ferrari0101

Hey Hope your doing better nowadays. Only thing I can suggest if you haven't looked into it is to try and take care of the anxiety if you can. If you haven't go see a therapist and try some different therapies from CBT to EMDR. Also try meditating as follow members here have done so and had some success. As far as my opinion, I guess it maybe hppd but it also might just be a severe stress reaction. So if I had to choose between HPPD or not I'd say No. I came here asking the same thing pretty much and they all said it was mild hppd/or they didn't know. Well my derealization certainly doesn't feel mild.. it actually sucks. Just keep your head up you can adapt.

Do you see halo's only at night time or in dim lit area's?? Do you see your halos around peoples heads or bodys or around objects?? When looking at halos at street lights, are they larger then their traffic light or smaller?? Just wanted to get people's takes on how they see halos... I never really saw them but I kept looking and looking for them and low and behold now I see rainbow halos (sometimes around street lamps) however when I move closer to them they go away and I can no longer see them?? Is that how halos are for people in general??

After doing a lot of research on HPPD and induced anxiety disorders I have come up with a question and I would like to pick everyone's brain. 1)Did your HPPD visuals occur and then you experienced anxiety from the visuals or down the line? OR 2)Did you have lasting anxiety and then visuals appear 2-5 weeks down the line? The reason I am asking this is because I think scenario one is truly HPPD while scenario 2 may have some induced-anxiety-ptsd- disorder that fuels the visuals. I mean of course no doubt full HPPD can cause a whole host and array of symptoms but what about people that do not have it full blown who only have may have 1-2 visual anomalies. Reason I am asking is because I asked 30-40 people about my condition and what they thought and 20% told me I had hppd the other 80% said it was linked to anxiety. So I researched anxiety and sure enough a lot of visual symptoms do occur there as well. I understand HPPD when you wake up and you see tracers and visuals and it gives you anxiety etc but what about if you just had an onset of panic and then 1-2 months later started to have more grainy vision. I do NOT mean to be disrespectful to anyone but I was wondering about peoples ONSET to this disorder but would love to get our opinion.

Totally agree with the derealization bit being a reaction. The more I talk about it the more I seem to better handle it and it seems my derealization is going down. Getting to the root of the source and working it out is key.

Yes I have tried medications before -- took klonopin for a month but didn't do much for my anxiety. Tried lexapro for about 1.5 years and it did a good enough job, but the visuals where still there yet I simply did not care about em. I have a feeling a maybe that it's a combination of both (mild hppd + anxiety) or just hypersensitivity. I mean the only time I get after burn is when I really stare at something and move my head away, and even then it only lasts for a few seconds. 2ndly the only time I see trails is when cars (headlights) are moving by at night on the freeway. If cars just slowly move by me at night I really don't see it at all. I don't see trails on just lights, but If I move my cell phone at night I see a streak of light from the screen that follows it, (which maybe normal but anxiety makes me think more about it). As for the streaks (few), (halos around streetlights), bfep, It may just be extreme sensitivty and a thin retina + migraine. My girlfriend and a few of my friends say they see halos around street lights at night and I wear glasses and so do they, they just never gave it much thought. I did have anxiety as a young child (separation and such and had my first panic attack when i was around 6-7 years old) The only thing that bothers me are these 1000X silver nats in my vision that show up from anything from my computer monitor to the sky, to the tv, to a white wall. I don't see anything morphing into anything,or sliding or anything of that sort. Sometimes I have like balls of colors come into my vision but that is probalby normal too. The thing I don't understand is it all came on about 8-9 months after the last time I smoked herb, from having anxiety about an exam and studying (low does of aderall) and I just got a panic attack after psyching myself out and thinking about the bad experience to much, after that I had constant anxiety and these visual symptoms came on... All I know is I've been told it's Mild-hppd,PTSD,panic disorder,anxiety etc. etc. The one thing that WE all need to work on is these visuals CAN'T/WILL not hurt you. Why fear them. Work on your anxiety and it will all work itself out. That is what I am in the process of doing. Peace.

So you feel like you've been tripping for 19 years?? Like that panicy feeling?? Or does that come and go at will.

Did your symptoms dissipate over time.. The reason I think mine is anxiety is because it's staying pretty much constant.

No and thank you for the input. Yea I haven't done any drugs in about 3 years and it's roughly stayed the same, so its either that or some sort of high state anxiety. I've talked tos ome people where this went away with zoloft etc, but mine kind of stayed the same. I'm glad you can be productive and functional and I am working on that.

I just wanted to get a couple of more experienced members take on what has happened to me over the past years. Just to clarify: Drugs That I have Done: Aderall -- Would Use it to Study and Sometimes when I used to go out. Once or twice every month Weed-- Probalby once every 2 weeks From age 18-20 Alcohol- Would drink a lot and mix with weed 1/2 pill of ecstasy-- Didn't really feel much Smoked Synthetic Weed-- 2/3 Times and My buddy had a trip on it and I had lasting anxiety from it for about a week but that was it. NO LSD, NO MUSHROOMS, etc What Happened: After My buddies bad synthetic weed drug trip, (even though I didn't have a bad trip, just anxiety/panic), I would get extremely anxious when hung over and couldn't smoke weed anymore. Age 20 -- Then after about 9 months, I took aderall to study and BAM I had this wicked panic attack after psyching myself out about permanent psychosis of marijuana, synthetic weed permanent effects because I was thinking about my buddies bad drug trip and something bad might have happened to me. My symptoms: (for the past 3 years) I see squiggly moving shooting stars in my vision and this is very hard to ignore. I see it in the sky mainly and on ALL light colored walls. There just these silver shooting things moving around. I have some static vision at night time, but it's not that bothersome unless I psyche myself out Halo's around street lights at night time, and around headlights of cars sometimes. Slight trails and slight afterburn on images. Worst System: DEREALIZATION-- where I feel like im slightly stoned. I think when I wear my glasses it freaks me out too much. Seeing things to sharp. I've had this for the past 3 years so what do you guys think it is. HPPD?? Anxiety?? PTSD?? Any thoughts would be appreciated Just a heads up note, I went to psychiatrist and he said it maybe anxiety but doesn't think it's HPPD after looking at my past drug use...

By the way im Ferrari0909 just my account got deleted so I made a new one To compare my experience to yours: I smoked and had a bad trip on some ganja and after that couldn't smoke weed anymore without having panic attacks. Then about 9 months after this happened I also randomly had a huge panic attack as I was studying for finals. About a month after this I started to develop everything I've written above. I still have all those symptoms to the same extent. I've seen a few psychiatrists/psychologists and asked them if I had HPPD and all of them said "no I think you have anxiety". So I saw a neurologist, who said I was normal, eye doctorS (plural cause I saw 4) and all of them said my eyes look completely healthy. As for bfep (silver nats in my vision) I have to say its the most annoying symptom but I have to remind you that I recently just got a gf, and she has never done any drugs and she sees this in her vision all the time. Also, her friend who has never done any drugs, sees halo's at night around lights, people etc and she says she developed this after needed to go get eye glasses. I also have to wear glasses (-1.50, -1.25) so maybe this has to play a factor in it, they say if you are near-sighted you end with one or more of these annoying symptoms. How long did I go through all of your symtoms? I still have all the vision symptoms but they don't seem to bother me as much once I know their anxiety. I believe a therapist would help you as it is helping me. And I understand you don't want it to be put out there without people knowing, but if it bothers you that much just casually bring it up. Like I tell them I see it SOMETIMES not all the time, but I do get the occasional wierd look and people thinking I'm crazy. Let me know how your doing.