Everything changed in my life around december 2010. I had a severe panic attack in math class while telling my friends about my 'blackout' moment when I first tried weed and blacked out. Now after doing some research I do not know if it was regular marijuana or synthetic marijuana but please continue reading. I started getting sweaty, dizzy, numb, and felt unreal while retelling the story. I now know that I was experiencing symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from the ordeal I faced, or so I thought or I was told.
I was never a big drug user, no lsd, no mushrooms, etc. But I have had sprouts of anxiety my whole life. Anyways, days after, I started to develop 'anxiety' and 'panic disorder'. I then started getting 'tinnitus' ( constant ringing in ears), 'Blue field entoptic phenomenon' ( Like seeing tiny white bright dots quickly along squiggly lines in the visual field ) 'snow vision' ( snow or television-like static in parts or the whole of their visual fields, especially against dark backgrounds), and some halos during the night time. My vision got so much more blurrier that I ended up having to get glasses. All this stuff made my anxiety worse because I didn't know what it was so I was up for many nights because of 'insomnia' for about 3 months. I know I could have died because I stopped eating all together. I literally had no appetite. No sleep and eating made me develop ' derealization' so everything became so unreal to me and I wanted to commit suicide so badly to stop the numbness I felt. Everything changed and looked so unreal. I thought people weren't real just things. I began to have severe 'paranoia' and non stop obsessive worrying thoughts that made me feel crazy.
I was scared and alone. My mother didn't help me too much because she would threaten to put me in a mental hospital. All she did was stay in my bed with me at night to help me feel better but I felt so alone the whole time. I feel like I went through hell on earth. It was the worst feeling I had ever experienced. I didn't leave my house for months as well because I developed 'agoraphobia' so I was scared to be outside and it made me panic a lot. Anyways... Time has past and I've been through a lot of good and bad things since then. I eat better now, I take omega 3 supplements and vitamins for my health, I stay positive, I've researched and learned a lot about what I went through and I'm able to go out more ( even though sometimes I feel like I'll pass out out of fear, I still force myself to be strong).... I've researched so much that I've come to this website and decided to tell my story to see what yall think. I discredited HPPD because I didn't believe I had all the full blown visual distortions.
I mean the number one thing that bothers me still until this day is derealization and its been a long time. Maybe its my anxiety feeding more into it but I feel as though colors are different shade and sometimes my auditory perception feels like I'm high, like everything is amplified. I still have the BFEP and I still have the Halo's. Every once and a while I will get image burn that lasts for 1-2 seconds but that maybe is just my anxiety?? I'm happy I could share my story with you guys. Hopefully you can give me some feedback on what it was I went through and how to deal with anxiety and fear. I just want to live peacefully..
Thank You and Much Love,
Melissa