Dylan L

It does not matter who i'm around, except a few people i work with, whom i do not see nearly enough... I am all-together lonely as hell... I don't even know what to say about it... maybe i'm just posting a topic because there is nobody to speak to in the chat room. but... im so lonely....

I've had shrapnel blow through my neck during a ToD in Afghanistan. We were based out of Kandahar Airfield(CFB) and were patrolling when a APM-IED went off. The only people caught in the blast were 3 Afghan nationals and 2 of us Canadian Soldiers. By all the luck in the world, we were all fine. except for the fact that i took a piece of shrapnel through the neck which flew only 2cm past my jugular, which would have killed me if it hit since med-vac was at least 20 minutes away. I began to beleive strongly in God that day. It was religious. For sure.

Boo, please, elaborate. Emlly, no, i have not had any changes in my life. My missions and my base life have remained consistent, i live as i have for the past few years, nothing ver changing, except for mission specifics. The stress level is always high, and it has never bothered me. I have an EXTREMELY strong mind, i will never let anything get the best of it... Even through all of my resilience, i cant understand why im thinking this way...

Hey, welcome to the forums, nice to have you here. If a doctor tells you hppd dosent exist, just tell him to fuck off. I'm not one for doctors, never sought treatment, but i could only imagine the rage one would feel when someone tells them their disorder isnt real. just awful I imagine. Well, like i said, nice to have you here, see you around.

Hey guys. So for the past month or 2 i have had for the first time in my life, suicidal thoughts come into my head. The weird thing is that i would NEVER commit suicide and have NEVER considered it... But every time i see a gun or a knife, or a high ledge... I always think "you could end it all, right now, just do it"... then i say to myself, just fuck off brain, i have a good life. which i do. I love where i am in my life and would never consider killing myself. So then why, why do i think about it? Is this from the HPPD or what? some new symptom that blindsides you when your just about to beleive your cured? I meen hell, i work with things that could kill me every day, guns, rockets, mines. Its disrupting my psyche and killing my concentration. Does anyone else get thoughts like this?

Your post is quite relevant to my HPPD experience i'd say. I've never sought to have treatment or take medicinal drugs to aid it. I've always beleived I could beat this shit with my mind and that alone. I've made wonderous leaps and bounds towards seeing clear again, just through chellenging the illness outright and telling myself, im in control, not the HPPD. As far as any good that has come from my drug experiences... hmm... it's hard for me to say much... however I do beleive my HPPD motivated me to an extent which caused me to join the army so i could challenge it (HPPD) further and further. So i suppose my drug experiences helped me to become what I am today, to a degree. I also met my ex-girlfriend because of drug use. I knew her on and off, but during that shy time in my life, drugs were what helped me express my feelings. Nowadays though... I'm a solid, confident, strong individual and don't really attribute drugs to aiding my life in any way... those last 2 examples were just all in the spirit of the topic.

If you want to categorize HPPD in different classes, then by all means, do so. If, however you choose to do this, you will need to take into effect the endless multitude of visuals and effects that an individual can experience. One could have just visual snow an dp/dr, the next could be full on psychedelic and not have dp/dr, both examples from the same drug. I beleive HPPD is totally random in a sense but is also dictated by an individuals brain chemistry. We ALL aquire HPPD in our Visual Cortex, and it depends on our seratonin in sequence, which leaves endless possibilities in the make-up and levels of said areas, which leaves endless possibilities for types of visions and types of emotional disorders.

I used to see them all the time before I beat them. I found the scariest thing was the contemplation of losing my mind or developing schizophrenia because of said images. Well, it dosen't happen haha, all you need to do is beat them mentally, take control, don't develop a fear complex because of simple images. Stay happy, laugh every single day and often, smile lots, be boistrous and most importantly stay confident. These pseudo-apparitions can be beaten with pure emotion, resilience and confidence in the fact that you WILL get better over the next months or few years. Keep going, it'll be over before you know it

