to sleep, my bad derealisation and depersonalization actually went away and I felt really really good even though it’s a very low dose, anyways, I’m not really feeling fine with taking meds which made me anxious about the seroquel and check on google all of the time as if it was my main problem now. When reading the first “bad” experiences I started thinking about it in a more negative way even though it still made me feel as good and motivated as I haven’t felt in YEARS, which also freaked me out because I wasn’t used to feeling that good. My psychologist wants to give me the control over the medicating and leaves it up to me if I’m taking it or not, if I stop taking it every now and then to control how I’m feeling without it and so on. right now and don’t really know what to do. I took the seroquel for 1 month now, last week I stopped taking it because I got scared of all the negative side effects I was reading about on the internet. After not taking it I didn’t have any sleeping problems, anyways I don’t feel that motivated anymore and I’m struggling keeping active as much as I did in the Seroquel. I notice those visual effects as “heatwaves”, sometimes a dot infront of my eyes when I’m reading and a thing that I can only describe as seeing the “molecules” in the air but I had those things the past year every now and then without giving them to much value. now that I’m reading about the HPPD which might be my actual problem I don’t really know what to do anymore. I’m scared that taking the Seroquel will disturb my self healing process if HPPD or make it last even though it might have vanished in its own after a few more month on the other hand I feel better with the Seroquel but with all the posts about Seroquel not being good for HPPD it gets me worries that I might worsen the situation or as I already said, make it stay even though it might have been gone in it’s own after a few more month. I don’t want to try out other things but since the LAMOTRIGIN is used for epilepsy and epilepsy might show the same symptoms of the derealisation I had that I now think came from the HPPD rather then from child trauma I somehow think there could be more connection between it and I should try it out but also with that I’m scared that it makes the HPPD manifest and that it will have even worse negative side effects then the low dose of Quetiapin I’m taking. I’m reading that best thing is not taking anything which I feel too but on the other hand I felt so much better with the Seroquel and now that I’m not using it my brain fog and my unmotivatedness and my anxiety makes me feel worse and tired and I actually need to function. I don’t really know what answers or inputs I’m hoping to get from this post of myself I just felt like I need to share everything that’s going through my mind even though it might be kind of confusing. I don’t really feel supported with those thoughts by my psychologist because as I mentioned she’s leaving it up to me if I take it or not. But I just don’t know. I can’t and I don’t want to talk to her about thinking that I have HPPD because I’m scared that she doesn’t know how to treat it and neither does anyone else around where I come from.

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.

Hi guys. Im apparently new to the forum, so i want to start by explaining my story and how and why i got here. Im 16 years old and as you can imagine, people between that age aren't very concerned about their health or anything in general. Even though i was a kid who liked exercising or working out i was also very curious on trying drugs like weed . About a year ago, my mom got cancer but i couldn't feel anything, like i had no fear that she was going to die(i hadnt tried any drug in my life, not even tobacco or alcohol), feeling like im some kind of numb, not having empathy (which scared me because i was that kid who would be concerned about anything related to his family.) A couple months later, i started feeling more lost. I had lost the days and i didnt care at all . I was depressed but i didnt want to realize it. I couldn't accept the fact that something was wrong about my mental health at that point. After my vacation between December and January, i came back, again kinda numb. School was closed for Christmas and would open soon. As school opened, my friend asked me if i want to smoke some weed with his friends. Not even thinking about it, i answered, why not? The next couple of weeks i would smoke about 2-3 bong hits a week(nothing more). And yet i wasnt feeling high(maybe because of the dosage) . So one day i made a stupid desicion to get as high as possible(at that point i hadnt get a single high feeling in my life, not even from the bong hits). I started smoking and taking bong hits. I ate nothing. Fifteen minutes later i was kinda confused. I would be so stupid that i couldn't even think of simple things. I started to realize that i was high and it felt cool, for the first minutes. 2 minutes later i started feeling like i was in a boat, like i was lost and dizzy. Suddenly, my vision started to have some wierd black dots everywhere . I had a blackout and a bad panic attack . The high was so strong that i couldn't control or see anything for a couple of seconds(idk if that sounds a bit unrealistic but im trying to explain everything as it went through). After that seconds, i took control over my body, but it was like i was in a lucid dream. Like i was a camera, like i was observing the world through the tiniest tv screen . I felt my body strange. I would touch things and feel them after 2 to 3 seconds . I was so confused and anxious . My friends had freaked out because nothing similar didnt happen to them ever .i lost my mind, i got paranoid that this thing would last forever, like i was going to live the rest of my life like this. 2 hours later i wasn't high no more, but something felt strange. I went to sleep and i remember being between sleep and awake. I was so lost that night. I was having a dream of getting paranoid while i was also partly awake. The morning came and yet i was lost. I had black dots around my visual field, I couldn't see the walls clearly, like if they had some light everywhere in them. Moving my eyes from a shiny direction to another, i would see the previous image blurry for a couple of seconds. All that combined scared the shit out of me making me more paranoid about everything. I started feel like i was fake, everything seemed like a dream, my body felt like it wasnt mine. I got home after school and i remember having a nap caude i was to tired. Again, i couldn't sleep, i was somewhere between sleep and awake, lost. I woke up feeling like i was a stranger to everything. I had delay on touching things like when i was high. Im not gonna lie, i thought i was in a dream again. That night i explained my parents everything and they were very helpful. The next days my symptoms got worse. My anxiety increased and i had some terrible panic attacks. I would see those black dots everywhere ( when i would wake up in the morning they were moving fast as hell), and a little tinnitus. After a couple of days i would have that delay over the things i touch for some minutes and that was kinda annoying and unexplainable to me . I started observing around and seeing some small halos around people. The first couple of months was literally HELL. Suicide was the only option, i would tell to myself. Everyday i was overanalyzing everything. My walk, the way i talk, how am i able to see humans everyday without observing everything they do and all that insane stuff. It became i habit. Every single day 24/7 checking in to see whats wrong , if im going to be like this for the rest of my life. I went to therapists but they didnt help. They wouldn't diagnose anything. I had an mri and still nothing. I was feeling so unaware of everything. Being in autopilot. I also started homeopathy but it didnt help. My visual symptoms stayed the same 24/7 . The only time the were worse , it was when i was waking up(stayed for 10-15 minutes and then back to normal). 2 months got by without me doing nothing except of overanalyzing every single detail of me, my movements everything.it was that time that i couldn't take it anymore. I started running once a week . It did help with my anxiety (not my visual symptoms though. They were the same all the time.) I also started to taking cold showers. Amazing . Simply amazing for my mental state. It was so difficult at first but i tried and trying my best not to care about jt . I would gonto school and starting to get mote sociable,although feeling lost cause of my vision, but i tried not to care at all(it helped). Now im 4 months after that terrible experience and im way better with the dpdr thing. The only thing that remains is the visual symptoms and the feeling that im in a moving boat. They scare me sometimes causing me panic attacks. I hope that time will heal me and all that people that feeling hopeless. Remember guys, you are not hopeless. You will never be. I was hopeless for months and i did nothing. I AM BETTER. even though my vs and all that hppd symptoms are still there im in a way better mental state than i was. If someone is feeling hopeless or wants to talk, feel free to hit my dm anytime. That was my story . Hope u people found ot helpful. It surely release some kind of a tension to me! Stay safe

