Dylan L

First time back in, phew, what, 2 years?  Chats not working or anything, see he hasn't been active since last November.  Is this whole gig going down the drain or whats the story here?

If you asked me a few months ago if i was cured of HPPD, I would have said "yes!".  Evidently, this is not the case as of right now.  I have went through unhumanly (im aware it is not a word) level of stress throughout the last year which was 100% job related.  My girlfriend left me ontop of it (because of my job) so stress was at a maximum.   Before all this horrible stress, i was happy, living out my life and just enjoying everything.  Then the certain situation happened and my life turned upside-down.  I became so heart broken that i just gave up....  it was not soon after that my visual snow came back..  I have no clue why I wish to post this.   I don't feel lie i am in need of urgent help but yet i respect most of you on this site, your opinions are also some of the only who recognize/have this disability.

I can't say the reason my HPPD has come back except that it was an extremely stressful military related situation that has caused me to go from visual free to snow and movement in the blink of an eye....  My snow was gone.... my movement was gone... but now its back, after hopping off I'm HPPD positive again.... I just don't get it....

Fuck you remind me of my Dad, he has had HPPD since he was in his 20's and still deals with it.  That the thing though, the fucker is so tough he does no even adress it, to himself, to anyone.  He lives to forget about what he did to his mind, he taught me to do the same.

Took me 5 years and it felt like to long. any length of time living with some fucking jailer issue like HPPD is long enough. Just keep your nose clean.

HPPD is like cooking eggs,  turn the stove on, put them in pan and hope for the best.  Sometimes they come out burnt, sometimes they come out perfect. 

What a fucking gamble.

Just drink 6 or 7 beer then...  I was only not able to drink for the first year of my HPPD, after that I resumed my regular drinking habits, when me and my friends got together I would regularily drink 20 in one night with no negative effects to my HPPD either on the night or the day afterwards.  Just fucking go for it brother.

Of course if it is hurting you, stop.  I know I don't need to say that but still.

My room at home is cleaned with deadly precision, i can not tolerate a single misplaced piece of refuse on my floor.  My room itself is adorned with weaponry and pictures from my deployments.  I don't see it as much as my Dad is the owner of the house, but he enjoys walking in and seeing my belongings, they make him feel closer to me as he says.

Vent man, vent.  It's important to talk about it.  If you were not close to recovery, you visuals would not nearly go away.  They won't trick you like that.  Just think positive an TELL yourself that you are cured, you are SOOOO close im even getting excited for you!!

I ha this conversation with Chris a long time ago.  Now i'm no doctor and can't say for sure, but my Dad has HPPD and I had HPPD as well.  So maybe it's not exactly hereditary but maybe if one of your parents have it, you have a predisposition towards it making it easier for your mind to dive off the deep end when indulging in the more taboo of recreational activities.

Congratulations man!  You're on your last leg of this horrible journey, my HPPD almost all of a sudden rapidly started weakening and stayed that way for about 3-4 days then went away completely.  You should be only a few days away from the finish line!  Keep a steady healthy pace, very proud of you brother!

You won't notice any increased symptoms if you drink and get drunk.  If you only have a couple then yes you will notice some adverse affects. I drank for the whole 6 years i had HPPD, and drank lots.  I can safely say it never had a real terrible impact on my condition at all.  Everyone is different though.

Myth.

Took me 6 years to be cured from the visuals.  I also have not heard any miracle stories from anyone else about being cured in months.

Fuck, my Dad's had it for 30 years or so..

My trip that sent me over the edge was from overdosing on ecstasy.  It was not that bad to be honest, when comparing it to LSD.  The people I was with were made out of paper and the plasma TV on the wall was a window outside of a old timey saloon where cowboys were walking by, my best friend was an old paper lady rocking back and forth in a chair and my other friend was blind as he stood up.  Not really significant but still fucked my head up enough to the point that i had HPPD for a good 5-6 years.

This is great to hear, albeit i have never known you before it still fills me with joy to see you are progressing towards the better side of life; the one free of HPPD.  I must say that when I read of your mind set change to knowing that your HPPD is not a death sentence and that you stopped beating yourself up I was ecstatic because mine never really started to dissipate until i entered the same mind set.  It can be a might heart ache when you begin to believe you can not live your life they way you imagined when young because of this plague of the mind we had.  When i got it, i felt the same way you did, i was intelligent enough to go to any university I wanted to go to, and i felt that was all gone because of hppd until i changed my mindset, then i began my career now and flew fucking faaar with it, even with HPPD (which i am now free of).  Just keep fighting that shit at every turn, when it gets you down, say fuck it and go harder, if it gives you anxiety, fight the anxiety and go do something out of your comfort zone, i found fighting this beast, honestly helps.

