Help! 1 month after doing acid, I still don't feel myself and I can't take it anymore

[jackhunter24]

This is going to be a long post, but please bare with me, I really need help.

So about a month ago I did acid for the first time with some friends. I took 1 tab that came in sour patch kid form. I had your textbook bad trip, but was able to reassure myself that the drugs would wear off eventually and I would be fine again. The drugs did wear off eventually, but I just haven't felt the same since.

Ever since doing acid, I frequently feel like I'm still on it. Like I'm still mildly hallucinating. Sometimes it gets bad enough that I have to just go in my room and lay in my bed until it stops. Aside from this, I just don't feel myself mentally. I feel like a shell of my former self, like I'm just going through the motions of day to day life. Before I did acid, I felt like I had a purpose, but right now I just feel lost. I am not sure I have felt happiness since this happened. Anything that used to make me happy is ruined by this awful feeling that I can not shake. I am currently at college for the second semester of my freshman year, and it is very unpleasant to have this happen. I feel like its starting to affect my life. I am not hanging out with my friends as much as I did last semester because of this feeling. It is turning my life into a living hell. It is also concerning that it is still happening a month later. I read about this online, and it sounds like HPPD. If that is the case, what can I do about it? I am at school 5 hours from where I live, my car is at home, and I don't know of any psychiatrists in the area. My school has a counseling center. Is it worth giving them a try? I don't know anything about them besides their name.

I currently take prozac for anxiety. I was taking it at the time i did acid as well, but I went off it a week later (this was not because of the after effects I felt, I had been planning to try going off for awhile). However, what I am feeling combined with the withdrawal effects of prozac was too much for me to handle, and I went back on it. I was feeling what I feel right now, combined with depression, which was just way too much for me to handle.

So basically right now I am scared, lost, and in desperate need of help. I am scared I will never feel myself again, and I will live in this hell forever. I am lost on what to do. I don't know if I should just try and ride it out, try talking to someone, go to the counseling center, or what. I am also not sure how the prozac is effecting it. I don't know if I should be off it, on it, or what. My parents don't know anything about any of this. Im not sure if I should get them involved(I really really don't want to, if they knew I did acid it would just make things a lot worse). Any help will be greatly appreciated, thanks.

 

[Cream Gravy?]

IME/IMO Prozac is an evil drug whose methods of action and effects are not understood and are often attributed to placebo. I personally found LSD to help me in fact find more meaning to life, when I had been borderline athiest before. I remember my time spent on prozac being fucked up, I remember never truly being myself, and I remember it negatively interacting with most every drug I tried. So, my advice would be to stop taking prozac or listening to greedy psychiatrists, but then again you shouldn't just up and quit your medication. Perhaps mention to your psychologist that you are having these effects, but make it out like you think it's the prozac, and don't mention the LSD. The LSD is long out of your system; the prozac is still coursing through your veins, blocking vital receptors in your brain and just generally mucking up your emotions and reasoning skills.

Just my 2C.

 

[kingqueen1]

Well what i will say it not what u want to heard, but well it look totally fine for me what happening to you, doing acid or psychedelics often result in a opening to your real self, and in short maybe the life purpose u was thinking it was right before now doesnt look like true for you and u doint want to kick this way, just take it easy and get back on yourself, cut off the prozac, they were good for a short terms but what u need right now is connection to your "higher self', lot of tools can help for that, as meditation, annd trust the process, soon u'll be living again and everything will have sense. Regards

 

[bunnyhentman]

First year of college is often overwhelming and stressful, and a lot of college freshmen feel pressure because it's a turning point in life. A lot of people start experimenting with psychedelics at this time. Your reaction isn't unique, although it might feel that way. If you were already prescribed prozac, then I guess you had some mental or emotional health issues before you took the acid. Finding good therapy in addition to the medication would be a positive step. If you can't find something reachable I think there are online/phone therapy services too. The school counseling center is worth a shot, they are going to be familiar with your issues because a lot of people go through them.