Hi, I’m Natalie and this is my first post. I took mdma for the first time in May. Seriously. I took it once, and here I am. June I couldn’t function. The derealization was constant. I was put on Zoloft. Things got worse. Then Paxil in August. Only some improvement. I can tell that I’m getting better, but now I’m on Trintellix, and once again, symptoms are getting worse. I feel like the only time I feel normal is when I’m between SSRIs, but my doctor keeps telling me that’s in my head or whatever. But there seems to be a pattern here. The derealization has improved significantly since June. But these SSRIs seem to make me more anxious and depressed. The only thing keeping me functioning is the klonopin. I don’t want to go against my doctor’s advice but I feel like I should stop the Trintellix. I feel like the SSRIs are slowing my progress? Any advice is greatly greatly appreciated.

Hi, I'm 16 and 5 months ago I smoked weed for the first time, never have taken any sort of drug before that. I had a really bad trip, followed by panic attacks and heavy depersonalization/derealization. When I woke up the next day for the whole entire week it looked like everything was in fast forward. After that week the world started to look dreamlike out of nowhere and then I got used to the symptom (especially after I knew it couldn't hurt me) and it kinda went away, my dp/dr was going away too but I was still pretty anxious and shaken up by the whole experience. About 2 months ago I was walking down the street and my vision started focusing and unfocusing, and I was back in a dream state. I started experiencing all types of really scary visual symptoms like static, after-images, looking up in the sky and seeing all these little tiny white dots (SO MANY), vision skips, tunnel vision, flashing whenever I look at lights, I even have seen colors or glimmers on walls before. Objects have violently shaken up until I blinked, when I bite down on my nail everything goes up and down with it (it's really hard to explain) or when I chew the whole world shakes with every bite. I can't look up, down, then side to side or else my eyes feel so fucked. I have this head pressure 24/7, reading is hard as the letters shift every 10 seconds. I am so so scared, I know you guys probably don't care but before this, I was a really good student, ran track, had plans of going to college and I can't even walk outside now without everything looking so fucking weird. I feel like I'm going crazy. Did I permanently fuck up my brain? Does this even sound like Hppd or something else? I have no one else to really talk to about this because no one else in my life understands, everyone I know just smokes weed and it perfectly fine, Please please if you have ANY advice or can relate to any of my symptoms I would really appreciate it.

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).

So I have pretty moderate hppd. From what I know, people say it is only visual symptoms and stuff like that but to me it's much more. I'm sure plenty of us have had problems with brain fog and depersonalization, which may lead to some depression. For me, especially when I wake up in the mornings or from a nap, I even FEEL like I'm trippin. I've had days where I've woken up feeling like I took a hit of acid before I fell asleep or something. So I read on some forums about 5-htp, which is a vitamin that increases serotonin levels in the brain. I read somewhere else that one cause of hppd is not having enough serotonin, so I decided to give it a try. Literally the first pill I took I noticed a difference. As soon as I got back from the vitamin shoppe, I took a pill and that night I slept a full exact 8 hours (and had real dreams that weren't trippy) and when I woke up the next morning, I felt sober. Of course the visuals were still there, but I felt great!! I've continued taking them and continued to feel so much better. There was one day that I decided to wait until later to take a pill when normally I do it in the morning and got my schedule all messed up and in the process I felt the brain fog and depersonalization come right back up. To me, it makes enough of a difference that I can live my everyday life and not have to focus on my hppd as much. Also, because it helped me get better night's worth of sleep, indirectly it's even helping my visuals. Depersonalization wise, now when i look in the mirror i actually see myself and don't always feel like I'm living in a weird type of nightmare. I just wanted to get on here and let people know that this may be a good option worth trying, because I've seen so many threads putting 5-htp down. Also, it's really not that expensive for one a day! (I've also been taking lion's mane, but I read somewhere that it takes months to work so I doubt that's what making me feel better) my only concern is, I've read online that taking 5-htp everyday could have some negative consequences, but I kinda assumed that applied to normal people who didn't need the extra serotonin like I do. Should I be be worried about it? Idk what do you guys think?

