Questions on Hppd + My Story

[conker44]

Hey guys! Like a lot of people on here ive been a lurker of the forums for quite a few months now, reading peoples stories and all.

 

Let me make this as short as possible because i would really like for someone to read this and give me some sort of advice.

 

 

I'll begin with my story real quick, I tripped 4 times in 4 weeks, once a week! and at the time I did this i was fairly new to psychedelics and had only tripped once prior to these binge trips. I enjoyed every trip I had besides the second one (was kinda a bad trip, the second time i ever tripped) but the rest were fun, the 4th one I took the most shrooms out of the rest, i got really fucking high. It was enjoyable none the less, but the subsequent months (the past year now) were weird, i felt out of place after, im pretty sure i was depersonalized and i was sad, depressed, i felt guilty of the drugs i did and that i fucked myself up. Months after the trip i found out about the demon HPPD, haha i say demon because it really is a crazy thing, it kind of drains you of everything and every substance/aspect of life. Ive lived with it the past year now, what i noticed my visual symptoms didnt start until January of 2015 and my last trip was in July, I have two black dots sort of like a semi colon in my left eye (floats around my eyeball pretty annoying), floaters, in certain sunlight my vision looks like it did when I was tripping (I really notice it when im looking at grass, in one of my trips the grass started breathing so i already noticed the connection there.) I also noticed i have snake floaters when i look at the sky, along with normal floaters and other bubble floaters that remind me of when i tripped. I have some visual static, that doesnt really bug me because i honestly dont notice it alot, i think i had it slightly already before i ever even tripped. I have brain fog, so talking to people is hard sometimes cause i almost never understand which makes me feel really dumb. I stopped smoking pot 2 months ago now, and ive only drank once since my weed sobriety, honestly alcohol doesnt really effect my hppd that ive seen, but i still am remaining fairly abstinent from it. Ive been sober from weed once for 3 months earlier this year, and i never really noticed any improvements, but from this sobriety period I noticed that my memories becoming a little bit better than what it was, floaters are starting to bug me a little less, my vision still looks like im tripping in sunlight. Other than these symptoms i havent noticed anything else besides i guess depersonationalization which to my knowledge is getting slightly better.

 

So thats my story so far, now I have some questions:

 

1. Has anyone else had black dots in their eyes like i have? ive never seen anyone mention it so im kinda worried something else might be wrong with me since im self diagnosed with HPPD.

 

2. Sometimes i feel like my fight is worthless and that ill never fully get better, i hate this HPPD so much and im coping with it better than i use to be but it just seems like ill be trapped here forever, i was wondering if anyone had some advice to keep me going on my journey.

 

3.  Ive dealt with visuals almost a year now, seems like forever, i was wondering if someone could maybe give me an estimated time of recovery, I know you cant predict when its gonna heal but any opinion is greatly appreciated.

 

And thats all i have for you guys for now, any comments/feedback are welcome, thank you guys for your time, see you around the forum!

 

 

[KeepFighting]

Welcome to the club :-)

You sound pretty positive about things, which I think is key to dealing with HPPD.

I've had it 20 years now, after taking acid 4 times aged 14. Sadly for me it seems to be a life sentence, but I has eased a little bit over the years. I also managed to focus on other things - uni, travel, work, etc, and just tried to throw myself into life and forget about it.

Everyone's different though, so here's hoping your HPPD gets better soon.

The keys to coping for me are:

Positivity

Acceptance (there's no magic cure)

Exercise - really helps

Cutting out drugs (obvs)

Perspective - things could be worse

Don't dwell on symptoms

Having said all that, I'm only just really coming to terms with HPPD after 20 years. I'm quite new on the forum and trying to learn as much as I can from others. I've had some pretty dark times but have never let it get in the way of trying to lead a normal life.

[K.B.Fante]

1. Don't have that and haven't heard of it either but HPPD has a huge spectrum of symptoms so I wouldn't worry about being "out of place" with just one. Everyone seems to have some sort of symptom that's more rare than the others. 

 

2. Join the club; welcome to HPPD! It sucks. It really, really, really, really sucks. And it's incredibly painful almost all the time. The key to making it through is just to live for tomorrow. Don't live for now, or the past, but for the hope of the future. No matter how crappy your day is, it's always going to be better. Try and keep the big picture in mind. If you take all the right steps towards recover and ever fully recover then this will be nothing but a memory. You have to always live with the idea that one day you will recover. 

 

3. Everybody is different. But it seems like there's a clear pattern between cutting out drugs and improving. Exercise is a big one too since it's scientifically proven to be one of the best things you can do for reforming your brain. But the biggest thing is eliminating substances that make your HPPD worse. Once you do that, in combination with time, you should see some improvements. But again, it could take a while -- as in years. HPPD doesn't just up and leave one day. It's a long road to recovery. But if you eliminate substances and live a healthy lifestyle I'd say you'll probably be feeling pretty good within a year or two and after a couple years you might even consider yourself back to normal. But again, everyone's different.