From Erowid's HPPD FAQ:

What aggravates HPPD?
Most subjects find that their symptoms vary. Generally distortions are made worse by:
Obsessing about HPPD symptoms (by looking at blank walls for example)
Fatigue
Alcohol, Cannabis, Psychedelics, or other drugs
Sudden entry into dark or light environments
Stress
Some antidepressants and other psychiatric medications (such as Risperidone)

My advice to you is to focus on your current state and things you can do to feel better now and moving forward, and don't fixate on the bad trip. Extra stress, exhaustion, and drug use will make you feel worse. Focus on eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercise, and enjoying your studies. Also, I don't think you should feel you have to disclose your drug use to your parents or counselors if you don't think they will understand or will overreact. It's probably not the single acid experience that caused your problems anyway. It may have awakened you to your problems or made them worse though. Obsessing over it will stop you from recovering from it, and the same goes for your parents if you think that's how they will react. You can still express how you feel, the struggles you are having, etc, and get the support you need.

 

[jason7]

It's because you were on Prozac when you took the acid. Somebody else had the same problem here. So apparently taking acid while on Prozac doesn't work out well. I'm assuming it's because they both act on the serotonin system and therefore have some kind of negative interaction. Iwouldn't bother getting professional help about it because I can assure you that no doctors out there would have the slightest clue as to how to help you. They are not trained on negative reactions between Prozac and LSD. You're the guinea pig, I'm afraid. I don't know what can be done for you now. You screwed up by taking LSD while on Prozac and now you're paying the price. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, especially when they don't think ahead. On the good side, this did get you to go off Prozac, which I hope you did gradually.

So although you feel messed up right now at least you probably won't kill your parents in the middle of the night, as many Prozac users have done, and your college classmates are probably less likely to be part of a mass shooting because of your ill conceived decision to take Prozac. In future I recommend reading up thoroughly on any medication before agreeing to take it. In the case of Prozac, often the "cure" is worse than the disease.

You'll probably get back to normal in a few months, whatever your normal may be. Regarding the depression, do lots of research on what causes it and maybe you can treat it by avoiding those things. Pharmaceuticals are rarely the answer to such diseases. What are you going to do, take Prozac until you die? God only knows what that stuff does to your organs etc. Read the list of potential side effects and then decide if depresssion is worse or better than those. Eat right, excercise, get enough sleep, get sunshine, take vitamins/minerals and after that it's in the hands of fate.

 

[swilow]

It's because you were on Prozac when you took the acid. Somebody else had the same problem here. So apparently taking acid while on Prozac doesn't work out well. I'm assuming it's because they both act on the serotonin system and therefore have some kind of negative interaction. Iwouldn't bother getting professional help about it because I can assure you that no doctors out there would have the slightest clue as to how to help you. They are not trained on negative reactions between Prozac and LSD. You're the guinea pig, I'm afraid. I don't know what can be done for you now. You screwed up by taking LSD while on Prozac and now you're paying the price. Sometimes bad things happen to good people, especially when they don't think ahead. On the good side, this did get you to go off Prozac, which I hope you did gradually.

So although you feel messed up right now at least you probably won't kill your parents in the middle of the night, as many Prozac users have done, and your college classmates are probably less likely to be part of a mass shooting because of your ill conceived decision to take Prozac. In future I recommend reading up thoroughly on any medication before agreeing to take it. In the case of Prozac, often the "cure" is worse than the disease..

Seriously, a very unhelpful post. Its purely speculative and you speak with authority that you simply do not have. I think you should think twice before writing such things.

I've been on prozac and I've taken LSD on it. Nothing happened to me, but again that is not even relevant . There is no major link between SSRI's and post-trip weirdness, Jason7 is just making stuff up. If he posted a source that would help. If anything, the original ailment that prozac was prescribed for is probably rearing its head; combine anxiety with existential psychedelic weirdness, first year of college away from home and it is understandable that things feels out of control. There are things that can be done, such as meditation, exercise, no drugs (except meds), reading philosphy and so on. Try deep breathing exercises, they are excellent at allowing one to become centred. And ignore uninformed speculation. You will feel better

 

[PotatoMan]

enjoy your mind-trip but don't trip on your mind.

