what happened to me? Severe symptoms from shrooms

[Deema]

What happened to me? Severe symptoms after mushrooms persisting for over a year

I've posted my story on threads before but the short version is that earlier in December 2020, I had a 5 gram dose of psilocybin mushrooms. I had an intense experience, beautiful and parts were traumatic towards the end. I came out of it fine, however, I believe somehow that trip ‘primed' my brain, because two months later an accidental micro dose of 0.1 grams was enough to trigger the onset.

Approximately 5 to 6 hours after the micro dose, I experienced a seizure-like event which caused me to fall and lose consciousness. I do not remember the exact details following this, but recall having a severe panic/derealization sensation, causing me to alienate myself from those that I love thereafter. These symptoms continued to progress over the coming months into total insomnia lasting three months whereby I slept on average 1-2 hours during that entireperiod. Some of my symptoms include but are not limited to: 

- During first month: frequent urination and abnormal stools, extremely bad internal head tremors and pressure, body twitching, heart palpitations, loss of appetite, passing out on floor, total insomnia.
- Severely altered perception both visually and sense of being within reality 

- Loss of balance and coordination from altered perception, often can’t balance my head up, laying down also feels really distorted.

- Chronic insomnia and abnormal sleep, cannot feel sleepy. Insomnia lasting weeks with no sleep.
- When I close my eyes, they feel wide open inside as though I can ‘see through’ my closed eye lids
- Face feels very numb and transparent. 
- I lose all awareness of body, self and surroundings and boundaries with eyes closed 
- Severe head pressure and uncomfortable sensations
- Internal head tremors. Head shakes because of this, ear on pillow I can hear everything much louder.
- Burning sensations across head
- Out of body experiences like dpdr, and eventually a total loss of default state
- Constant oscillating high pitch tinnitus and static tinnitus

- intense terror anxiety 

- Severe agitation from this severe disconnect and not being able to rest into the moment or rest my eyes anything. When my agitation gets really bad I have no control over my body, no regulation 

Several of my previous psychiatrists, including my current, have established that it is very unlikely I suffer from psychosis alone but that my condition may have overlap- while depersonalization-derealization disorder has been considered it does not capture many of the main aspects of my lived experience; HPPD is the diagnosis I’ve received from several psychiatrists jointly but still does not capture my unique case. Neurofeedback (Brain Therapy Centre, Kent Town) has also found persisting aberrant brain activity. 

Details of symptoms:

I struggle to describe the current state I am living in, and much of the distress has been around crisis of authenticity where I feel like I am not believed.

I will now try to describe my lived experience. I acknowledge that my descriptions may be difficult to parse and I’ve tried my best to convey my states of being in spite of their highly unusual nature.  

My reality is distorted with my eyes open and closed. With my eyes closed, I perceive a hyper dimensional void headspace, my face feels dissolved, and experience very psychedelic closed eye visuals etc. 
I don’t retain any memory or impression of my environment or my spatial placement and orientation within it.  Is is not as though I'm staring straight into a screen in front of me but that there is nothing staring anymore, there is just void and no sense of where my eyes are looking from. This state is permanent and severely alters the way I perceive reality with my eyes open too. 

I have lost the ability to feel the default waking state with my eyes open. My reality is dissolved to the point I can no longer see anything I look at the way it would normally appear, it feels as though I can see reality but I’m not looking at it. I cannot rest my eyes on anything. I can’t feel that rested state when I close my eyes, my perception is such that it no longer feels like my awareness sits behind my face. I often struggle to balance my head or rest my eyes on anything. This is extremely physically uncomfortable.

I cannot feel sleepy and cannot drift off to sleep when I close my eyes. There is no shift between my sleep or wake state. It feels like I’m stuck in-between states, disconnected from my default states and their cycles. These sensations are extremely physically uncomfortable, with tinnitus, compulsive blinking, head pressure and severe internal head tremors being constantly experienced.

I have not fallen asleep normally for over a year. I lay there all night trapped in this void space with sometimes vivid visuals all around and ‘through’ me. 
I am awake for weeks and will have moments where I will slip into dream-like thinking. This was later revealed to be the way that I “sleep” during a sleep study. I am hardly able to function and I do not feel my current state is viable long-term.

There is a fellow with the same experience that has reached out to me online, who describes his experiences the exact same as me. Their condition was was also triggered by a micro dose one month following a high dose mushroom journey and has persisted for a year with little change.

 

 Any thoughts? 

I attempted to end my life in January using a euthanasia drug but I was found roughly 20 hours later and ressusicated from a 5 day coma. 

My heart is too shattered, and it’s unbelievable that a whole year of daily exercise, sobriety, eating and focusing my all on my healing did nothing. 

I do not feel my current state is livable and I will not be here for much longer. It is my greatest hope that in continuing to share my story, at least one person will be spared from the trauma I’ve experienced. Sending hope and wishing safe journeys upon those who choose to take these trips

Edited June 7, 2022 by Deema
Updated symptoms

[apfelsaft45]

On 3/6/2022 at 11:44 PM, Deema said:

I've posted my story on threads before but the short version is that earlier in December 2020, I had a 5 gram dose of psilocybin mushrooms. I had an intense experience, beautiful and parts were traumatic towards the end. I came out of it fine however,  I believe somehow that trip ‘primed' my brain, because two months later an accidental micro dose of 0.1g was enough to trigger the onset of what would destroy my life.

 

Following the micro dose, I experienced a seizure like event and severe panic/de-realization causing me to alienate myself from those I love. The symptoms continued to progress over the months into total insomnia lasting four months in which I slept maybe 1-2 hours during that whole period, severe head pressure and uncomfortable sensations, out of body experiences, and eventually a total loss of default states of being. Around 5 months in, the chaos stabilised a little but I have returned in this completely dead, and disconnected state where I cannot function.

