Hello people!

[TPBurrows3005]

Hey guys, my name's Phil and I'm a 20 year old guy from North Wales. Me and my friends started using drugs at the age of 15. We started smoking weed, which inevitably lead to E's, then to speed, then coke and so on. I've always had a rather obsessive personality, so drugs and alcohol became quite messy for me early on in my usage. Me and my friends ended up hammering Mephedrone when it first became popular. If you ask me, I think that drugs got particularly messy when we started taking that shit. Over the course of about 4-5 years, I have done alot of MDMA, Coke, Research Chemicals, I've done Shrooms once, Salvia, Ketamine a few times and so on. My About 10 months ago now, my drinking and drug use had become very problematic, and I was literally losing my mind.

One night, I went to my friends house who was having a party. As always, I turned up with a few bottles of wine to drink, telling myself "I'm not gonna take drugs tonight". After a couple bottles of wine, I soon changed my mind and was desperate get my hands on any kind of drug. I managed to buy a few E's, Gold Leaf's they were called I think. This was not the first time I'd mixed E's with alot of booze, I was getting myself in a right mess taking pills after drinking alot of alcohol, head swaying all over the place, not remembering a single thing etc. On this night, I had the worst bad trip I've ever had (Bar a full blown psychosis I had after a weekend of hammering Mephedrone at The Warehouse Project in Manchester). My heart was beating frantically and I kept on getting awful chest pains. I watched as the people around me started shrinking and morphing into some pixie like things. I remember looking directly at my mate and his eyes were huge and looked cartooney. I sat on the sofa all night thinking to myself "This is it, you've gone mental, there's no going back now". Hours later, I started to feel a bit better and went home. Days later, I had what I've recently discovered, a panic attack. I was by my computer and all of a sudden, my heart started to pound and I literally felt like I was going insane. I started pacing around the room thinking that I had schizophrenia. A couple of weeks later, I noticed I had snow in my vision and when I read a book, words would tend to wobble and move from side to side, making reading rather difficult. I eventually stopped recognising the sound of my own voice and felt like I was walking around in some kind of dream world. My anxiety got completely out of control, I was a nervous wreck from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep. I ended up losing a lot of weight as I wasn't able to eat due to be anxious all the time. I eventually went to the doctor, who was quick to put me on Citalopram. It's been about 10 months since that bad trip in my friends house now. Things have gotten a bit better, very gradually though. I do wonder if I should still be on the Citalopram, as I feel like it hasn't done much to help. I've quit drinking and taking drugs, and have recently started going to the gym often to keep healthy and my mind occupied. I still have the visual snow and depersonalisation/derealisation, and it's one of those things if I don't think about it, I'm okay, If I start thinking about it, the DP/DR hits me and I start becoming very, very anxious. Well I hope you enjoy this post, and if you have any tips, then please let me know!

[Monkey_magic]

Same as my story mate. I started on drugs at 15/16 of the 'recreational variety' and it got to a point where I just lost it at 20 and got hppd and all the stuff you mentioned.I've always been a. It overboard and obsessive about things too, but also very introspective and I stupidly liked the idea of altering your consciousness in a narcotic sense. When your young you think you'll bounce back from anything.

I'm 36 now so all the salvia and methodrone busllshit wasnt around back then but I done weed, acid, shrooms, and speed and Es (I blame the Es for the hppd in general). I was put on Prozac about 8 months into my hppd hellhole and it gave me some of my life back. But since I had a kid and the stress of it all when I was 29 things got bad again but I just sat tight and came through it although the Prozac has never worked as well since and I'm looking for something better. There's people on here that really know your stuff and will help you out more than i can but it seems to me if things are slowly getting better that has to be a positive thing. Slowlys better than not at all eh.

Just keep plugging away mate. You've done the right thing getting off any drugs (as if you had a choice). Healthy livings the new rock n roll.

[cs1234]

Hey man correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like your symptoms are pretty mild an that your getting trough life pretty normally which is great! Anyways HPPD sucks and I think that since your still young living healthy an sober that your symptoms will start dying off soon. Seriously though stay sober, no more pot or booze.

This is a great board for support, but if you don't need support it won't help your case reading about hppd all day. So it's good that you've found your way here but like I said dont go reading about hppd all day. I find my visuals are the most manageable when I'm ignoring them.

[Jay1]

Seems to be more and more of us here from Britain... Not surprising, it's been mental for drugs since the late 80s rave scene.

Anyway, sounds like you are on the right track, sober and exercising, hopefully eating a decent diet too. If the meds aren't doing much, speak to your doctor about coming off them, you might have to taper down slowly.

[mgrade]

Yeah it seems that Britain's got a real drug problem..................the US: it's expected . But it's a shame because sometimes it feels like there are no places to go to avoid exposure. There is always a place where some d-bag teen kid wants to start trouble. .........There are drugs now that will virtually wipe-out your personality as-you-know-it and wipeout your rationale. You will be left the cognitive function of a lamprey eel.....lol