Drmsbear

Hi everyone, Just joined the group... I am surprised it took me so long to find you. Anyway, here is my story: I ate a small dose of acid when I was 12 years old ... I know, I was WAY TO YOUNG (early 90s). It was stupid. Anyway, my experience wasn't bad at all, I was with friends, smoked some weed, watched the wind blow in the trees, ate some ice cream, listened to music, and went to bed. Woke up the next morning feeling FINE. Four days later I had a flashback and never came down. That was 24 years ago... yeah. My initial symptoms were the most intense. They can be best described as though I was sucked into the back of my head and forced to experience the world from there. I felt (still feel) like I wasn't really here and I was seeing as though I was still tripping... I was seeing through someone else's eyes, 24/7. This was extraordinarily traumatic for me. Not only was I so young (12 years old), but I felt like I was losing my mind and no one believed me or could help me. Really, I think no one understood so they didn't believe me. I was helpless and totally alone. I prayed every night it would go away and in the morning I opened my eyes and the world always looked the same... like I was tripping. Over the next several years, I told no one and learned to deal with it. I swore off all drugs and tried to ignore my symptoms. Eventually, I would get distracted throughout the day and forget about my visual perception distortion. But it never went away. When I was 19 I went to a psychiatrist thinking he could help me and he prescribed me antipsychotics. NOT COOL. He didn't understand and thought I was crazy. This lasted only a few months and my next therapist gave me Prozac. This helped immensely with the anxiety of it all but my symptoms never fully went away. By this time my "stuck in the back of my head" feeling had gone away. I can feel myself over my entire brain now, but I STILL see as though I am on LSD. I am now a 36-year-old with a Ph.D. and a family. I think about my visual distortions every day. I remember how the world used to look before acid. I take my kid for walks and I try really hard to see through the distorted curtain that has been pulled over my eyes. I still dont totally feel "here". I still feel like I am watching a movie opposed to being truly present. I also need to state that have anxiety and ADHD. Obviously, I have anxiety (who wouldn't, right?) and I was diagnosed with ADHD at 22. I have no other mental disorders. I am not trying to scare people by telling my story. I am hoping that someone understands what I am saying and we can talk about why this is happening to us. Does anyone else have a similar story? Single-use? 24 constant years of symptoms? What about feeling like your looking through some else’s eyes? I know that LSD (I have a chem phd) doesn't chemically bind to receptors (it's an ionic bond) and therefore doesn't chemically alter the brain. It also doesn't physically stay in the brain for more than 7-12 hours. So far, there's no physical explanation for why we experience this. I could go on but I'll leave it open for questions and comments. Thanks for listening.