When I told my Dad however many years ago, I knew he would take it with a grain of salt. My dad was a straight hippy in his younger days and has been through the drug scene 100%, so I wasn't worried to tell him. He also suffered from numerous LSD flashbacks on a frequent basis, so I even went so far as to think, me telling him i'm now in the same boat would make him feel not so alone in his issues. I know that not everyone has a parent, or parents that are as accepting as seemingly taboo issues such as drug use, so I can't, of course, tell you the type of reaction you should expect from your parents. I'm SURE, however... Your parents will NOT demonize you because of this, The reason is simple... If they are truly loving parents, they will not go about putting you down and lecturing you when they know you, their child, are going through such a hardship. They will most likely attempt to have you seek therapy from a psychiatrist and take medication, which I strongly advise you DO NOT. I basically beat down my HPPD without ANY therapy or ANY medication. On one last note. Do NOT wait to tell your parents. Your parents are the biggest supports you have in your life. Knowing that you are lying to them on a daily basis when they ask how you are will stress your head out beyond belief, ergo, making your HPPD more prominent and potent. Get it off your chest, let them know and you will have a whole new world of support and people to turn to when it (HPPD) really hits you hard. Going it alone is like mental suicide. Best of luck to you.

Will. You are going to have ups, downs and turnarounds with this illness. Just always be strong of heart and mind, never let it get ontop of you. Maintain your healthy lifestyle, your on the right track to loosing this demon. Challenge it, tell it that your in control, just never let the hallucinations get the better of you, and before you know it, youll be living 4, 5 days and you wont even notice one visual. Yeah you will notice now and then but at this point you wont worry AT ALL about them! you'll be completely fine man =)

I never took any mediction for it. If you read my topic in the general topic forum, youll see that I beat it mentally, just through willpower. The only things i still have are object movement and visual snow, which is there ALL the time, but gah, ive learned to live with it. visual snow is a piece of piss compared to what i've been through. Don't worry man, it'll all work out, just stay clean, and before you know it, you wont even notice the visual snow/light sensitivity.

Well it is really nice to see that others have benefited from medical treatment. I can only imagine that anti-depressants would progress the illness in a terrible way due to the nature of the drug itself? Have you had negative experiences with alcohol due to your HPPD or have you just been to scared to indulge because of the fact that you have HPPD? because I can tell you in confidence, that alcohol LESSENS the hallucination, and definatly does no intensify them. Thus is why I said in my second post it is a "Pseudo Cure". If you ever want any help, please, feel free to text me. 1-306-621-6832. Its saturday, im in the army so its government, i have weekends off haha =)

I've ha HPPD for 5 years. Had every symptom you can think of. Never heard of cross-eyed as a symptom however. Perhaps this is a coincedence and it's an actual optometrical incidence an not associated with your HPPD at all. Perhaps make an appointment with your optometrist and have a better look at why your cross-eye may be happening. Best of luck!

Thank-you for your appreciation, It really does warm my heart =) My visuals have subsided to extreme lows. I still notice objects moving around in counter-clockwise cirlces if I stare at them long enough, starbursts are semi-common but nowhere near as intense as they were 5 years ago for myself. Sometimes If I'm stressed out I can see walls start to breath and other light, mushroom-like phenonenon. For the most part, my visuals are so discreet that I barely ever notice them. I go through life like a normal person, the only times i notice the visual snow or other symptoms is when i need to look at pictures or stuff similar to that! Yes, I still drink, more-so than when I was dong drugs. I found that drinking helped my HPPD by stunting the hallucinations, but only for a short while. Alcohol is by no means, a cure for this illness. I just want to tell you, and anyone else who may read this, alcohol is dangerous, DO NOT let it's anti-halucinatory effects be your pseudo cure for HPPD. It will NEVER cure your visuals but it WILL turn you into an alcoholic. The only reason i'm not an alcoholic is because I was addicted to ecstasy when i was 16 for a year and killed the addiction cold turkey, so alcoholism was trivial for me, easy to stave off. To this day, I get drunk every Friday without fail, sometimes Saturday as well. I've heard about all the mediicines out there and seratonin inhibitors that are availiable but I never wanted to try them, because they would have showed up in my blood analysis when i initially joined the army, which would have basically told the docs i had HPPD an would have disqualified my entry. Do meds help at all? I've taken a totally different course, as the story shows, but have no knowledge of medicinal intervention for HPPD. Any success?