Hey guys. First and foremost; I wish I could put this all coherently in an elaborate article like I did with Coluracetam, however my current state does not allow for that, so forgive me if this all seems a bit vague or wishy-washy. This is a substance I've been wanting to try for months now. Basically what it is, is an orally active selective long and fast acting (~2 weeks) potent kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist. Say that three times fast. The KOR is implicated in many things. Salvia Divinorum (more specifically, its active agent Salvinorin A), which I'm sure most of us are acquainted with, is a KOR agonist. So is Ketamine (see here a study with both aforementioned and JDTic). These both (as well as all KOR agonists) known to induce a state of dissociation, depersonalization, derealization, anxiety, cognitive impairment, as well as hallucinations/visual distortions, and perhaps some others nuisances I'm forgetting. Dynorphin is the endogenous KOR agonist, which appears to increase in levels under circumstances of stress and depression (see wiki), and also blocks glutamate release. Glutamate is also implicated in DP/DR as recently discussed, moreover it's the precursor to GABA, hence hypoglutamatergia is no fun. Furthermore, trying to agonize NMDA receptors for instance, would be kind of like mopping the floor with the faucet running. Though, as a side note, NRX-1074 (GLYX-13 derivative) would be really cool to try. Ok well.. I don't seem to be good at tying up the loose ends here, but in any case it seems to me to have a high chance of abolishing dissociative symptoms. Oh yes, Naloxone and Naltrexone have been used to treat DP, the former of which completely abolished it in several individuals, however Naloxone is unsustainable. JDTic seems to be relatively safe.. some concerns about 2/14 individuals having a transient heart arrhythmia or something benign like that, which is why they halted studies (protocol I guess). I'll try to add more later, but if you've any questions, please ask. This stuff is not available yet. I know many of you, like myself, are very willing to experiment if it's worth a shot, and this one most certainly is. There's not a group buy yet, but currently there are already 16 people interested in doing one. If you want to be a part of the group buy, and for far more elaborate discussion (and a lot of interesting articles), check out the Longecity thread. Also, for the only user review in the world, check out jdtic.com (bear in mind, this person did not suffer from any dissociative issues).

I'm aware that none or most of you are medical professionals, but unfortunately like many of you medical professionals have failed to help me. I have seen that many of you also have personal experience for what works what doesn't work. I suppose almost using yourselfs as guinea pigs. I guess I'm okay with that. Considering I was okay with taking Psychedelics suppliments helping my current state with suppliments doesn't seem like such a bad idea. Medicine History: (PRE HPPD I did this crap) I took ritalin for a short time as a child. At sixteen years old I ODed about three times on effexor. Completely horrible experience. Mental state was suggestible I hallucinated for a little. I ODed on my own personal coctail (migrain pills, antidepressants, ect), I did once more on acetaminophen at 19. I have tried zoloft in high school and out (hated it), Lexapro (didn't give it enough chance so I don't know), Effexor (too heavy hate it), Clonopin (Gave me rare side effect of extreme bruising), Ativan (I still have it take as needed though gives me short term memory). Before I started psychedelics I was on wellbutrin with the most success out of any of these long time off and back on again. It helped with my fluctuations but made me feel cold and void as a person. If you want to know why this all happened I did it, I had a bad environment, abuse, neglect, bipolar, borderline tendencies, rape, abuse. When I started living on my own I felt so much better without realizing that my coping skills were still the same. I knew I would evolve as a person naturally, but I never really understood when my highs were taking me too far in heights. I started smoking pot all the time with my roomie who introed me to drugs. I felt really good for the first time. I did mushroom three times with awesome trips. The first being the best trip, the second two good but not as good as the first. I had a good acid trip. I lost all the weight I wanted to lose. I had a lot of friends who found me interesting, quirky, cute ect. I was on the high of life and everything was awesome never feeling this good so I started to experiment. I had one bad acid trip that did have after effects, but none that I noticed at the time. The wortst was a really bad mushroom trip that sent me to the ER making me think I was dying. What a wonderful Valentines day (last year). I got psychosis for a month and a half. I was really truely lost. My friends all left me thought now that my weirdness was no longer (cute but I was being weird as I really didn't understand social mechanisms really anymore). I was suggestable, and my mind frame was what effecting me. My mental fluctuations were like a box I was confined in this tight box and I had panic attacks all the time. I don't have them anymore though. My thinking was airy and for awhile I couldn't control my thoughts it felt like I was falling into a hole in my mind and nothing could stop it but occasionally falling on little edges and cliffs. I couldn't concentrate couldn't compute thoughts the way I normally did. I was without a paddle in a deep scary ocean that was my mind. I had deep ego loss, and figuring out how much control to give my ego as it does serve to protect us was hard. I had to rebuild it from mindfulness being in the present and learning from my woes of the past. For the record I am 22 now. Live in my own apartment. Work. and have a successful relationship without blame to to the person who brought me into these drugs. We had different learning experiences to cope from, but those were our own battles. Life has been rough for us but we stayed together through the roughness finding beauty in the way that it is. The reason why I think I'm not getting over my hppd is that. After my terrible trip and losing all associations to who I was or thought I was or even being functional as a person is that I widened my mind body connection with this painful experience. I literally cannot poop. I can't move my bowels. It's honestly terrible. This started a few weeks after my experiences. Starting with food allergies, then to extreme bloating, constipation, constant urination. Due to my suggestable nature and thought of death that truely peaked me in my trip. I was assured that I had cancer, that I had some sort of strange movie like premonition and the fear ate me up. I've had colonscopies only finding damage from my constant use of laxatives. This has been going on since febuary. I constantly feel tired, fatigued, bloated, constipated, all the time which effects me emotionally which ends up effecting the loose strings of the hppd that I try to tie up everyday. I more so have the depersonalization, derealization than I do any visuals (I get them occasionally but I don't feel bothered such like tiny splashes of colors). At the moment I cant eat bread, beans, milk, any sugar, any additives, and everything has to be in balance or else it's just too binding for me. I have candida, leaky gut (intestinal permeability that leads to the allergies or really food intolerances), and I can't really poop. I think the inability to poop is the cause for the allergies and bacterial overgrowth. I eat organic veggies in different ways smoothies, soup, steamed, I am doing bone broth. I eat fish chicken, pumpkin seeds, green bitter granny smith apples. If I eat one thing that is none in balance or intolerance my stomach grows to a huge amount and stays like that for the rest of the day. I am fairly thin weighing about 127 lbs and being 5'6 female. It's disheartening looking pregnant when you are not and not knowing how to deal with that if another were to give that sort of attention.I have been reading about how many of the neurotrainsmitters effect our guts and how our gut is like our second brain. Seritonin, GABA and some others play a role in this. I deduced pehaps the suppliment that would help my gut working is the one that will help me move on with my thought disorders after my encounters with psychedelics. I believe that the trainsmittors can be healed with time. What I'm looking for is heal my trainsmittors and brain, general mood balance, brain health, and possibly tackling this gut issue.I tried a few suppliments. Melatonin helps me sleep. Sometimes I take magnesium. St Johns was good at first. Ginko is good occasionally. I'm scared to go back on perscriptions. I know what thats all about. I don't want it to ruin my trainsmittors anymore than they already are. I don't want the split to widen even more... Everyday I take a candida management suppliment, vitamin without iron, garlic, NAC just started , Vitamin B drops I just started and not going to do everyday, and I have a lot of enzymes, suppliments that help me break down my food. I drink aloe water when I can afford it. I'm not very well off with money and thought about social security but the thought of tackling down this issue is unbarable. My doctors all know and they think this is all emotional based. I go to therapy. I just feel lost like I don't know what to do. I just finished a book called the how of happiness which has really great long term happiness based techniques, great advice. Exercise is hard when I feel honestly horrible most of the time. I've been getting better at socializing but I'm not where I was a year ago and honestly it will take time. Part of me has thought that if I tripped again and had a good trip maybe I could go back and fix the bad connections. With my current health and fresh state I thought against this. I at least said let's deal with the current issues without that fist and I haven't thought of that since. I don't hate the shroom it was a big learning experience and all I could do was take the positive out of something that was probably the worst episode of my life. I sort of relapse day to day. Sometimes I feel really good and confident in my character and get a lot of things done other days I get destracted and my mind fights against the idea of change wanting to stay still doing nothing and in the end being nothing. I get lost in there a lot. Sometimes no one knows I'm so on it and other days they can tell I'm real off. I'm trying to find reasons to be inspired to keep up with this and that's why I'm here. Many people left my life, I guess I understand since I'm just not the same. But with a community that really understands I was afraid to go into that at first but I guess laying the truth out that this is really my life right now and having other people accept that I guess that would be amazing. Self acceptance can be a hard one but worth it. I just...don't want to live like this forever you know? I want to be able to use the bathroom and get my health back more than anything. I work about 25 hrs a week due to feeling so ill all the time which I know is both the body and mind infuenced. It was just the craziest draw back to get sick and both ways than just one.

