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Hello, college kid, insight/advice appreciated


heregoesnothing

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Hey everyone,

I've never posted on something like this before so I thought I'd try it.

I want to tell you a little background information before I ask my main questions of concern.

I am a college student, who tried mushrooms one time exactly a month ago to this day. I also had tried MDMA for the first time 3 days earlier. Nothing had transpired from the use of the MDMA that I was aware just felt like shit the next day. Something that I had wanted to try and after my experience felt that I was done with it. I had always wanted to do mushrooms one time in my life since I was in High School, and the oppurtunity kind of just fell into my lap. So I thought that I would give it a whirl.

A couple friends had gotten the shrooms and one of them offered them to me so I said sure. I ate about 1.5 grams. After about an hour I felt the effects and we went outside and sat in the bed of the truck. Everything was fine until one of them asked me to smoke some weed with them. We smoked about 4 or 5 bags of a vaporizer. Things got kind of weird after that but I eventually settled down and we just chilled the rest of the time enjoying it. We decided to go to bed and I couldnt sleep so I started panicing thinking I had really screwed up. I did that for about an hour and researched a bunch of stuff where I found hppd at. The next day everything was fine and so I wasnt worried about anything. About a week later I went to the bar with my roomates and had a few drinks. I was drunk, but not beligerent. On the way home I started to notice things and my anxiety shot through the roof, but I attributed it to the fact that I was quitting chewing tobacco. The next day I started to notice visual snow and floaters more, and the anxiety continued and eventually I had slight dp/dr. The symptoms continued pretty badly for about 4 days. Then they died down. The only problem is now I still have mild visual snow. It doesnt usually affect me during the day unless I stare at a wall, but in the dark or in dim light it is pretty bad. The visual snow is the only real symptom I have. Very slight after images only when I look directly into a light.

Like I said it has been a month since I did them and almost a month now since even drinking or any other substance has been put into my body. So I was just wondering what you guys thought? or if you had any advice for me?

My questions are..

1. Do I actually have a very mild case of Hppd or is am I just obsessing on it and freaking myself out?

2. If I do have this mild case of Hppd, is there hope that it will go away since its very mild?

3. Is there anything I can do to help myself besides abstaining from substances?

4. If it is here to stay, (which I have accepted the possibility of) if I drank with my friends would it make it permanately worse?

For those of you who have taken the time to read this and answer I can not thank you enough.

Sincerely,

heregoesnothing

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welcome to the forum

1) seeing VS 24/7 isnt normal in my opinion but maybe iam wrong.

2) there is allways hope you havent it for a long time so your chances of recovery are good.

3)live healthy, exercise alot, dont obsess to much about your symptoms and stay away of drugs.

4) noone can say for sure try to avoid drinkin to the booze. a few beers should be ok.

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I don't think you have much to worry about. You only tripped once, and it was only 1.5 grams......I'm not trying to knock you or anything all I'm saying is I think worrying at this point would be the worst thing you could do for yourself. Just abstain from substances for a while and after you've read the responses to this thread don't look up anything else about HPPD. Anyone on here will tell you that worrying about it makes your issues WAAAAY worse than they are when you're just chillin and doin your thing. So, you probably do have very mild HPPD but if you stop worrying about it and just accept that it's there for the time being then I'm sure you'll be fine.

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Yeah I am definitely counting my blessings. At first it seemed like it would be much worse with the dp/dr, but since that has subsided everything has been much better. From time to time when I am tired or not busy during the day I will feel very blah or dull and think that I am not as happy as I used to be, but tht probably has something to do with not being in school and with my friends all the time since I am living at home again for the summer. but as the weeks have gone on the only thing that remains truly is the visual snow at night or in dim lighting. sometimes during the day in glare it feels like there is a film over the walls. but my friends all seem to see it to a certain degree so I think I am just obsessing over it. The only other thing is immediately after I tripped would have dreams that I was tripping which would freak me out. Since then I have just had very vivid dreams and easily being able to remember them in the morning. I am thankful that I got lucky and haven't gotten it bad. Hopefully after 3-5 more months of abstinence I will be able to go out with my friends at school like normal. This has really been a horrible thing even to my small degree of having it, but I think it may have come as a blessing in disguise telling me that I need to clean up my act. I wish everyone on here the best of luck continuing forward and for those who have it bad hopefully new research is done and we can find out what's really going on. Thanks for the advice you guys. It has really helped.