Hey Brendan. I've been taking multiple vitamins for years, including Thiamine (Vitamin B1). There have been times when I've stopped taking my vitamins and I honestly can't say it disrupted my HPPD or sleep patterns, but thats just for me, of course, everyone is different. This is just a theory, but perhaps the promise that Thiamine will grant a better sleep produces a placebo effect, and in-turn allows for your better sleeps?

I'm not writing this story for my own personal need to tell it but am rather hoping someone new to HPPD may read it and see that HPPD isnt a mental death sentence and that life can go on, and very successfully for that matter... I woke up with HPPD 5 years ago when I was in my grade 12 year of high school. As I remember it, me and some friends were partying on LSD and just doing as we normally did. When I woke up the morning after, I was still hallucinating as if I was peaking on the acid, but paid no mind to it. I remember thinking... "It's maybe just some real strong acid..." Speaking to my dad that morning, I told him about it and he said back when he used to do LSD he's been high for 48 hours before any type of comedown, so that made me feel better. I went to school, came home, rinse repeat. 1 week later, im still hallucinating at peak level of an acid trip. Now I'm scared. I told my Dad around this time, who of course tried to tell me i was fine, not wanting me to panic. Subtly over the next month he told me about HPPD, and the warning signs of it. Over the next months I diagnosed myself with HPPD and took hold of the horrible situation, I told myself "You are NOT letting this ruin your life, and dont even THINK about suicide."... months past... Now I'm drug free, but I still drink alcohol, standing there on graduation day, on acid basically... went to the grad party all fucked up... god right hammered drunk but turned down all the drugs. To this day, I havent gotten high ONCE. which has immensly helped me cope with the illness we all have. I joined the Canadian Armed Forces 1 week after graduation. I was scared to because of my fucked visuals, but lo-and behold, i passed my psych evaluation with flying colors and was accepted for basic training. The funniest thing happened the night before I flew out to st. jean Quebec for basic training, My visuals just, stopped. Now i still had everything moving around and starbursts and whatnot, but all the morphing and faces in objects had stopped. I didnt know why, and still dont know why they stopped, and at such a convinient time yet... But anyway, over the 5 years I've been in the army, it kept going down and down until the first time i went to Afghanistan. All was well until the first time my squad and I came under attack. After the encounter, the extreme stress of knowing, "Damn, we could have been killed!" hit me, and i started hallucinating like i hadnt for months before... I came to the conclusion then and over the next 12 months of my tour and over many more hostile encounters with enemies that HPPD is strongly effected by extreme stress. On my second tour in Afghanistan I told the psychiatrist about what happened my first tour, and about my HPPD. (and only because me and her became close during our service time, and was sure she wouldnt say anything, to anyone.) She then began to tell me about stories shes heard of schizophrenics challenging their mental condition by taking their stress levels to the extreme, and facing it, then overcoming it. I took this to heart and applied for CSOR (A special operations division of the Canadian Forces) the day after I made it home from my tour. From this point on, all i can say is that I was accepted into CSOR. I can't say how I did it, where I've gone or what I've done. I can say however, that the extreme stress of the crazy training program associated with CSOR pushed my not just my body, but my mind to the limit, pushing my HPPD to the breaking point. At times I felt like I was borderline mental psychosis. After those times, and upon being accepted into their ranks, I've never had LSD-like HPPD visions. They tamed down so much I can go through most days without even noticing them. If I really look for them, I can easily see the visuals, but for the most part, THEY ARE GONE. Challenge the HPPD. Don't let it take control of your life, be stronger and control IT. most importantly... STAY CLEAN. I can't stress that enough, I have not gotten high since the day I took that LSD... As for nowadays, I'm still in the Canadian Forces, still a member of CSOR and will be applying for JTF2 as of January 2013, which will push me to my breaking point x10, hopefully simultaneously pushing the last remnants of HPPD out of my brain. =) Good luck to you all. Just know. YOU. CAN. BEAT. IT!!!

Hi everyone! I'm Dylan, been living with HPPD for 5 years now. It's started to diminish noticably over the last few years, but as we all know, its a sketchy illness that gives us all ups, downs and turnarounds. I just wanted to make an account here because I've been through all its tricks and came out ontop and hope to support people and tell my own story and seek some advice myself. Well, I'll hope yo see you all around! =)