Success Stories

[apfelsaft45]

On 3/16/2022 at 12:20 PM, Hall89 said:

Sounds like it. Just another acceptance post.

maybe but you shouldnt underestimate the "acceptance" thing, i swear to god for 4 year i completely forgot that i had hppd, my brain completely ignored all the symptoms, sadly a few weeks ago i read about hppd again and since then i have all my symptoms again. If you stay of the Forums n shit, be busy etc you will completely forget about it. Its so crazy because now i look in the sky and its full of floaters etc. and the last 4 years i could look in the sky, the Ocean etc. and it was completely clear

[Hall89]

On 3/18/2022 at 8:40 PM, apfelsaft45 said:

maybe but you shouldnt underestimate the "acceptance" thing, i swear to god for 4 year i completely forgot that i had hppd, my brain completely ignored all the symptoms, sadly a few weeks ago i read about hppd again and since then i have all my symptoms again. If you stay of the Forums n shit, be busy etc you will completely forget about it. Its so crazy because now i look in the sky and its full of floaters etc. and the last 4 years i could look in the sky, the Ocean etc. and it was completely clear

It's impossible to ignore the vs, floaters, bfep, ghosting, palinopsia, halos and starbursts that i have, they simply disrupt my vision too much. And no, if you got the visual snow and all the other shit it wasn't "clear" for you, you simply got used to it, but if you could get your pre-hppd vision back you would've seen what clear really looks like.

[apfelsaft45]

On 4/11/2022 at 7:26 PM, Hall89 said:

It's impossible to ignore the vs, floaters, bfep, ghosting, palinopsia, halos and starbursts that i have, they simply disrupt my vision too much. And no, if you got the visual snow and all the other shit it wasn't "clear" for you, you simply got used to it, but if you could get your pre-hppd vision back you would've seen what clear really looks like.

I think my brain just filtered it out somehow, i saw no single floater or afterimage for years. But never had VS etc. i hope sooner or later your brain will filter it out too

[Lambchop23]

Back on here 1st time since my last post a few months back. I see a valid debate comparing symptom free or acceptance and I think acceptance is ambiguous. Do I still have the occasional tracer yes, visual snow no. But my post really dealt with for me what was the unbearable parts of this disease which was the Anxiety, dp/dr, and feeling like I’m always 5 mins away from tripping. So am I HPPD free by the terms I see here I guess not. But does this hold me back whatsoever no. And it had me not leaving my room for a year. So I think relativity is important when reviewing this disease. Yes I have floaters but tbh I will sign up for that 10/10 times as opposed to feeling ur going insane. So idk if this clarifies but I stayed away from weed and negative thinking and indulging myself in the victim mentality and things got better. All of the major ailments of this disease are gone for me and I did that facing them head on and making myself uncomfortable ( cheesy, I know) but what’s the alternative?…  so to me coming from Hopeless to fully functioning as I was before is a Success to me.. wish you all well I won’t be back on here for a few more months

[Red]

Hello,

It has been a long time, several years, since I have been here. Which I hope should be a positive to anyone who reads this because I have truly moved on.  I was prompted to visit after cleaning out my email inbox and saw that I missed several messages from users here.  To whom, I am sorry for my negligence.  I am flattered to see that a message that I wrote over 10 years ago is still a popular post and I hope it has helped many users.  I can't explain what happened with the whole hppd thing, it was certainly 100 times stronger than any feeling I'd experienced before, and was convinced that it was unlike anything else, and not something that could be helped.  But in retrospect, so many of the symptoms myself, and a lot of you are experiencing are shared by people with anxiety disorders, ptsd, ect.  If I had to self diagnose, I would think that I probably had 20+ years of undiagnosed, unaddressed anxiety blew up in my face with I did those drugs.  And it put me face to face with something overwhelming that I just was not prepared to handle.  The silver lining is that it forced me to address those issues, as unpleasant as it was. I have always had some amount of anxiety and probably always will.  Not saying that is all there is to it with hppd but I'm sure that had a lot to do with it for me.

Now, I can think with a clear mind. It took a long time, but in retrospect, a lot of the symptoms I and many of the users here are symptoms of anxiety, ptsd, or other disorders.  It all just came on so strong and unprepared.  I had an "ah-ha" moment when I learned that a lot of people with anxiety have feelings of un realness.  If you would have told me in those days that I just had anxiety, I would not have believed you.  In fact a therapist tried to tell me that I had anxiety, and I just had this idea that they were downplaying it or that they don't understand. But maybe it will help being solace to consider there are other diagnosed, treated disorders, that share the same symptoms. Maybe not all of them, but a lot of them.  Maybe reading this, you're thinking, "this guy doesn't get it". Trust me I do, but please take my attitude as a sign that it can be ok eventually.  

These days I still have some anxiety when I'm stressed with work, or life starts to get messy, but I just consider myself a normal person like the millions of people with typical anxiety disorders.  Nothing that can't be handled.  I would encourage anyone here that is having trouble to try to get out of the mindset that you are experiencing something truly unique, and doomed, if that is was you are feeling.  Instead, seek help from a professional. If one therapist isn't a good match, keep trying until you find one.  Try to get out of your self-obsessed hppd echo chamber and try to relax.  If therapy isn't for you or helpful, that's ok too. Have hope, and live a healthy lifestyle.  All these things will help, if nothing else.  Try changing your mindset that everything has to be perfect now.  If you can do something good for yourself in this moment, it can be even better later.  