 

[psy997]

enjoy your mind-trip but don't trip on your mind.

No man is safe from the war going on outside



But really OP, it seems that you've looked past the normal boundaries that society as a whole holds and seen things that have changed your perspective. At the moment this is manifesting negatively, but that's simply because you don't know how to deal with your world being shattered and everything changing. I think that you may have possibly seen that the path you've been on might not necessarily be that which you'd personally choose, and instead has been one of "normalness", what society deems as positive for people. Be a baby, start going to school, maybe learn music or sports while growing up, get good grades in high school and on exams, go to college, get a job after, and work your way up a corporate ladder or some other business, etc etc.

Basically, I think you've released your true self from the confines of what society defines us and thus we define ourselves as, and now it's time for you to really figure out what matters to you in this world and how to follow that as a living. And even if it's not your actual path, your perception being blown to bits, miles outside of the normal perceptive/cognitive boundaries, on it's own can totally cause this.

Feel free to message me if you have any questions about anything, if you think what I'm saying is completely wrong, anything. I'm 21, a junior in college in the US, and have a pretty good idea what you're going through

 

[Bagseed]

I've taken from your first post that you've quit the prozac, did you taper initially? how long ago was your last dose? antidepressants can have nasty withdrawals.

 

[Samulson]

Psychedelics can and generally, eventually will, bring everything up to the surface of your psyche and into your conscious awareness. Once it gets to that point, whatever it is will need to be understood and integrated on a conscious level for you to regain balance and harmony within your mind. It means change on a profound level and once understood it will be seen as a very positive one.

It is the understanding and integration that you need to work on now. I am not going to lie, this is a hard road to walk and can take a lot of time. My own experience along these lines took
two decades to be completely resolved. The best thing will be if you can completely, honestly open up and talk about everything with someone who you trust enough to bare your soul to and is also experienced with and capable of understanding psychedelic experience in this context.

If you cannot find such a rare individual, then you are going to have to do it alone. This means analyzing your own mind and figuring out your personal truths and lies. Accepting all that you are, and learning to live in harmony with all of it. This is in fact what everyone eventually has to do, you just accelerated the process a bit . Learning to still your mind through meditation is the next step.

Peace

 

[phuckingnutz]

Based on your original post,it sounds like a combination of HPPD and DP/DR(Depersonalization/Derealization).
The "feeling like a shell" is textbook DP/DR at least from what I gathered by reading a textbook.
DP/DR is an anxiety driven problem and the more you sweat it and fight it the stronger it becomes.
HPPD is , from my understanding, primarily an visual phenomenon and there's
not much to do for it except to wait it out.
Good luck, my GF had two or three bouts with DP/DR and she said it was HELL...hers only lasted a few days though.

 

[Dresden]

The same thing happened to me the first time I took LSD. At first, it was AWFUL. However, three months later I started to feel better, and 6 months later I was better than ever, though manic. I went on to take acid scores if not hundreds of more times, and the bad experience was never repeated.

 

[terarc]

It may be due to the LSD / Prozac combo but who knows really, I have definitely known people to have weird trips and trip issues due to AD + psych combos. I'd say just give it more time and make sure you're sleeping and eating well, getting out and about in your free time and seeing things. If you really wanna stop your meds, maybe taper and stop, I think personally it might help you as I don't think those kind of meds do any good to most people, but again I don't know enough to say you definitely should. After 1-3 months of doing that and reflecting on your LSD experience and whatever issues it brought up, I think you'll feel fine if not better than before

 

[Searching4truth]

Sorry that you're feeling this way, my friend. Maybe it could help to talk to a professional. They might have experience with this sort of thing and can lead you in the right direction. I doubt any trouble could come from admitting to them that you dabbled with LSD. I felt a little down for a couple days after my first experience but it wasn't anything troubling. And I can't see it affecting you for that long. Please don't feel helpless and if you need to talk, send me a message.