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Hey guys. I'm sure you've seen many threads like this in a past and I apologize if I'm being a "nuisance". I just need some insight. I've smoked marijuana for around 4 years and I've taken psilocybin once or twice in my life (it's never had any effect on me though). 3 Weeks ago I stopped smoking pot and began experiencing symptoms of depression and serotonin deficiency such as: irritability for no reason, random outbursts of crying and agitation (once again for no apparent reason). Two days into experiencing these awkward symptoms and after quitting pot I had a really bad panic attack and have been suffering from terrible anxiety and derealization/depersonalization. What troubles me most is that I only very recently read about hppd and I'm experiencing some extremely mild symptoms but they cause a great deal of worry for me. The symptoms are the following : -Occasional very slight breathing of objects ONLY when I focus on them (only certain objects and especially shadows) -Some trouble focusing on objects (especially interfering edges) Now my question is - am I inducing these symptoms due to obsessive thoughts and over-analysis (I can't seem to stop worrying that I've developed this problem and that it will gradually grow worse and interfere with my day-to-day life) or have I genuinely acquired the disorder somehow. As aforementioned: I'm not really a drug user. I've experimented once with shrooms but have most certainly have NEVER "tripped". Like I said...they had 0 effect on me whatsoever. Perhaps my weed could have been laced but I prefer not to dwell on that possibility. I'm still struggling with the anxiety and depression and have been taking prozac (Fluoxetine SSRI) for the past 2 days. I'm only using this to calm the psychological effects which could successively cure my dp/dr once the anxiety has subsided. I hope someone can help me because my obsessive thoughts have been driving me in-fucking-sane and only exacerbate my already HORRID anxiety and depression.

