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Brand new here but have had HPPD for 24 years


Drmsbear

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Hi everyone,

Just joined the group... I am surprised it took me so long to find you. Anyway, here is my story:

I ate a small dose of acid when I was 12 years old ... I know, I was WAY TO YOUNG (early 90s). It was stupid. Anyway, my experience wasn't bad at all, I was with friends, smoked some weed, watched the wind blow in the trees, ate some ice cream, listened to music, and went to bed. Woke up the next morning feeling FINE. Four days later I had a flashback and never came down.

That was 24 years ago... yeah.

My initial symptoms were the most intense. They can be best described as though I was sucked into the back of my head and forced to experience the world from there. I felt (still feel) like I wasn't really here and I was seeing as though I was still tripping... I was seeing through someone else's eyes, 24/7. This was extraordinarily traumatic for me. Not only was I so young (12 years old), but I felt like I was losing my mind and no one believed me or could help me. Really, I think no one understood so they didn't believe me. I was helpless and totally alone. I prayed every night it would go away and in the morning I opened my eyes and the world always looked the same... like I was tripping.

Over the next several years, I told no one and learned to deal with it. I swore off all drugs and tried to ignore my symptoms. Eventually, I would get distracted throughout the day and forget about my visual perception distortion. But it never went away.

When I was 19 I went to a psychiatrist thinking he could help me and he prescribed me antipsychotics. NOT COOL. He didn't understand and thought I was crazy. This lasted only a few months and my next therapist gave me Prozac. This helped immensely with the anxiety of it all but my symptoms never fully went away. By this time my "stuck in the back of my head" feeling had gone away. I can feel myself over my entire brain now, but I STILL see as though I am on LSD.

I am now a 36-year-old with a Ph.D. and a family. I think about my visual distortions every day. I remember how the world used to look before acid. I take my kid for walks and I try really hard to see through the distorted curtain that has been pulled over my eyes. I still dont totally feel "here". I still feel like I am watching a movie opposed to being truly present.

I also need to state that have anxiety and ADHD. Obviously, I have anxiety (who wouldn't, right?) and I was diagnosed with ADHD at 22. I have no other mental disorders.

I am not trying to scare people by telling my story. I am hoping that someone understands what I am saying and we can talk about why this is happening to us.

Does anyone else have a similar story? Single-use? 24 constant years of symptoms? What about feeling like your looking through some else’s eyes? 

I know that LSD (I have a chem phd) doesn't chemically bind to receptors (it's an ionic bond) and therefore doesn't chemically alter the brain. It also doesn't physically stay in the brain for more than 7-12 hours. So far, there's no physical explanation for why we experience this.

I could go on but I'll leave it open for questions and comments.

Thanks for listening.

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Same as me, 3rd time id ever take acid ( Purple Ohms ) and the first time id ever had any real crazy visuals, had a kind of freak out but it passed. 8 days later, smoked a bit of weed, went to bed and felt myself 'falling' again, straight into that mental bad trip id had just over a week before - ever since then its never really gone away, well, the ripples of it anyway, the 'flash-back' lasted all night, crazy visuals, thought I was forgetting how to breath,  all sorts of crazy shit - to this day the trailers are there, geometric patterns on carpets appear, even that crazy feeling in your mouth when you are tripping big time comes and goes - I actually feel like if I really tried, I could put myself back into that super heavy trip from way back in the day!!

I actually continued taking acid for another few years, usually offset with Temazepalm, pretty heavy Extacy use as we'll, some tablets with crazy trips attached to them too until I was maybe 22 or 23, then the Coke was the main thing, that I liked as it was non pschycadellic. Weirdly enough, some of the only days in wow, 28 years I've felt normal, and 'everything' was back to normal visually was when taking really good 'E', pure MDMA for example seemed to make me 'normal' again, crazy really!

Dabbled with lots of downers too, smoked some brown usually to take the edge f mad cocaine sessions, really enjoyed taking downers as life get pretty 'normal' again in those times!

Anyway, I've done no Acid for wow, 25 years, 'E' for 21 or 22, been coke and effectively Drug free for 8 years now.

Its there, it aint going away, I watched a thing the other night that linked the 'over sensitivity' to light with a kind of 'PTSD' and then the anxiety, which kinda works for me, the strange sights are what they are, the fear or falling back into that 'bad trip' is pure anxiety - I need to be stronger than my HPPD, and I think I am.

The human mind, what an amazing, and sometime scary place!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Welcome. You're more living proof that this disorder doesn't necessarily limit us.  I've had hppd over the long haul as well.  The good news is that some of my symptoms are almost totally gone.  It took decades for them to go away, but I'll take it!  Unfortunately, I can't shake the visuals, but I've had them for so long, they're just part of me.  

 

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Thank you, and defo - and good for you!

 

Its a CRAZY thing to deal with, and honestly, knowing that I'm not the only person in the world feeling like this, even after all this time, I feel better already - I know I'm NOT going mad - although I may be a little crazy from time to time!!! 🙂

 

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I'm repeating myself (like most of my posts).  I too felt alone for decades.  When my symptoms became apparent, there was no internet so finding information was almost impossible.  None of my friends who dosed as heavily as I did had the issues I did.  I discussed it with a doctor once (late 80s) and he basically said "you got what you deserved for using drugs".    Back in the early 90s I did see a short TV clip of a guy who described having symptoms that fit this disorder.  He said that faces looked like different colored dots.  I suddenly realized "it's not just me".  Finding this forum was the first time I could really discuss what I live with.  I just wish I'd found it before I was in my late 50s!

So, no, you're not going mad.  In this forum, you're in good company.

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Yeah, its  definitely a crazy old thing, and honestly, I've never felt 'better' about this thing since I realised ( in the past week or so!!! ) its actually a 'thing' and I'm not the only person in the world that feels like this! Just shows you, well, in my opinion now, it really is a case of your brain playing tricks on you, your not mad, or tripping, or trapped in a mad-house, you need to be stronger than the symptoms - I think I am!

 

Would still love to know the physics behind it tho, the brain doesn't do this for wow, nearly 30 years for no reason!

 

And I still maintain, those mental years of my life had some of the best times, gotta take the good with the bad I guess! 🙂

 

 

 

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