 

 

I struggle to describe the current state I am living in, and much of the distress has been around crisis of authenticity where I feel like I am not believed. 

 

I cannot feel sleepy, tired, or have spatial orientation of my presence. With my eyes closed, I perceive a hyper dimensional headspace, I’m dissolved back into infinite void space, and experience very psychedelic closed eye visuals etc. It’s as though I’ve completely lost my signal. 

 

I have lost the ability to feel the aliveness when I open my eyes and can’t feel the weight in my eye lids when I close my eyes, my brain has no awareness of where the front of my face is. 

( I can’t close my eyes and just rest for a second!). I do not fall asleep or wake up. I am stuck on one level. I have not fallen asleep normally, not even for a minute for over a year. I lay there all night trapped in this void space with constant vivid visuals all around and through ‘me’. 

 

 

 I've tried all the conventional (and more) forms of therapy and medication, including neurofeedback. I am open to literally anything at this point--including returning to plant medicine in the right setting if that isn't the most foolish idea ever. All I know is I can't go on like this and more than anything am desperate to be reconnected and feel human again.

 

There is a fellow with the same experience that has reached out to me online, who describes his experiences the exact same as me. Their condition was was also triggered by a micro dose one month following a high dose mushroom journey and has persisted for a year with little change.

 

 Any thoughts? 

 

 

I cannot believe I am still alive and have made it and fought this far. My heart is too shattered, and it’s unbelievable that a whole year of daily exercise, sobriety, eating and focusing my all on my healing did nothing. 

I do not feel my current state is livable and I will not be here for much longer. I have attempted to end my life and was resuscitated from a long coma. Even being in a coma did not help my symptoms. It is my greatest hope that in continuing to share my story, at least one person will be spared from the trauma I’ve experienced. Sending hope and wishing safe journeys upon those who choose to take these trips.

please dont end your life

[James91]

Don't doubt yourself bud, at the very least give yourself the chance to surprise yourself with your own grit and determination to better yourself regardless of the shit you have to endure, I fully aknowledge the shit you are going through, I had never done a drug in my life was lulled into trying a magic mushroom after reading all the nonsense about how safe and theraputic they are, I got hpod after a single microdise nibble, I lost my career in the Army I'd worked tirelesly for, I lost Christmas with my son, I lost my health, family, friends, I can't sleep properly, I lost so many prospects in life..the list is so long! But!!!!!! I remind myself that people have lost half a brain and many more horrific injuries and still gone on to have recoveries and have nice little ted talks about thier experience amd how they fought through on persistence alone, who knows what the future hold recovery wise for any of us I'm in that boat bud, but without going all braveheart lets be the person that stares adversity in the face and still cracks a smile, I think of lifes bullshit like it's a bully...bullies don't deserve to win even if they fuck you up and make you look like a lemon, forget anyone else do it for you and whoever matters, I take baby steps and try to improve where I can for me I am looking at a functional approach to healing.... it may work it may not but fuck it what choice have I got.

Find that bit of grunt you have...or develop it if you have to and stick your finger up to the bullshit that comes your way...make it your bitch.

[Onemorestep]

The only thing I can think of left for you to try is mast cell stabilizers such as ketotifen or imatinib. Cromolyn sodium. Quercetin is an herbal one but dirty in that it has other effects in the body. 
 

methylene blue may do something. 
 

all my love friend

[hp3ik]

This kind of insomnia is sometimes seen in other post-drug syndromes like Post Finasteride Syndrome and Post SSRI Syndrome ( PSSD ). Unfortunately serotoninergic drugs ( regardless SSRIs or psychedelics ) and finasteride / isotretinoin are one of the most unpredictable and dangerous. Only a very few substances can screw human brain on a comparable level. That happen to small minority, but it's even worse as the danger is ignored by public and victims gaslighted.

You can try to restore normal sleep with mirtazapine / cyproheptadine ( two doses per week - not daily )  or zolpidem ( from 1 to 6 tablets - try 0,5 to 2x tablets every 15 minutes up to 3x times then start lowering dosage if it works). Do not mix any substances - test only one. Do not take other drugs, especially SSRIs or antipsychotics. Doctors prescribing them have no idea what they are doing. You have no psychosis but dissociation induced by a lack of normal sleep. The cause of insomnia is a permanently stuck anxiety / panic state overriding sleep pressure. Further insomnia aggravates terror and loop close.

 

Check the description of fatal insomnia. This a prion disease, but may be a symptom reference what happens after extremely severe sleep deprivation. Being stuck in a limbo / hypnagogia fits your description. I don't know how incompetent doctors you have encountered they ignored how severe your insomnia is.

 

If you don't restore normal sleep the heart / blood pressure problems will get you off or your cognition will get to the point of dementia / stupor. This is an extreme torutre and I'm not suprised you tried to escape using euthanasia drugs.

Edited June 23, 2022 by hp3ik

[Heppi]

Hello Deema,

Has your condition changed in the meantime in the direction of recovery?

I feel partly very similar to you. Often it is also so with me that my perception feels like separate from my consciousness. A crazy state.

Many greetings

Heppi

[Hppd1973]

I hope you're still fighting this, we've all struggled to some extent or another and I'm praying you'll feel better. This HPPD can be a horrible thing, unfortunately it gets ZERO attention in the media and therefore the public is left uneducated about it and the victims continue to pile up. 49 years ago I was told I was an extremely rare case, now there's people all around the world with HPPD and still no publicity. We need to change that!