Hello there! My name is Natalie. <: This will probobly be a long post. Simply me writing down my feelings and stuff. Just felt like I needed to warn you guys. <: I apologize for my english. Here it goes: I rarely visit anything hppd and depersonalization/derealization related nowadays. I stopped when I discovered that overly attachement to this kind of forums made me more depressed. It was like a reminder of my problem. Always hanging there. I just wanted to forget about everything. And now it's almost a year since that terrible trip on cannabis. It doesn't feel as a whole year has gone since that day, 14th of april. Actually... I can't really measure time. Due to my derealization I can't really feel time. Hard to explain. It feels crazy to think that I had hppd and dpdr on my mind every single day since that day last year.Not a day has gone without me thinking about those problems of mine. Will it be this way my whole life? :c Maybe, maybe not. Time will tell. In June I will turn 20 years old. I just hope that I will not waste the coming years. Gah.. I am thinking too much right now. Can't really focus on where to begin with and can't really understand for myself what I want with this post. I think I just want to sociolize with someone who shares my problems. One of the things that makes me.. calm is that I am not the only one struggling in this shit. Even if I don't want ANYONE to be a part of this problem, it makes me calm knowing that there are people out there going through the same things as me. :c It doesn't feel nice to think so. The symptoms I have are: Afterimages (really bad.. :s), trails, visual snow... damn.. it's hard naming them all when you've lived with them for a year. I don't really know what's normal and what's not. xD Hahah.. I am pretty sure I have most of the usual symptoms on HPPD. I remember writing it somewhere in the beginning of my "trip" through this problem. My symptoms are pretty bad.. Aspecially afterimages.. But, I can manage. I think about them everyday. But I can forget about all the symptoms for like a couple of hours sometimes. <: But those last couple of nights the visual snow was holding me up. :C It's like.. EVERYWHERE. In different colors, always changing its position. :Cc It sucks. And the bright light it's making SUCKS. You can't fall asleep when the "statics" is forming some kind of light. It's like when you "press" on the lids of your closed eyes. Or.. I don't know. :c But.. the light sucks. But I think I hate afterimages most of all in HPPD. I don't have a driving license, so my friends often drive me places. And when I sit in the passengers seat and watch other cars.. DAMN. Those freakin' rear lights everywhere I look. If I see a car in front of me with the rear lights on and I look right and then left.. The lights are copying themselves and I see a bunch of rear lights instead of just a pair. :C Has anyone here got a solution for their afterimages problems? :c If so.. Please do tell if something made things better for you. It is really irritating. And it's not only at night that I see afterimages of everything.. no.. I see it 24/7 with every bright thing I look at. I know that after sitting on the computer a black square (light from the screen) is going to be stuck in my vision for a minute of so. >:C FUU. Hppd isn't actually my main concerne.. I was also really lucky to trigger my DPDR at the same moment as I triggered my HPPD. (----: FML. And It has been my biggest problem ever since. I don't have it in periods like some of you lucky bastards.. I have it 24/7. Derealization is the biggest problem. I don't feel.... real. I am constantly in a dream and I don't really remember how REALITY feels like. I am just "something" stuck in this sort of a GAME. :s (Please, don't think that I am crazy.) I often doubt my existance and question reality. Like: what the f*ck am I doing here? What is this? What am I? It that a chair? What is a chair? How do I know that this is a chair? Just stupid thoughts.. that scare me. :c I am glad to announce that I rarely freak out nowadays. I don't experience anxiety that often. THANKS GOD.. or just.. someone. But I am getting bored to be in this state of.. being? I want to get out. I want to taste the reality again. Everything seems so.. GRAY here. x) Can't really explain it. I just want to.. FEEL. Really feel. I want to know how it felt like to be a human before the DOOMS DAY/14th of APRIL. Sometimes I can walk around without thinking about DPDR, and then snap back and have thoughts like "Where am I?". I am afraid to loose touch with reality. I am afraid to do something stupid just to feel "alive". :c I am afraid to go insane. But hey! A whole human year has gone since that awful day. And.. Nobody suspects that anything is wrong with me. .___. Yeah.. I only told my mother, my boyfriend, some of his friends that were there on that bad trip day, my former best friend who will always be like a brother to me anyway, and to some people that aren't that CLOSE to me. :s My closest friends don't know about this. And hopefully they'll never know. This is the biggest problem of my life and I don't want so many people to know about this shit. :c They don't need to know. I haven't tried any medicine except over-the-counter vitamins like magnesium. I stopped with everything like 6 months ago because they made their job. They calmed my anxiety down. I am greatful for that. But they can't help me with my dpdr and hppd. I haven't tried prescription medicine because I don't want to go to the doctors. I know that there is no cure and that they can not help me. And I don't want everyone to know about my condition. I know that they can prescript me some bezo and stuff. I can't lie.. I am curious. But I don't want to get addicted. I have a feel that I will be if I try. :s I have a few questions for you guys. I would be thankful if somebody answered them. <: 1. In 10 years from now I would maybe thinking about having a baby. Is it possible for the child to inherit my hppd and dpdr? :Cc I am really worried about that. Don't want to ruin anyones life. 2. This year I am probobly going to get a boob job, cuz I love big tits. ;$ 8D And I wondered if the narcosis/morphine (?) can make me "trip" again.. or.. like trigger my hppd and dpdr all over again and make it worse? :C I am scared to be put to sleep. :c What if I trip due to the narcosis? :Cc 3. Again a pregnancy question: When one is in labor they get like .. laughing gas or morphine (?) .. Is it possible that I am going to trip again? :C I don't want to trip. :C Hahah.. :C 4. Is there anything that helps against afterimages? :c 5. Is there anything that brings you back to the "reality" from DPDR? The last two questions I ask because I haven't been on these kinds of forums for like more than 6 months. Maybe you know something new that I have missed in this time. :s But yeah! I think I have written enough for today. 8D Feel much better now. C: Hope someone want to reply so I don't feel so lonely. Hahah. Hugs! Have a nice day. And may the odds be ever in your favor. lol.

Basically to start off I am 17 years old and have been "suffering" from HPPD for a little over two months now. It all started 4 days after I decided to do mushrooms. Mushrooms were the first psychedelic experience I had ever had. Keep in mind before shrooms I had smoked a lot of weed, drank lots of alcohol, tried xanax, and had my fair use of amphetamines . We all go through that stage some point in our lives right? The stage of rebellion and trying "new" things, lol. Well let's get back to my experience. Anyways, to give a brief account of what happened that night with the magical mushrooms that I ingested with my best friend I'll start by saying we had both ingested 1.5 grams in her room around 8 o'clock...also had school the next morning . They took about an hour and a half to start kicking in. It started with an extreme but fun and endurable body high followed up with lots of laughter and giggles over nothing! The trip lasted a total of 8 hours from good trip to about 4 hours of a bad trip, my friend was convinced she was going to die after throwing up and I was left comforting her while also enduring the horrifying experience! Then we turned on some TV and the trip for the both of us turned around and eventually I fell asleep. Woke up the next morning felt great! Went to school not tired at all and just felt content and peaceful with the world. I almost felt like a new person. Over the next 4 days I felt perfectly normal smoked some weed felt fine. But on the fourth day after doing shrooms I went to bed had a dream that I was tripping, woke up thought I was still dreaming and had awoken completely paralyzed for about 30 seconds. (sleep paralysis). My room was completely full of static and I got up walked around my house to find everything looking they way it did when I was on shrooms! . I thought at first maybe I was having a "flashback" but then realized people don't normally get flashbacks from shrooms only from LSD and with lots of experience over time. I eventually fell back asleep extremely confused. The following day (although not as bad at night) the symptoms were still there. So, when I returned home from school I did some research. There I had found websites about Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder. I came to the conclusion that this was what I had. About a week later I made the terrible mistake of smoking weed and doing MDMA for the first time as well. My experience smoking was terrifying! Never had I felt this way before from smoking. I felt extremely paranoid and anxious and I literally was tripping as if I had just done acid! . Then the next night me and my little rave friends went to the local rave and I took some MDMA, that was awesome. But the next morning my HPPD and gotten 10X worse. From there I promised myself I would become sober until my HPPD went away. I realized that over that two week period of telling myself to ignore the HPPD, not research and obsess over it, and telling myself to stay sober it was barely noticeable! Almost as if it had gone away. But then I started smoking again and it returned along with depersonalization disorder derealization and almost an onset of out of body experiences. But now I have promised myself I will stay sober until this terrible disorder goes away. It is really not noticeable during the day but at night the lights are the worst. I have star burst lights and auras everywhere where there are lights! My wall sometimes breathe and move slowly, I have terrible peripheral vision and I have also noticed since I got HPPD my pupils constantly change sizes. Sometimes they appear as if I am on acid! . Anyways I have terrible anxiety now and am accompanied but lots of other changes in my life. Blah but whatever we all suffer through life sometime . This is my first post on this website and I hope to learn and grow in my experience with HPPD and meet some great people who also suffer with it. I know we can find a cure!