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I have a simmilar story to you, I also got HPPD from one shroom trip (I foolishly took almost 4 grams) and had dreams like that. I thinkmy symptoms were more extreme but my case was much milder than most people on here in that My symptoms were only real bad 24/7 for about two weeks and then they started to settle. I have had HPPD for almost 5 months and am at about the same point as you (usually my only symptom left is visual snow in the dark). You should be very pleased that you have recovered this much in a month.

1. I think you do have HPPD.

2. It may go away mine was more severe but has diminished greatly in the past few months and could be easily lived with at this point without really bothering me as long as I could still drink without making it worse.

3. Eat well, Exercise, distract yourself, try valerian root if you need help sleeping. Unfourtunatley you should Stay sober for the rest of your life for the best chance of a full lasting recovery but at least stay sober as long as you can and I wouldn't touch anything besides alcohol and even that is risky.

4. Some people say acohol has permanently worsened their symptoms. I drank twice (not very much either time) after my HPPD seemed to die down, the first time was great with no ill-effects but the second time increased my visuals and anxiety for about a week. I'm not going to drink again atleast till august and will never drink heavilly or more than twice a month again unless I feel that I am 100% over HPPD and I will still be carefull.

Don't worry if new symptoms appear, there is a good chance that they will but they will be gone soon after and even soner if you can avoid worrying about them. Give it time and you will see steady improvement.

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Its a weird thing. It just depends, drinking and smoking may or may not make it worse. Last night for example I had a few beers, and even smoked a little weed. I'm fine, marijuana was very enjoyable, it was like I didnt have hppd. It was a very calm, and relaxing high, reminiscent of long before any problems started. It was a friends surprise party, and I allowed myself to do it, fully aware of the consequences. I of course, will probably not do this again any time soon. But ultimately, I guess you just have to ask yourself if its worth it. . . And it may or may not end up biting you on the ass. This time, I didnt over do it. Took a few hits of the bowl, drank a few beers, and I was golden. Next time, like the time before last, I might not be so lucky. So, if you are going to do anything, my advice to you would be to very do little, very rarely.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tbh you probably shouldn't touh pot possibly ever again. If a couple of drinks onset mild hppd (caused by the shrooms but still) think of what some weed will do. Anyways I think it'll be fine to drink very small amounts after a couple of months have passed an the snow fades away, but I'd never over do it. You'd be surprised how far savoring the effects of one drink can go.

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Hi, it can get better in my experience.

1. You'd likely know the difference. What I'd call 'true hppd' is more noticable than mild hppd. I had mild once. 'Mild' in the sense that I had to more or less consciously look for visuals; 'True' in the sense that the visuals are smack dab on the front of my perception, hard to not notice.

2.Definitely. It takes a lot a patience though. One month is likely not enough time for the body to heal. It can take many months to see any significant improvement in my experience. Course, that will depend on your situation.

3Try to stay busy.

4. Not in my experience. However, hppd became the least of my worries many times after excessive alcohol use (to be replaced with alcohol-related problems). So I don't recommend it.

Hope that helps, later.

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well I feel like it gets better everyday. slowly but surely. During the day I barely notice the snow anymore. even on the blue sky. I still notice it alot on a grey sky or at night. in a dark room it's still bad, and in total darkness my eyes don't really adjust at all. I can have a couple beers without it affecting me, but I do it very rearely. how long did it take for the snow to fade away and for recovery? I'm willing to be very very patient

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I've had it for 5 and 1/2 months and I am 99.9% recovered (If I look for snow in the dark I can see it and a week ago I had CEVs+ a hypnagogic hallucination but other than that I'm normal). Never do any drugs besides alcohol again and the longer you can go without that the better, not many people on here fully recover we are very lucky that we caught it early, don't fuck it up by smoking weed or doing anything else stupid.

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hey guys,

sorry to bump this again. I just wanted to thank all of you for taking your time to help me out in my time of need. all of your responses really helped me out even if in the slightest way. I'm also gonna tell you what helped me heal, and what I think causes hppd.