I believe that there were things that I could not control at that time, there was no magic solution that was just make it go away immediately, and I would be cured.  But I can say that what made it worse was the obsession, self-rumination, and guilt that I put on to myself.  After I made a decision that I was going to accept what may be, and do the best I could to help myself, then I did begin to get better with time.  All cliche', but meditation, exercise, healthy diet, managing stress, practicing gratitude, helped to have more better days.  And when I had more better days then I had even more better days for longer, and eventually, I mostly stopped thinking about it.  And then I stopped thinking about it altogether.  And then I just moved on with my life.  It did take time, but you can help yourself by helping yourself.

[youwhat]

2015 took a dodgy pill, saw insects everywhere and it was constant until I came down. 
 

I kept looking at the wall to see if the insects had gone the next day and they were just black little dots on the wall.

that’s when I googled HPPD. I do think I have it but a minor version compared to some here but it no longer bothers me. I get anxious from time to Tim and I flare up but i always come back down

 

sometimes my HPPD makes me see weird shit and I’m just like wtf. It doesn’t bother me anymore - I recommend citilopram as an ssri. I know people say it makes it worse but it helped me massively. It’s not the visuals that bother people, it’s the anxiety it causes. You need to just accept you have it, don’t do psychedelics or smoke weed and you might recover from the visual stuff - but you should focus on sorting your anxiety out first.  Without anxiety there is no HPPD!

[AF44]

I have HPPD from taking LSD, had it for 25 years. This isn’t about me though, it’s about my son. He is 15. This sounds SO weird but this past Saturday, October 28th, I was having a Halloween get-together. My son’s costume called for pink hair. My son has very long thick hair and I had to use 3 cans of Halloween hairspray on him. Let’s just say I for one, am a complete, unthinking idiot and for two, I was in a rush. We did his hair in the living room while he was laying on a few towels. I had neglected to open a door or even a window. I was spraying the hell out of his hair like a madwoman because I was in a big hurry, he kept yelling at me that every strand had to be pink, etc. We both felt fine that night. I felt crappy the next morning, my visuals were more than usual (I take Klonopin, so my visuals are fairly minimal) but Sunday early evening my son woke me up and said he felt “lightheaded.” I thought he was dehydrated and told him to drink water. (He was completely fine up until about 5:00 that Sunday, a little over 24 hours since the hairspray debacle.) The next day he said he was woozy and lightheaded, I called him off of school, I myself didn’t feel 100% but after awhile I started to feel pretty normal again. I figured we had both gotten woozy and weak from the fumes. When my son woke up that Monday, he told me his vision was staticky (he said it was moving “fast”) everything was waving and swaying, his body felt like it was swaying and moving. Basically every single symptom he described was classic HPPD, which of course I then FREAKED and rushed him to the ER (which I knew wouldn’t do any good but I wanted him checked out anyway.) Of course his CT and bloodwork came back normal, the doctor was “doubtful” his symptoms were from the hairspray fumes because they didn’t start until over 24 after hair spraying him (gee, anyone ever heard that before?) They prescribed him meclazine (Dramamine) for motion sickness and Zofran for nausea, then said to follow up with his doctor within 4-7 days. They suggested it may be an ear issue, as far as the swaying and vertigo, and that the vision issues could be due to a migraine. Like, a total absolute repeat from when I got it 25 years ago. There was no point in me telling the doctor I already knew what it was, because my husband agreed that we will not put him on any medication for this. I’ve been on Klonopin for about 14 years and if I get cut off of it, it’s going to be hell on earth in some kind of way. My husband knows this (he knows all about my HPPD and he’s so good to me, and understanding even though he doesn’t have it, somehow he “gets” it or at least can try to imagine how it feels.) I completely agree that I do not want my son on any medication. I’m pretty sure he knows I have HPPD. I’ve talked about it with my kids but I don’t really remember how in depth I’ve gone with it to my son-ironically I told my kids about it when they got older to discourage them from ever doing hallucinogens, Ecstasy, etc. Now I basically gave it to my own kid because I hairsprayed his hair in a totally non-ventilated room. This stuff was ALL over his skin, he kept having to wipe himself down, that shit was EVERYWHERE. I have been sick to my stomach with fear, bawling nonstop, feeling so guilty I can’t live with myself. I’m so upset I can’t think straight. Do you guys think his will fade and he will be a success story? Like I said, he is only 15 and as far as I know (he’s an honest, open kid, so I believe him) he’s smoked pot and drank cough syrup one time this past August to see what it felt like, and he said he didn’t really like it but that after he “came down,” he was fine. Basically saying I 100% think it’s from more or less “huffing” those horrid hairspray fumes, and it wasn’t even his fault!!!! Any advice? I suffered so horribly from HPPD and that was bad enough but to see my child having the exact same symptoms is over a billion times worse, especially because it was essentially my fault for being stupid enough to not make sure the living room was ventilated well enough.