So I'm just trying to find some commonalities amongst all of us and determine what the main culprit in causing HPPD is(i.e. frequency, dosage, substance). So if you could just list the drugs you used up until HPPD and what substances you used after HPPD and how frequently, I'd appreciate it. Also, if you could state whether or not your HPPD was instantaneous after a particular experience or gradual.....I guess really I just want like as detailed of an account as your trying to give from the time you started using drugs up until this point. If you don't wanna read this entire thing(It's kinda long) just skip to the bottom. Story: {{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{So for me I smoked weed for about a year before my HPPD "hit" I had done ecstasy around 20-25 times, taken LSD about 5 times, shrooms once, cocaine twice, and pills every now and then(klonopin, xanax, vicodin) but not very often. The bulk of my ecstasy use was the summer before I got into LSD.......After all my ecstasy use I had a little HPPD, I would see trails on certain things and I had a little light sensitivity but nothing out of control. It really didn't bother me at all, everything just looked a little more vibrant and alive. So then sophomore year(when I started using LSD) of college I found a LSD hook up and started trippin. I tripped 3 times over like 1 1/2 months and felt completely fine. No anxiety or weird visuals and my weed highs were still normal. Then I took like a 2 week break and then tripped acid twice more within like 3 weeks of each other. After these two trips things started to go down hill. These last 2 acid trips I had were terrible. I was really paranoid and one of my friends was screwing with me the entire time and the experiences left me in some odd state of mind. Afterwards things started to look a little "acid-like" when I was sober but I still felt like everything was ok. However whenever I would smoke weed I started to clam up and have a lot of anxiety and couldn't really speak straight at all. So I decided to take a break on weed for Christmas break and when I tried to smoke once second semester started the problems were like 20 times worse. From here on out things gradually got worse and worse, I tried to continue smoking as I thought if I regained my tolerance weed would go back to normal. After a bit of this the weird delusional thoughts and anxiety started creeping into my sober life and I decided to stop smoking weed. But, I did decide to do DMT twice and LSD once in an attempt to have a good experience and maybe redirect where everything was heading. It didn't really help....it made the visuals slightly worse but overall was just a waste of time and money. So I decided to stop with all the psychedelics and was "sober" for about a month before I went to a 2 day rave. I took ecstasy both days thinking I could never have a bad experience with that but did and that weekend worsened my visuals quite a bit. So........about a month later I got hit with DP and that was about 7 months ago.....I've taken ecstasy twice since DP hit.....Once was terrible and once was actually enjoyable. I've been more or less sober since around August except for a few drinks from time to time. So yea that's my drug story.....all of that was within about a year and a half from the first time I smoked weed to the time I got DP.}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} I don't expect most people to of read all of that but mainly what I'm wanting is just to know what you believe the main culprit of your DP/DR/HPPD was. I think for me it was the two negative experiences I had on LSD. Those two experiences just set in a negative undertone to my subsequent drug use from that point forward. I feel like if I had kept the same frequency of drug usage but avoided those negative trips then I never would've developed anxiety that never would've led to DP and I don't believe my HPPD would've gotten as bad.

I get static pretty bad and the best way I can describe it is being somewhere between what I see and my thoughts. Along with static I have been seeing trippy stuff in this same plane of consciousness. Its like hallucinations that seem to fall short of reaching into my vision. Its like little pixels in my static are arranged into pictures that I can see overlapping my normal eyesight. I also feel like afterimages fit in this same place. I kind of think it is intertwined with my DP/DR, Its like I get so far dissociated from myself. These thoughts and visions are so powerful and out of my control that it can be pretty scary and overwhelming at times, but it really makes me wonder about the insane potential of the human brain.

