I've only tripped on acid 3 times but I smoked weed constantly for 2.5 years. My first trip I took way too much (600ug) and had the worst experiences of my life alone in my room. This should have dissuaded me from further trips but apparently I don't learn until it's too late. 2 weeks later I had a much smaller dose and for the most part I enjoyed the trip. The last time I did it was 6 weeks later (about 12 days ago) with an even smaller dose and I felt fine after coming down. But after about a week I was hitting tokes and looked up to notice the uncanny effects of an acid trip. No visual snow, I never got that while tripping anyway, but my depth perception was off - straight lines didn't look completely straight - and my world was spinning slightly. There weren't any enhanced colours or anything else, no fractals, no auras, but I convinced myself it felt like acid. This freaked me out more than I can ever put into words as I had sworn never to do acid again after my last trip as I felt sure it wasn't for me and the experience of tripping really scared the living hell out of me. The only thing was, the night before I had read about auras caused by hppd and had extreme anxiety because I had developed an astigmatism in my right eye and I thought it was due to acid. Until I realized I had texted my mom about my vision problems a week before ever dropping. I was sobbing inconsolabley on the floor until I realized this. I'm a bit of a hypochondriac so I wasn't sure if the initial effects of weed had caused a full on anxiety attack when my vision naturally distorted slightly as a result of being super high and my extreme anxiety the night before. The next day at work I felt dizzy and my vision still felt off, despite my being completely sober. On my break I hit some tokes to try to calm down but they did not help as I still felt off. In fact, for the first time in years, weed made my anxiety worse. This made me almost puke - I was shaking and could barely function I was so scared of developing hppd. My anxiety didn't subside the entire day and night and I remained hypervigilant to any visual disturbance. I couldn't fall asleep because I kept staring at my wall, focusing intently, and I would notice it would move slightly if I stared for long enough. I then googled it and apparently this occurs for everyone - my friend (whose only psychadelic experience is a couple months of weed) also confirmed the wall bubbled when she stared at it for long enough. My depth perception was also still off - or so I was telling myself. I ended up falling asleep talking to my friend on the phone as I could not calm myself down. I didn't eat more than a couple bites of anything for days because my anxiety made anything I ate feel like it would come up a second later. The next day I worked 8 hours through near-constant panic and had to I sleep at my friend's house as a result. That was also the night I quit all drugs (minus caffeine), alcohol, and even cigarettes. I didn't think it was possible for me to do this but my fear of hppd seemed to overpower every addiction I've ever had. I'm willing to do anything to ensure I don't develop it. It's been 4 days since I quit, but I've felt sick and dizzy since then. I still sometimes feel like I'm tripping while completely sober but it's normally momentary - like the angle of my phone will seem weird or text won't seem quite right - but I have no way of distinguishing between what is normal and what isn't. I don't know whether I have a stomach bug (I have diarrhea, am extremely woozy, and my head feels cloudy), whether I'm still going through some sort of withdrawal, or whether I have a mild form of hppd and I am in a state of denial. My questions are:
1. For those of you with HPPD, is it obvious that you have it? Or do you have long periods where you could believe you were 100% clear?
2. Has anyone ever been in my hypochondriac position of believing every visual abnormality they've ever had is a result of an acid trip? Or am I just in denial?
3. If I stay sober, will it go away? What if it was never here in the first place and I spend the rest of my life freaking out over visual disturbances I've always had?
4. Do you ever experience dizziness/wooziness? My head feels like it's spinning like it would if I didn't eat for days (which I haven't, really) so I want to confirm that this isn't an hppd symptom.
I'm really just looking for someone to calm me down. I don't have any friends who have experienced this so I need to look elsewhere for assurances. I'm a 20 year old male and I've never experienced anything close to the anxiety brought about by my continual self-diagonsis and denial 5 minutes later. I had to leave work for a couple hours to go throw up. The fact that I may also be sick from something doesn't help my extreme hypochondria. More than anything, I just want to know whether I have it or not. My constant self doubt and recurring panic are extremely hard to handle.
Thank you in advance.