FEBRUARY 24TH, I WANT TO SPEAK TO YOU ALL ON CHAT. I'M BEING DEPLOYED ON THE 25TH, WOULD BE HAPPY TO SEE THE FRIENDS I HAVE MADE ON HERE SO I CAN SAY GOOD-BYE AND THANKS FOR THE GREAT SUPPORT.

I know what you meen Jay, getting old is my main fear by leaps and bounds... I'm only 24 and i know im in my prime for many years to come, but in my line of work, 30 years old and up is the expiry date for most soldiers, unless your extremely proven. Honestly, the best way to keep feeling young, in my opinion, would be to get into great physical shape. Get back to how you were when you were 20 years old, get to the point where you felt you could turn the world upside down brother. That physical fitness will turn you into a machine that you were in the past and you will feel fucking magnificent about it and hopefully, bring you back to a time in the past.

Exactly. A child born from alcoholic parents is said to be at an increased risk of developing alcoholism than others.

It's all about mental fortitude and willpower (kind of the same thing I know). I NEVER took a single dose of medication for my HPPD and I never seen a doctor in any field about it. I just lived through it and dealt with it, didn't let it control me, i controlled it. When my HPPD would dictate to me that "No, you don't need to apply for that deployment" I would just go do it.

A total cure medicinally does seem like a false hope as you have said. The brain is one mysterious piece of work, that is for sure. However, if a cure is such an unreal possibility, then people like myself wouldn't be running around hallucination free. I never stopped drinking at all throughout the whole years i've had HPPD. I call bullshit on the people who say alcohol will ruin your chances of recovery because well, im cured and alcohol is coursing through my veins even at this very moment and i'm totally fine brother. Just keep hope, 20 years is a fucking long time and I feel for you and can only imagine what has gone through your head in the decades, I wish i could get my dad on here to talk to you. Your probably around his age, he has had HPPD for 30+ years and the tough buggar never even flinches from it haha.

Here's a "pearl of hope", I'm 100% cured after 5-6 years of living with HPPD. I know most docs cant fathom HPPD, in the sense of the word its a complete mysetery, even to those who understand it somewhat, but its very real, just like Combat PTSD which was shrugged off as cowardice in WWI, which is complete bullshit. Sure, it took 30 years for Combat PTSD to be fully recognized s a real mental illness, but the good hope is just that fact, that it was. HPPD research is still in its infancy, maybe in 20-30 years it will be understood and treatable, along the lines of Combat PTSD.

Afternoon gentlemen! Woke up today, still free as a bird i'm happy to say! I know I should have went into some details about the facts leading up to this, sorry I was obviously kind of rattled (in a good way) all day yesterday and was just blurting stuff out,

Zukov, I don't take meds and I have not once taken a single dose of any medication for my HPPD, I don't even take Tylenol haha. I'm not involved in any organized sports but I am an extremely active person, I run 20km a day without fail and engage in strength/endurance training 5-6 times a week, and when i'm on duty all of that x10, so I pretty much have the whole "healthy lifestyle" thing under wraps. I've never been into meditation, although I do believe that it can lead to all kinds of healing.

Chris, you wanted to know the types of symptoms I HAD ( ) haha, well I had visual snow like everyone else, most likely to a lower intensity however, 5-6 years dumbed it down quite a bit I also had movement of objects in circuar patterns when I would stare at them for a second or two. Those were honestly the only symptoms I had left, all the colors and morphing were completely gone.

Seeing as I wasn't taking medication and didn't find some kind of "wonder drug" to fix HPPD, I obviously can't offer much of an explanation so i'll just tell you guys about what I think triggered some change in my head and so on, which have all happened in just the past few weeks.