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[Note: I posted this a week or so ago in the DP/DR file, but it got only one response, so I'm posting it here so hopefully more people see it/take it seriously. This is as much a call to the community to write any particular techniques they use to stave off stress caused by DP/DR than my current ideas and theories about DP/DR. I want to compile these tips into one file and post it on the website. If you don't feel like reading a large post, please just write any tips you have found useful for getting over DP/DR. For example, today I discovered that if I rapidly waved my fingers past my eyes, difficulty in reading computer text seemed to decrease. I have my own ideas about why this might be, but that is less important than our getting a concise, compiled file on all our techniques. Once we have them all in one place, we might all weigh in on them one at a time consider why they might work, as well as get some general concensus on whether they work for the majority of us.] Sorry I have been away so long everyone. Please take this seriously. I have a psychology degree, and these are not things I thought up today, but theories accumulated through years of having HPPD, a year of reflection upon it, and through the aid of the degree in psychology. The majority of my theories on exactly why different symptoms of HPPD are crippling in their respective ways hinge on biological, evolutionary responses elicited by what would normally be non-threatening stimuli. Most of the anxiety built up by DP/DR I believe are due to instinctual flight or fight responses due to the non-recognition of stimuli, of what one is looking at. If you are stressed, your instinctual, animal self, the self that has evolved virtually none in ten thousand years, assumes danger is lurking. In essence, your logical self realizes there is no actual danger, no saber-tooth tiger lurking in the bushes, but the instinctual part of your brain, as an evolutionary precaution, assumes first and foremost that it is dangerous, thus giving the body the greatest capacity to defend itself if necessary. Essentially, many of the difficulties we face with HPPD is this animalistic part of the mind assuming, since we do not recognize things immediately as a normal human would, that what we look at is a threat, and should be treated as such, which results in a constantly higher level of stress. Take the human face, for example. To not recognize a face, or even the 'humanness' of a face, is to assume it is a stranger, perhaps a stranger from another, rival clan. The animal brain will always assume the worst, a thing scientifically proven through endless studies. Again, this is evolutionary design. Faces differ in extremely minute ways, yet they are the critical element we use to distinguish humans from one another. With the visual distortions HPPD causes, these otherwise less significant distortions become multiplied when looking at a face, because the human brain is designed to gather enormous details from looking at that face. So since all faces look bizarre with HPPD, a massive amount of information is acquired that is mutated by the depersonalization and realization. So, in short, human faces are particularly vulnerable to the distortions caused by HPPD, because a greater amount of sensory input is being distorted This can even occur looking at one's own reflection. I know this was my own experience. Logically, I was aware it was my face. However, the animalistic part of me did not, and thus, it assumed a stranger. And if there is a stranger in my home at 2 A.M., when it is dark and the only person who would logically appear at this time would likely be a burglar or murderer or some kind of threat, the animalistic part of my brain assumed the worst. To this day, seeing my own darkened silhouette in my door elicits a fight or flight response within me. In essence, whatever the brain cannot categorize as recognized and safe, it classifies as a potential danger, thus raising stress levels. This is why DP/DR can be so hellish. One is constantly feeling, even if only on the very fringes of the conscious, that there are potential enemies everywhere. So, how does one combat this? Here are the techniques I have come up with: 1) Choose what stimuli to focus on. If the reflection in the doorway frightens you, as it does me, choose to pay it no attention. 2) If one is incapable to avoid the stressful stimuli, choose to put forth effort to deny the negative thoughts, the fearful thoughts, that accumulate. If there is anything in your immediate surroundings to focus on that is pleasant, focus on it. If there is nothing positive to look at, choose to put forth the effort to fight the negative thoughts, and think of something pleasant. This is not easily done, and requires effort. It may tire you out. But it is a muscle just like any other muscle, and it can be strengthened. 3) Workout. Essentially, with DP/DR, one is, no matter what, going to endure the extra stress from fight or flight responses elicited from illogical sources (for example, my computer speakers used to literally scare me, and to this day can still seem a bit like they are staring at me, calculating something menacing, two eyes staring, etc etc). This, while DP/DR persists, I do not believe can be helped. One cannot simply turn off the symptoms of DP/DR. So, stopping DP/DR is out of the question. What does this mean? One is thrust into either one of two extreme positions:A) one of constant fear at potential inability to defend one's self from the onslaught of fear elicited from illogical stimuli, or one is constantly aware of this fear, but feels capable to defend oneself from these stimuli. 4) Winner's mindset. This is a technique I stumbled upon through, believe it or not, videogames, but it can be built through any competitive effort, or any effort where one is put under pressure to perform and must focus past that pressure and fear and succeed in the present. This is the mental equivalent of being physically strong. In whatever way you can, you must try to prove to yourself that, when it is crunch time, you will be victorious. It is not an overnight process. It is something I work at every day. It is a relatively new technique for me, and I try to put myself under pressure quite often during the day, even in such menial situations as trying to throw a piece of paper into a trashcan where people are around to criticize me, laugh at me, if I fail. What matters is one's 'mental muscle'. It matters far less whether the paper goes in the trashcan than whether I was completely focused on the act at hand, not the repercussion. This is one of the few things that I believe the animal mind (the 'subconscious' as it's often referred to, but I think in this case, the definition is clumsy) responds to. It can feel confidence. The animal mind is engineered to appraise the severity of a threat as quickly as possible. If one has been going through daily life engaging in activities that constantly reaffirm a feeling of likelihood or capability to succeed in stressful situations, the animal mind will appraise threats reflectively, and thus reduce the stress level it initiates. So, in summary, I think someone with DP/DR, without aid of medication or some kind of natural reduction in the severity of the symptoms, can do little to simply not feel its effects. (Meditation is another technique I should mention, for it calms the mind and thus, the animalistic mind feels less stress, and thus assumes less danger, but I myself have not yet incorporated this into my daily routine.) I believe one is thrust into one of either two extreme positions: that of the defenseless and under attack, or that of the capable, even aggressive, and under attack. It is, from a cost-benefit ratio, massively beneficial as far as accumulated stress, to do what one can to feel capable in defending oneself. The mind of someone with HPPD will perceive vastly more threats than a normal person due to non-recognition of otherwise harmless stimuli, and thus the feeling of capacity to succeed in some sort of conflict, instilled into the animalistic brain through efforts performed by the conscious, is an effective way to combat these feelings. These are the techniques I have personally discovered and used. I have not yet looked, but I do not know of a sort of DP/DR specific area or file or post that have the accumulated techniques the community have discovered to combat the effects of these symptoms. I hope everyone posts their own techniques in response to this, of whatever scope, doesn't matter if it sounds silly or not (I liked to look at tree-lines when I had bad HPPD, for example), and to compile this into one file that everyone can use. I think it would be enormously beneficial to have a refined, distilled, singular post or file of these techniques, rather than the scattered information we usually have that are spread out among many posts. Once I get substantial feedback, I will write as refined and edited and distilled a collection of this material as I can. I will post them and we as the community can decide what needs to be edited, revised, changed, improved. Hope you are all doing well. HBB