It has been about 2 months since the onset of my very mild hppd. in that time I have recovered greatly mentally and a decent amount physically. as for my anxiety it is completely gone. as for my physical symptoms, during the day I do not notice anything except the snow if I look for it. at night or when I close my eyes I do see pretty thick snow, but this does not hinder my ability to be a productful human being so I don't even care about it.

I just wanted to thank you and say goodbye until I've reached a 100% recovery so I can come back and post a recovery story that will give people hope.

my plan is to basically ignore and "forget" that I have hppd. I'm going to act like I actually never even got hppd. I have found that when i forget that I have it I do not see anything and all is normal. I know this is easier said than done, but I'm very mentally strong and know that I can do it.

I want to take some time to tell people who are interested in reading this what I did to this point to make hppd go away. on a daily basis I wake up at around 8. I watch tv for a half hour and then meditate for about 10-15 minutes. I have a protein drink and half cup of orange juice for breakfast. I also take at this point a multi vitamin, vitamin d, magnesium, and fish oil. vitamin d is good for sight, multi vitamin is good for everything and the other two are good for the brain. after this I workout Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday, for about an hour and a half and then afterwards I jog for anywhere from 10-20 minutes at my own pace. I also run on Wednesday's and Saturday's and usually Sundays. I come home, I have another protein drink, (I'm training pretty hard to make my college baseball team, plus the protein has a lot of amino acids which are good for the brain) I eat a cup of blueberries, (extraordinary for the brain with antioxidants plus it helps nurture new forming neurons) and then a deli sandwich or an egg white omelet. after I eat I go shower and relax so that I can meditate again. After I'm done meditating I do my calculus homework. (the only reason I'm including this is because I'm saying you need to work your brain. do puzzles or something!) after that my routine is finished but,I do eat healthy every night for dinner as well. I eat a lot of boneless skinless chicken breasts. I do a lot of reading, I'm a huge Harry potter fan and I'm reading the hunger games now so I really do love reading, plus it's good for the brain as well.I also like to do a lot of research about the brain and reading scholarly articles about it. I play very little Xbox anymore. I find that I'd rather be productive or shoot hoops and stay active. I have also been getting back into my religion(ima catholic) been born and raised through private catholic schooling. I'm not a religion freak, but I have found great comfort in this in the fact that I believe it gives me something bigger and better to live for, gives me a purpose which in turn makes me realize how small of a deal this disorder is for me truly. that along with the shootings in Colorado at the batman premiere and a friend dying recently, have helped me put this disorder in perspective.

I think that this disorder has something to do with some damage to the neurotransmitters or GABA receptors in your brain, as well as some damage with the visual sensory neurons in what they pick up and filter out according to what the brain tells them to. it also comes with the natural change in perception you get from taking a hallucinogen. that paired with obsessional thinking and small case of hypochondria(not saying that this disorder doesn't exist, I'm saying this disorder makes you question everything and start thinking that other things are wrong with you), only because I know once I thought something was wrong with me I began to question every little thing I ever saw and whether it was normal. it wasn't until I stopped that I saw results in getting better. I have abstained from all drugs except a beer or jack and coke with my dad once every two weeks or so. I want to do the best I am able to at healing my brain. anyone who is interested in making their brain as strong as it can and healing it should google things about improving brain function and read the seven easy tips about it and about brain food. they really do work.

also if you do not want to take any prescription medication for your anxiety and what not, my dr. recomeneded one 25mg tablet of benadryl. it really did work and I only took it for about 2 weeks in emergencys.

Thank you all so much for responding to my original post, it helped me and gave me a lot of confidence that this disorder could be handled.

goodbye, and I hope I will be returning soon to share my 100% recovery.

best of luck to you all!

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  • 1 month later...

just an update. I have been feeling pretty much back to normal for a month or so now. I'm back at school, and I have been too busy to pay attention to the hppd that is left. the first week I noticed myself feeling a little bit spacey, but that is probably because I was tired and a little bit stressed. I've drank once on each weekend. I haven't gotten hammered but I was defintely buzzed. no consequences. the only time I notice the hppd is at night with visual snow in dimly lit or dark rooms and a little bit of starbursting. If I start looking for hppd visuals or feelings I can see or feel them sometimes but that is all.

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