Checking in after a long time

[dukkha]

Greetings all,

 

I'm making a post here after a very long time. At least a year and a half I believe. I wonder if there are any posters stills around from when I used to post... Anyways I consider myself to be a so-called "success story." That is, HPPD is no longer dominating my life. In the fall of 2008 changes in my life triggered depression/anxiety which in turned triggered the come on of HPPD (i believed the seeds had been planted a half year prior by a bad experience on 2c-b. This went on for a while, took some meds, tried my hardest to keep up with university, did some meditation, and life slowly started emerged from the gloom and darkness of the HPPD reality. I lived in central Europe for a year and some months and came back home and HPPD became less and less of something that I thought about everyday. 

 

HPPD is a two way street. That is to say that if one is anxious about HPPD, it makes the overall situation worse and, since one's overall situation is the object of the anxiety, the anxiety and HPPD are compounded in a snowball effect-like way. However, the opposite is also true - the less one minds HPPD the less it pushes back. The less it pushes back the less one is impaired by it and so on. This, I believe, was my cure. Therefore the greatest advice I can offer to any member here is to look the deamon of HPPD directly in the face and, with the sincerest knowledge that you will NOT recover and that it might even get worse, tell yourself with a smile this is how it is going to be forever. Be one hundred percent confident that this is true. Smiling one thinks that this is how my life is now that is OK. I will continue on and that's that. 

 

I absolutely understand that this sort of approach is akin to standing on the verge of a nightmarish rabbit hole and making a leap of faith in endless darkness and is therefore not in the tiniest way an easy task. However, if one can muster the courage that is needed to give rise to this sort of mindset and continuously maintain it then one will be able to liberate themselves on their own from the hell realm of HPPD. Of course HPPD is not static, it changes day to day, but if one can make this sort of vow, HPPD will naturally dissolve on its own accord.

 

I'm not free from HPPD in the sense that visual snow, floaters, tracers, DP, depression, and so on have completely vanished. They are there. However, these do not dominate my life and mind anymore and are only noticeable when I intentionally focus on them.  I have had several ... hmm what to call them ... "flare-ups" in the past years. One of which I found myself thinking I was going back into it for good. However, from these "flare-up" experiences I found that this state of mind described above does provide results.

 

Anyways, I apologize for not checking in with the forum for such a long time. I imagine the majority of you would do the same thing if you felt recovered from HPPD - so I hope you would not blame me, and I certainly would not blame you. (As a side note: it would do many members a great bit of good to get of the forums at length or indefinitely. There is certainly a great amount of support you all share with each other which is the best quality of this forum. However, the HPPD terms and outlook on life as well as the pain of the other members come to dominate one's thoughts and thought patterns and does not but compound one's problems and HPPD.) Just as if one managed to escape from a burning building it would be selfish not to head back to rescue the others, especially if you carry something that can act as a fire extinguisher, I had meant to make this post here for a long time. To be honest I'm ashamed I did not write it earlier and I hope it can be of some benefit to you all, whom I feel a strange but close bond with. Today I'm elated to share my little experience with you all. Death can come to take us at any moment, often sooner than we expect. I'm glad to have made this post before that time. I remember one member who passed away (username Andy) during my time posting here. I wrote a little something almost a year ago in remembrance of him. I didn't actually didn't communicate with him too much but we share similar beliefs (reincarnation, etc.) so I felt close to him in someway.  I'm not sure if you'd call it a poem or a eulogy or what. So with the fear of being already overly verbose, I'l conclude with it:

 

I never really knew you,

Beyond the flowing white of

Your Buddha avatar.

 

We all met on the same plane,

Having faced the same unfaceable 

Problem.

 

The suggestions for solutions were

Limitless:

Drugs, herbs, therapy - anything alternative.

 

On that gloomy little island you called home.

You huddle alone with the answer.

Sadly the bottle runs quickly dry.

 

On occasion this bundled fear blossomed

into a lotus. 

As you took position in meditation

Perhaps this was were our karmic connection was cast?

 

Sadly this was short lived

As was your precious human birth

 

Aspirations of as much greatness I can muster -

I send out for swift attainment of the unsurpassed state!

 

 

-Dukkha

[etardnow]

Thanks for coming back. Just for clarification, what are 'flare-ups'?

 

Do you wake up and randomly have bad visuals compared to other days and then go back to baseline the next?