shroomanxiety

9 hours ago, K.B.Fante said:

I mean many people don't see huge fluctuations in their symptoms based on their level of stress or anxiety or whatever other mental instability they may be facing. Symptoms are bound to fluctuate a bit throughout the day based on body chemistry and mood, but no amount of ignoring symptoms or relaxation or even severe anxiety has even done much to change my symptoms on the whole. 

 

Good luck, but I don't know that it's wise to assume you can understand the pain, suffering and physiological impairment of others based on stories you've heard here and there. I'm curious if you apply this same sort of logic to other scenarios in life, telling people their subjective experiences, feelings and bodily sensations actually don't exist and that it's just all in their mind. I don't think this is a particularly helpful way of interacting with people who are suffering, nor is it grounded in fact. Quite frankly, it's fairly egotistical to assume your condition or pain is equal to others when in fact they could be experiencing a level of suffering you didn't even know possible. My visual impairment that resulted from ingesting acid doesn't change because I want it to or because I just think a certain way. I guess maybe I'll just try to think like a millionaire from here on out and one day I'll way up next to a sack full of 100 dollar bills then? Is that how it works? 

I don't mean to be an asshole but you can only handle so many people telling you it's "all in your mind" before you have to be blunt. If you could spend a day in my shoes you'd understand this isn't something I'm imagining because I'm bored with life and want to see magic fairy dust every time I look into the sky. If you believe you can just think yourself out of neuronal cell damage then have at it, but please refrain from insisting this is some sort of cure until science can verify this as an actual method of treating illness. 

You are clearly completely misunderstanding my point with this whole post and what I'm saying. I'm not saying "it's all in your head", and never insisted that this is a cure. I'm quite flabbergasted by the fact that you even managed to conclude this from reading what I wrote (if you even did). In any case, you seem to be a very angry individual and I'll leave you at that.

6 hours ago, K.B.Fante said:

I'm not huge on the "It's all in your head" theories. My HPPD, and many others' here, is not related to anxiety in the sense I can control it. My HPPD symptoms are pretty much the exact same 24-7, 365. Theoretically, maybe the brain is sending some sort of signal it shouldn't, but it sounds like it's much more likely the brain is not filtering out excess signals instead -- at least that's what a lot of the leading doctors are suggesting. 

Imagine you were having physical, real pain in your back 24/7, 365. So much you couldn't even walk for too long at a time. I bet you would be reluctant to believe it then as well, but there are so many cases where pain like this was caused by anxiety and stress. And furthermore, they were able to become free from symptoms.

I agree that it COULD be that the drugs have somehow hindered the brains way to filter out noise. But, I don't think it is much more likely to be that than this. We really don't know. I am going to give this a shot and see if it helps me with my symptoms.

Hi all,

I have been reading about HPPD for some time now after having some difficult after effects following psychedelic drug use. What most people in this community would probably agree on is that we are dealing with a problem in our brain. Most of you that have checked your eyes at the doctor have discovered that you have perfectly healthy eyes, even though there are obvious issues with your vision. Our brains are creating these visual effects, even though we are completely sober! At this point, we don't know much more of what's going on however. Why is this happening? We know that LSD for example is not even toxic, yet it can still leave us with symptoms lasting for years! Maybe there is another explanation?

During the time when I have suffered from HPPD, my girlfriend has also been a victim. However, she does not suffer from HPPD but with chronic back pain following back surgery (lumbar puncture). This made me read a lot about chronic pain and I stumbled upon a condition called Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS). Basically, there was this one doctor (he died very recently) called Dr. Sarno that came forward with a completely new approach to dealing with pain. According to him, most people suffering from chronic pain don't have anything wrong with them physically. Their brains are just sending pain signals in order to distract them from their negative emotions. He wrote a book about this, and he held lectures to teach this idea to pain sufferers which he continued to do until he died of old age. Apparently just educating yourself about this idea could cure you from your pain!

I started digging deep into this. I was very skeptical that people with severe chronic pain could become pain-free after just reading a book and attending lectures. It just seemed too good to be true. However, everywhere I looked I just continued to read people's success stories and how they overcome their symptoms by following this method. There is so much praise for this guy it's insane. I couldn't ignore all the positive things people were saying, and I started thinking that maybe this doc was up to something.

Then, I started drawing a connection between TMS and HPPD. Maybe, HPPD is just a form of TMS? There is a clear difference with what we are dealing with though, in that it is not pain signals but visual signals. But, I still think it could be the same condition. If this is the case, then...

1. There is nothing physically wrong with us. 
2. The symptoms we have are entirely stress related. 
3. We can get rid of our symptoms by learning about the true cause of them and by focusing on our mental health.

Many people here report getting HPPD after one or several bad tripping experiences. These experiences can be traumatic and very taxing for our psyche. I believe that the psychological trauma could be the cause of the HPPD symptoms, instead of the actual drug itself. This is an important distinction to make, and radically changes how you would approach the healing process. Basically, our brains are dealing with the trauma by distracting us with these visuals artifacts. 