Sorry I have been away so long everyone. Please take this seriously. I have a psychology degree, and these are not things I thought up today, but theories accumulated through years of having HPPD, a year of reflection upon it, and through the aid of the degree in psychology. The majority of my theories on exactly why different symptoms of HPPD are crippling in their respective ways hinge on biological, evolutionary responses elicited by what would normally be non-threatening stimuli. Most of the anxiety built up by DP/DR I believe are due to instinctual flight or fight responses due to the non-recognition of stimuli, of what one is looking at. If you are stressed, your instinctual, animal self, the self that has evolved virtually none in ten thousand years, assumes danger is lurking. In essence, your logical self realizes there is no actual danger, no saber-tooth tiger lurking in the bushes, but the instinctual part of your brain, as an evolutionary precaution, assumes first and foremost that it is dangerous, thus giving the body the greatest capacity to defend itself if necessary. Essentially, many of the difficulties we face with HPPD is this animalistic part of the mind assuming, since we do not recognize things immediately as a normal human would, that what we look at is a threat, and should be treated as such, which results in a constantly higher level of stress. Take the human face, for example. To not recognize a face, or even the 'humanness' of a face, is to assume it is a stranger, perhaps a stranger from another, rival clan. The animal brain will always assume the worst, a thing scientifically proven through endless studies. Again, this is evolutionary design. Faces differ in extremely minute ways, yet they are the critical element we use to distinguish humans from one another. With the visual distortions HPPD causes, these otherwise less significant distortions become multiplied when looking at a face, because the human brain is designed to gather enormous details from looking at that face. So since all faces look bizarre with HPPD, a massive amount of information is acquired that is mutated by the depersonalization and realization. So, in short, human faces are particularly vulnerable to the distortions caused by HPPD, because a greater amount of sensory input is being distorted This can even occur looking at one's own reflection. I know this was my own experience. Logically, I was aware it was my face. However, the animalistic part of me did not, and thus, it assumed a stranger. And if there is a stranger in my home at 2 A.M., when it is dark and the only person who would logically appear at this time would likely be a burglar or murderer or some kind of threat, the animalistic part of my brain assumed the worst. To this day, seeing my own darkened silhouette in my door elicits a fight or flight response within me. In essence, whatever the brain cannot categorize as recognized and safe, it classifies as a potential danger, thus raising stress levels. This is why DP/DR can be so hellish. One is constantly feeling, even if only on the very fringes of the conscious, that there are potential enemies everywhere. So, how does one combat this? Here are the techniques I have come up with: 1) Choose what stimuli to focus on. If the reflection in the doorway frightens you, as it does me, choose to pay it no attention. 2) If one is incapable to avoid the stressful stimuli, choose to put forth effort to deny the negative thoughts, the fearful thoughts, that accumulate. If there is anything in your immediate surroundings to focus on that is pleasant, focus on it. If there is nothing positive to look at, choose to put forth the effort to fight the negative thoughts, and think of something pleasant. This is not easily done, and requires effort. It may tire you out. But it is a muscle just like any other muscle, and it can be strengthened. 3) Workout. Essentially, with DP/DR, one is, no matter what, going to endure the extra stress from fight or flight responses elicited from illogical sources (for example, my computer speakers used to literally scare me, and to this day can still seem a bit like they are staring at me, calculating something menacing, two eyes staring, etc etc). This, while DP/DR persists, I do not believe can be helped. One cannot simply turn off the symptoms of DP/DR. So, stopping DP/DR is out of the question. What does this mean? One is thrust into either one of two extreme positions:A) one of constant fear at potential inability to defend one's self from the onslaught of fear elicited from illogical stimuli, or, one is constantly aware of this fear, but feels capable to defend oneself from these stimuli. 4) Winner's mindset. This is a technique I stumbled upon through, believe it or not, videogames, but it can be built through any competitive effort, or any effort where one is put under pressure to perform and must focus past that pressure and fear and succeed in the present. This is the mental equivalent of being physically strong. In whatever way you can, you must try to prove to yourself that, when it is crunch time, you will be victorious. It is not an overnight process. It is something I work at every day. It is a relatively new technique for me, and I try to put myself under pressure quite often during the day, even in such menial situations as trying to throw a piece of paper into a trashcan where people are around to criticize me, laugh at me, if I fail. What matters is one's 'mental muscle'. It matters far less whether the paper goes in the trashcan than whether I was completely focused on the act at hand, not the repercussion. This is one of the few things that I believe the animal mind (the 'subconscious' as it's often referred to, but I think in this case, the definition is clumsy) responds to. It can feel confidence. The animal mind is engineered to appraise the severity of a threat as quickly as possible. If one has been going through daily life engaging in activities that constantly reaffirm a feeling of likelihood or capability to succeed in stressful situations, the animal mind will appraise threats reflectively, and thus reduce the stress level it initiates. So, in summary, I think someone with DP/DR, without aid of medication or some kind of natural reduction in the severity of the symptoms, can do little to simply not feel its effects. (Meditation is another technique I should mention, for it calms the mind and thus, the animalistic mind feels less stress, and thus assumes less danger, but I myself have not yet incorporated this into my daily routine.) I believe one is thrust into one of either two extreme positions: that of the defenseless and under attack, or that of the capable, even aggressive, and under attack. It is, from a cost-benefit ratio, massively beneficial as far as accumulated stress, to do what one can to feel capable in defending oneself. The mind of someone with HPPD will perceive vastly more threats than a normal person due to non-recognition of otherwise harmless stimuli, and thus the feeling of capacity to succeed in some sort of conflict, instilled into the animalistic brain through efforts performed by the conscious, is an effective way to combat these feelings. These are the techniques I have personally discovered and used. I have not yet looked, but I do not know of a sort of DP/DR specific area or file or post that have the accumulated techniques the community have discovered to combat the effects of these symptoms. I hope everyone posts their own techniques in response to this, of whatever scope, doesn't matter if it sounds silly or not (I liked to look at tree-lines when I had bad HPPD, for example), and to compile this into one file that everyone can use. I think it would be enormously beneficial to have a refined, distilled, singular post or file of these techniques, rather than the scattered information we usually have that are spread out among many posts. Once I get substantial feedback, I will write as refined and edited and distilled a collection of this material as I can. I will post them and we as the community can decide what needs to be edited, revised, changed, improved. Hope you are all doing well. Sincerely, HBB