Alright, So I have been on restrictive duty for the past 5 months or so with my unit in the military because I overclocked my last deployment in Afghanistan, staying an extra 3 months when I should have went home and started my downtime. So when I finally got home after that long ass deployment I was notified that I would need to take extra downtime and engage in psychological evaluations (as most soldiers do who complete year+ deployments) This depressed the hell out of me because well, the military is my life, if I could just stay on deployment and be at the whim of the Canadian Forces indefinitely, I would without a second guess. I was becoming more and more disenchanted with civilian life as the months went by and was just sick with boredom. Then about 2 or so weeks ago I was informed that my downtime was set to be finished and that I will be returning to active duty with my unit as of January 7, 2013. When I heard this I went ballistic and started working out hardcore like we do for deployment prep ect. I was fucking ecstatic, easily the happiest I have been since my last time in Afghanistan. I was waking up excited like a kid in a candy store everyday. A week or so later I was talking to -mg on chat and my girlfriend came up and the fact that I didn't think our relationship would make it through my upcoming deployment, so I just up and decided to make the 10 hour drive and surprise her at her university. We'd done the whole skype thing almost every day, but holy hell, seeing her in person after so many months was just like taking a fucking hammer to the skull, in a good way, if that's possible. I've been with her for the past 4 days now and Jesus i'm living in pure happiness. So anyways, I woke up after spending the first day with her and I noticed that my centeral vision was completely clear and that I only had snow in my peripherals. I honestly didn't think much of it, I updated my status on here about it and kept on about my day. I was surprised that I was no becoming stressed out throughout all the large crowds and shitty traffic associated with Calgary as large cities usually make me wanna puke with stress, I just decided to fly with it. The more time I spent with her the more happy I was and I began thinking that perhaps the massive amounts of seratonin/dopamine or whatever the fuck my brain was getting was putting it somewhere else and that it was helping my HPPD somewhat. Woke up yesterday not expecting anything, nothing was that different except for the visual snow, but when I looked around, EVERYTHING was normal, no now, no movement. Shit, I forgot to say that I kind of quit drinking for the past week but whatever, I don't think that's important because when this all happened yesterday we went out for drinks to celebrate and it didn't affect my in any negative ways whatsoever. I don't know what else to put! I know things will only get better when I get to see the guys in my unit on the 7th, I'm just ecstatic!

Not even bullshitting anyone. A couple days ago my visual snow was only in my peripheral vision which made me insanely ecstatic. I woke up this morning and felt refreshed, I felt clean, the air tasted better and I was just completely on the ball as soon as I opened my eyes up. I walked around, had a chat with my girlfriend and even she took notice of how chipper I was and the fact that I wanted to hit up downtown as soon as possible, and I HATE city life. I looked around and noticed that everything was completely clear, no static, no movement of anything, and believe me when I say I sat there and stared around the room in a kind of clear confusion, nothing was happening. That was earlier this morning, after a day/night in the crowds and traffic, still nothing. I don't know what to say really, except that I hope everything stays like this, I don't know why it stopped, how it stopped and I don't CARE to know the reason it stopped! 5-6 years and it seems HPPD is a chapter now in my past! :D

Not even bullshitting anyone. A couple days ago my visual snow was only in my peripheral vision which made me insanely ecstatic. I woke up this morning and felt refreshed, I felt clean, the air tasted better and I was just completely on the ball as soon as I opened my eyes up. I walked around, had a chat with my girlfriend and even she took notice of how chipper I was and the fact that I wanted to hit up downtown as soon as possible, and I HATE city life. I looked around and noticed that everything was completely clear, no static, no movement of anything, and believe me when I say I sat there and stared around the room in a kind of clear confusion, nothing was happening. That was earlier this morning, after a day/night in the crowds and traffic, still nothing. I don't know what to say really, except that I hope everything stays like this, I don't know why it stopped, how it stopped and I don't CARE to know the reason it stopped! 5-6 years and it seems HPPD is a chapter now in my past! :D

I see. I'm aware that talking about your child on here is unsettling to you, but in my general interest to make peoples lives better when I can, I would like to say something in this instance. First, many children are born with over-active imaginations where they can even manifest themselves in the form of "hallucinations", but eventually go away completely upon entry into adolescence or sooner. If this was the case, your child would be fine and you would no longer have to worry. Second, you should watch for signs of and do some research (if you have not already) on Pediatric Schizophrenia, this would be the more likely scenario in a doctors mind. I want to stress this because if the child goes through his/her life led to beleive he/she has HPPD, but infact is a Schizophrenic, then this is unfair to said child because there are medications which can ground a Schizophrenic and allow them to lead normal lives, in which case they would be deprived of.

Emily, has your child been diagnosed with HPPD professionally?

My HPPD has gone away mostly over the past 5-6 years. I still have snow and the movement you speak of, however. Never freaked me out but it is unsettling to me that after 5-6 years I havent seen any marked improvement with it. At this point however, I have lived with it long enough that I rarely, if ever even notice it, even though it is happening 24/7. I suppose you could say it has gone away some in that case if youd like to be an potimist