Succes with Prozac

[pok3ypup]

Hello folks,

My name is Joe and it has been a while since I have been on this website. I've lurked here for about 3 to 5 years, ever since I had realized something about my mental faculties had been changed due to taking many psychoactive drugs.

A short history of me: I am 23 years old, and throughout high school and a bit into my college years I took a hodgepodge of psychoactive chemicals, ranging from LSD, shrooms, molly/ecstacy, to research chems such as 2c-b and 2c-e, foxy methoxy, cocaine.. among several others I've forgotten the name too. To give you a sense of time span, the symptoms began around the age of 17. Needless to say I acquired the full gamut of HPPD symptoms - visual snow, tracers for several minutes after being blasted from a light, dp/dr, and this all brought the anxiety and depression that comes along with it. My sophomore year of college I dropped out of school due to my symptoms just being overwhelming. I would be in class, not being able to concentrate because my eyes couldn't focus due to the residual images that kept lingering in my field of vision.This would lead to me be anxious followed by heavy feelings of dp/dr. I can remember sitting in classes several times just feeling lost. Heart was pounding, palms were sweaty, and if someone had addressed me in that moment I probably would have spouted on off some incoherent phrase with a confused look on my face. It was exhausting, I felt disconnected from reality and felt completely hopeless in my condition.

So I dropped out. I sat in my parents basement and turned to video games to numb my thoughts and distract me from the world around myself. I was at a lowest of lows - constantly reminded of my position, what I had left behind at school. This went on for about a year - and towards the end of that year I talked to my parents and physician about getting prescribed a low dose of Prozac - 20 mg.

So I began the Prozac regimen 20 mg every day, and it helped. It helped so much.The visual symptoms were and still are here, and I assume will be a part of me until I die, but it's something I've just come to accept. It wasn't ever really the visual symptoms alone that would get to me previously, it was the anxiety that they would bring. The anxiety would lead to a spiraling downward of hopelessness that led to full blown dp/dr that completely incapacitated me at times. However, the prozac stabilized this anxiety. Once I was able to accept my condition I was able to focus on things to get my life back on track. I reenrolled in college, and am now in my senior year about to graduate in December with a major in Cell and Molecular Biology, which I love - this is something that I think is crucial. Find a hobby, a job, an activity, that you love doing and DO IT. Get good at it, hopefully this activity will be something you can make money on and you will be set. I hope in Fall 2013 I will begin a new chapter of my life and start medical school. Perhaps thinking of trying my hand in psychiatry to help other people that have gone through this condition and lend a helping hand. It's a tough and mentally taxing condition. But in the end I feel like I am stronger mentally, and that is an empowering feeling; better than most.

The moral of this story I think is to just accept this condition. Don't envy the past - the time before you had the condition - thinking "if only my mind was clear... If only I didn't have this visual snow all the time." Honestly - those are things that don't matter. The tracers, the visual snow, accept them, because they really don't change a god damn thing about the now. You just look at the world in a slightly different manner, but is that really such a problem? Make this different perspective a part of you. Be content, and focus your mind on something you love.

If anyone has any questions for me please, don't hesitate to ask. I feel as though I struggled with my condition, my existence, for some time and would be so pleased to offer a morsel of help to anyone in a similar situation.

Sorry for the novel, but I hope it helps.

[Monkey_magic]

I started Prozac when I first got hppd and it helped me loads. Even improved visuals for a while. But it's a case of finding the right 'fit' cos it won't do that with everyone. After a severely stressful period where my hppd flared up tenfold (9 years after my first hppd onset). it never really worked as efficiently again. But, whatever gets you through the night. Or life as John Lennon said.

[miketusa]

I started Prozac when I first got hppd and it helped me loads. Even improved visuals for a while. But it's a case of finding the right 'fit' cos it won't do that with everyone. After a severely stressful period where my hppd flared up tenfold (9 years after my first hppd onset). it never really worked as efficiently again. But, whatever gets you through the night. Or life as John Lennon said.

Did your hppd go away and then come back, or did it stabalize and then get worse? Im just curious, becuase I myself am trying to figure at where I am in regards to my HPPD.

[ollie]

Hi Joe, I'm glad to hear you have learned to overcome hppd. It must have been really tough, but you now seem to be making a real success of your life. I am studing as well and would really like to know how you have approached reading all of your text books.

When I read I can't help but focus on the flashing of the white areas of the page. Is this something that gets better with practice, ie you learn to block out the visual snow, or have you found it still consistently difficult to read? Using a ruler seems to help me, but the effort to read a page now rather than before is so much greater, and my eyes and brain seem to get very tired. Did you find your eyes and brain built up stamina? I have read somewhere on the forum to read wearing sunglasses but not tried yet. Any tips or advice would be super helpful.

[Monkey_magic]

I dunno know (lol). I think at the time of getting it my hppd was so bad any anti-d woulda had a massive effect. Just so happened the first one I got put on was Prozac. it never went fully away but enough to think thank fuck for that, still had anxiety and milder visuals but I didn't help myself cos I thought 'yess, second chance to get get shit faced again', (like I said, I didn't have a clue about hppd then). I would never have taken a hallucinogen again I did smoke the odd joint, speed sometime and drink loads. So I suppose it stabalised to a degree, but stress to the nth degree re-ignited it like it never went away. Infact it came back worse the second time probably, and that was without any hallucinogen as a catalyst.

[Monkey_magic]

That was with 6 months of lack of sleep with a new kid, a failing relationship and drinking and taking benzos (street Valium and Temazepam) far too much. Plus overexercising on lack of sleep (as I attributed exercise to my original hppd reduction), stretched my nervous system to snap. Morale of the story is babies are bad for hppd and mental health lol. I wasn't ready for it, but everyone's circumstances are different. It's all about getting yourself in a safe cocoon when you've got hppd. Anything else outside it is a nuclear no mans land.

[mgrade]

Well said.