This is just an idea I had, and I felt I wanted to share it here and see your thoughts. 

For more about TMS:
TMS Forum - http://www.tmswiki.org/forum/
Dr. Sarno interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzOBa-t6Vcw

EDIT: double post

On 8/4/2017 at 9:30 PM, Cjb007 said:

Do you see breathing walls do you have dpdr and do you see trails

I don't see breathing walls, nor trails. I have had some bad DP/DR but it's gotten much better. I started seeing double vision recently as well, which is freaking me out a bit. I don't see double where I'm focusing but the background is always doubled. Like, when I hold my finger in front of me and focus on my finger, everything else but the finger is doubled. I'm not sure if this is an HPPD thing, but I'm suspecting it since the brain should combine the images.

 

On 8/5/2017 at 11:51 PM, TheMythos said:

That's your answer right there.

I started seeing floaters after getting off of Paxil last year. I spent weeks obsessing over them and having anxiety about them.

Now I don't even care. I still have them but I notice them about 90% less.

I'm of the opinion of 2 things about hppd: it's a mild cerebral injury and it's psychological.

People without hppd see the same shit we do except they filter it out and don't notice it. We notice it and obsess on it and the anxiety produced from that becomes a feedback loop and continues the cycle. It's a problem of too much inner focus. The remedy is to focus outward.

In other words, you have to retrain your brain to ignore this shit and over time you won't notice it anymore and it won't be a problem.

This is how you recover from hppd.

 

I've been actually thinking a lot about this lately, that the anxiety might be causing the issues in the first place and that most of it might be psychological and a result of obsessing over it. I find it very hard to stop though. The bad trips I had from drugs made me very bad at coping with anxiety in general. I really hope the remedy is what you say it is, though. 

Yes my HPPD can be considered mild, taking into account how bad it can get for a lot of people. Everything is relative however, and my symptoms are causing a lot of anxiety for me and I just want some hope that it can go away. 

My HPPD is mainly eye floaters, black dots that move in my vision. I have had them for about a year, and they became permanent after a bad trip. I've read about some visual symptoms becoming better over time, but not specifically eye floaters. I really just want to know if it is possible that they will go away? I'm staying completely sober and healthy.

Hi all,

First I'd like to say I'm glad I found this forum. It's awesome that so many people can come together to discuss this issue, since not a lot of people know about its existence. Reading your stories has really helped with my anxiety.

I started smoking weed about a year ago, eating space cake or smoking joints maybe once a month or so. I was never a heavy user, just did it on occasion and didn't get overly high except for a few times with the space cakes. I started noticing floaters in my vision all of a sudden, but didn't think too much of it and was sure it would go away. I didn't notice them that much anyway so it did not bother me. I then tried LSD, only about 65ug, and had a very good trip. This was the first time I experienced hallucinations. I still felt normal at this point.

Then, one day I decided to try some mushrooms. I only took about 1.5-2g of dried Golden Teachers, and my trip was very good overall. I was just sitting and thinking by myself while having some mild hallucinations. On the come-down, I got greedy and wanted more so I started smoking weed to extend the trip. Big mistake. I must have smoked way too much because my trip started to go down to nightmare town after that. I won't go into details here, but I just felt like I was going absolutely insane and I had no control over my thoughts. The anxiety really hit hard and I felt like I was going to be like that forever, stuck in a time loop. I get a little anxious just thinking about it still.

After the bad trip, I continued to have strong anxiety for about 2 weeks. It was really bad and I got scared. I have lived a very good life with little worries in the past, so this was unusual to me. It eventually subsided though, and I felt OK again. However, the floaters got really bad. They were now permanent and I could almost always see them, which was very annoying. I got my eyes checked and nothing was wrong with them, and the doctor couldn't explain the floaters. At this point I started to suspect that they were caused by the drugs, and I started reading about HPPD.

Now, it has been a few months since that mushroom trip. Apart from the floaters, I have some DP/DR symptoms. Sometimes I feel like an alien among people, and I'm constantly questioning the reality that I'm observing. It goes up and down, but most of the time I don't feel quite normal. I'm always scared that I'm going to end up with schizophrenia or dementia or some shit like that. These thoughts just adds to the anxiety even more. I just miss feeling "clear headed", instead of constantly living with major brain fog. 

Reading about some of the success stories gave me hope to get better though, and I'm trying to get normal again. I've always valued my health so eating well and being active will be easy for me, thankfully. Some of you have way worse symptoms than me, and I can't even imagine what you're going through. I sincerely hope you all recover from this shit.

Oh and I forgot to mention, I haven't taken any drugs since that bad trip. I'm definitely planning to stay sober. These bad trips really make you appreciate it.