18 Years Old with HPPD

[wokstar]

Hi everyone,

Was hoping I'd never have to introduce myself to a community like this, but here we are. I'm 18 years old and have been doing drugs since December of 2017. It first started with smoking weed, and at the beginning of this year, I started experimenting with the disassociative DXM. I had a lot of good times on DXM, tripped several times without a problem and felt great doing it. One night, however, I made the stupid decision of taking DXM while I wasn't in the right mindset, and really messed myself up. Not only did I take 450mg of DXM this night, I also smoked roughly eight bowls of weed along with it. Weed and DXM have a direct synergy, so this increased the high of the DXM to a point where I've never experienced it before. Remember, I wasn't in the best mindset, so things took a turn for the worse. I had what I could only compare to a psychotic/schizophrenic breakdown while I was on these substances, I had voices in my head telling me to do all this messed up shit, and every time I closed my eyes (which was most of the time because I couldn't keep them open), I entered a dream-like hallucination state with all this bad shit running through my mind.

After that experience, I felt extreme DP/DR to the point where nothing felt significant at all, I could not focus on reality no matter how hard I tried, and I felt like the entire physical world around me did not matter in the slightest. I even kept hearing the voices in my head for a while after that, though that has stopped completely now (thankfully). After a couple of painful weeks with this degree of DP/DR, the symptoms got better and I ruled the whole experience off as a "bad trip" not even considering the possibility that I may have developed slight HPPD or a similar condition.

I then went on to take high doses of LSD (600ug to 900ug each time) and though these trips were good, they worsened the problem that I didn't even know I had at the time, which is HPPD. The first thing that I noticed that was a bit strange was my attraction to the color green. Every time I drive, the trees stick out to me very vibrantly. Then the other symptoms started to pop up. I experience extreme anxiety most of the time for no good reason. I experience trip-like visuals if I focus on something for long enough, or sometimes they will randomly pop up for a fraction of a second. My dreams lately have been a lot more vivid and realistic to the extent where when I wake up in the morning, it takes me a good amount of time to comprehend if the events in those dreams actually happened or not. I'll also have dreams where I'll smoke weed, and I will trip really hard, experiencing LSD like visuals from a first-person perspective in my dreams. Very realistic, and I even think to myself in those dreams "Did I just relapse?" but can't reason more than that because, of course, I'm asleep and reasoning in dreams only goes so far. The most debilitating thing about HPPD for me is a noticeable degradation of my motor functions. When I used to trip on LSD, it would be very difficult for me to eat, and that effect has now carried over to an extent into my sober life, which is very strange and alarming. I also notice I have been twitching a lot; this symptom actually started immediately following the bad DXM trip and was REALLY bad at that point, but now has been reduced to infrequent head and leg twitches. Finally, my ability to socialize properly has decreased significantly, I used to be fairly charismatic and found it easy to talk to people, now either my newfound anxiety caused by this shit prevents me from speaking normally, or my brain just can't find the right words to respond with when someone asks me a question, even something simple; this symptom luckily doesn't occur all day, every single time I'm talking to someone, but it still definitely occurs to a good extent.

Having this condition has made me lose a lot of confidence, and has made me scare away a girl that I really liked because of the DP/DR and mood swings I was experiencing while I was trying to deal with her. It has also affected my work life significantly, I feel alienated and strange compared to everyone else now and I keep feeling like I'm disappointing people with my awkwardness when they used to know me as a fairly easy to talk to person. I hope that I'm one of those cases where this condition doesn't rule over me for the rest of my life, but only time will tell. Until then, I guess I'll be posting here.

[MadDoc]

I think taking drugs like LSD changes everyone to some extent.  It's a powerful experience where you can look into your own mind, not something that happens every day.  I'm an awkward human too, but I was born that way.  Don't beat yourself up for being a little out of step.  Some of the most successful people I know come from the awkward ranks.

My suggestion is the same in most of my posts, lay off drugs, at least for a while.  You're young and it's likely you'll bounce back.  If you continue getting high, who knows.  Just my opinion, you understand.  

Also (more advice from an old guy), don't dwell too much on "the rest of your life".  Focus on making progress now.   Never give up on yourself, just because you're altered from drugs doesn't mean your not a worthy person.  Take care of yourself, stay clean, keep focused, and chances are good that you'll be doing ok after a while.  Also, be patient.

Hang in there and take care.