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My story - damn it - and a few questions


pdo

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Hi all.

I'm a 25 year old student from Eastern Europe.

My drug history is as follows:

-6 years of weed ( almost every day, about 0.25-0.5g max )

- about 7-10 LSD trips, not sure... ( 100-360ug )

- ~5 MDMA rolls

The rest are just drugs that I tried once: ketamine, mushrooms, cocaine, speed

 

So, what happened? Last year at the end of september I had my last trip, which I think wasn't LSD, but 2CB ( because of the much shorter duration ). I thought I ingested about 300ug of LSD, but I think it was 2CB - 2 drops and half a blotter of LSD. At the peak I smoked weed, which I never did ( because it clouds my judgement and makes me nervous ) and I experienced ego death. Well, I didn't experience it fully because I resisted that shit and had such a strong panic attack that felt like my heart was about to explode and it lasted about 2 hours. Everything was fine after that, the next month I kept smoking weed err'day and all was well. Then things started getting weird... I started 'waking up' randomly throughout the day, which I think is just moments of dissociation. Tbh I think the whole movement of the so-called 'awakening' is just people dissociating ( just my opinion, don't wanna offend any 'we are all one' believers ).One night while smoking weed and 'waking up' all the time that shit made me nervous and I saw a flashing mental image of me hanging and I had another panic attack. I quit weed after that. The withdrawals were horrible and I'm convinced I went to uni and hung out with friends during the first 3 months under a low-level psychosis. The intrusive thoughts were killing me. Everybody was against me, nothing was real, everybody was a robot, a lizard, etc... I even tried convincing myself of these thoughts to become fully insane, but I just couldn't believe in the nonsense. I went through a shitload of sleep paralysis episodes ( even though I suffered them before ), but these were on somekinda spiritual level. I even went through that traumatic trip in one SP episode. I had insomnia like crazy the first 3-4 months, unable to sleep at all, or sleep a few hours. I couldn't even watch the TV without coming up with somekind of paranoid conspiracy theory or existential bullshit, that of course didn't make any sense.

What makes me thing it is HPPD?

- visual snow ( hard to notice during the day, but obvious at night )

- tracers

- tinnitus

- a sound, smth like rain falling or a computer processing in my right ear

- CEVs

- after imags ( really short duration )

- halos ( barely noticable )

- a crazy racing mind from time to time

- a shit load of existential and scary philosophical thoughts ( Am I still tripping, am I still on the same trip, Is this a dream?, etc... )

- occasional dissociation, at least I don't think I'm dissociated the whole time

- sometimes when drifting to sleep I become hyper-aware of myself and get filled with anxiety

- mental patterning: give me an idea or word or smth and after a few thoughts I can turn it into something existential and fucked up, I can turn a lot of things into a sign.

Anyway, the visuals are barely noticable, I don't mind them, but what fucks with me is the crazy racing mind or rumination, which I can't stop sometimes, it just goes on and on, the fucked up obsession with existential thoughts and the occasional dissociation.

So it has been around 6-8 months since all of this started. My tinnitus is definitely lower, before it sounded like I had a machine behind me, now it's just a quiet sound of sand. My CEVs are less intense, they were really detailed and looked kinda cool tbh, especially after I woke up from a dream - they were like the architectal plan of a dream. Now the CEVs are much much weaker. I had a few puffs of weed during this, but my brain would just go crazy with the scary, racing, paranoid thoughts and dissociation, fuck that.

 

I've been saving money for a private neurologist to get him to prescribe me keppra or lamictal. My question is: do I need it? The thing that messes with me, is the anxiety, paranoia and occasional dissociation a result of psychological trauma (  it's weird that I would develop smth like 'PTSD' a month after the whole ordeal out of the blue ) or is it neurological and I should try out keppra or lamictal. One more question: if one actually gets 'cured' by keppra or lamictal, does it mean the person needs to take it for life or until it fixes the brain and that's it? Anyway, I feel as my HPPD, after it has diminshed some, has kinda 'plateaud', or if it is still healing, it is healling really slow.

 

Anyway, that's me. Hi. I'm glad there's a community for people like us.

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Weed makes my visuals intolerable and I've only indulged maybe 10 times since I quit dosing back in 1980.  It brings on racing thoughts, racing heartbeat, and crazy hallucinations.  The fact that your CEVS have moderated is a good sign IMHO.  Mine lasted for a few decades before, almost suddenly, going away.  I can't comment on medication because I've never taken anything for this condition but there are people in here who are very knowledgeable.  Obviously, the best thing to do is to refrain from taking psychoactive substances because this condition can get much worse.  Take care of yourself and the healing will begin.

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Given all the psychological problems you're having it might not be a bad idea to try meds. It's your call though. If you feel unstable, like you might harm yourself or simply can't make it through the day then meds are usually a good idea at that point. They don't "cure" HPPD though so don't get your hopes up. Lots of people have a positive reaction to the ones you've mentioned but sometimes people don't react well at all either. The only way to heal is stay far away from drugs, go stone cold sober and live a healthy lifestyle. 

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Ty for the replies. I would tbh like to avoid meds as a crutch. What messes with me is the fact that I don't know if this is PTSD-like trauma or HPPD, because my anxiety through 6 months has diminshed a lot, but it has kinda plateaud.

Edited by pdo
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