 

[LucidSDreamr]

How old are you? 20ish i'm guessing?

You will be fine. At this age psychedelic drugs affected me WAAAAAY more than they do now days hppd wise. Back then i would have hppd and shit for months even years after tripping hard. Now days none of that stuff happens.

Your brain is probably still developing a bit if you are IN fact that young. so maybe thats what makes lasting effects seem worse I don't know? I'm just telling you my experience that once my brain/body fully matured they handled these sorts of things much better.


just lay off everything for a good long while. and your braind and body still has a bit more growing to do and will fix itself right up when doing so


definitley don't take that as saying that you can trip all you want now and be fine later down the line....i myself started excercising EXTREME caution once i notice such symptoms and pretty much altogther stopped tripping through a good 7 year span during college times like you.

 

[Solipsis]

Based on your original post,it sounds like a combination of HPPD and DP/DR(Depersonalization/Derealization).
The "feeling like a shell" is textbook DP/DR at least from what I gathered by reading a textbook.
DP/DR is an anxiety driven problem and the more you sweat it and fight it the stronger it becomes.
HPPD is , from my understanding, primarily an visual phenomenon and there's
not much to do for it except to wait it out.
Good luck, my GF had two or three bouts with DP/DR and she said it was HELL...hers only lasted a few days though.

IMO this is true... these should be labels for what you are experiencing, check around the internet if you can confirm that yourself, see if the advice for it is meaningful to you, and otherwise get help with it. You might have exacerbated an underlying disorder, and it is key now to act on it, try not to freak out about it too much. Not every disorder is equally serious or equally hard to treat or live with... but get it sorted whatever it is, doing nothing is probably the worst thing to do right now.
Psychedelics did a lot to me as well in college, and in a way I regret not getting help with that right away. Sure, some therapists are assholes and others don't know how to treat you right.. but you got to take a chance and work through that to find something that does work. The best chance to help fix this IMO.

And if in the meanwhile abstinence from drugs and other approaches help the depersonalization / derealization to dwindle naturally, all the better and you can cancel treatment if that truly is the case.

 

[ConsciousDreams]

I understand this is an old thread, but this is my first post and the main reason I registered to this forum. Hopefully I can be of assistance in reducing harm and educating.

All of these symptoms are symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome. The main symptoms typically only last 5 weeks, but because of being on prozac during (which is what caused it), coming off following, and getting back on prozac soon after the symptoms were exacerbated. HPPD is caused by various factors, almost all serotonin based. Seeing tracers, perceptual changes from not adapting to changes in light and dark (serotonin plays a significant role in pupil dilation), anxiety, confusion and brain fog, depression, and depersonalization, lack of motivation or ambition, etc.

If you read about Prozac and other SSRIs in combination with different serotonergic drugs you will find Serotonin Syndrome is extremely common when compared to recreational serotonergic drugs taken on their own. The side effects are not always the same, it depends on the substances.

For example, if one takes MDMA they often notice tense muscles and bruxism. This is because the serotonin receptors MDMA activates control those functions. Therefore, it is far more likely that the symptoms of Serotonin Syndrome that an MDMA user gets are going to be along the lines of the serotonin receptors that were overactivated. They will be more likely to experience aggitation, tense muscles, anxiety, dilated pupils, and brain fog/a cloudy mind. If they are taking prozac with it the shared receptor sites will cause the symptoms as well as possibly some of the receptor sites that only the prozac effects. This would lead to more cases of depression, and depersonalization, etc.

On LSD physical effects are quite minor as the drug is fairly specific to 5HT2A receptors. The effects are almost entirely mental. Then, mix that with Prozac which is also mostly mental and you end up with Serotonin Syndrome which gives more depersonalization, a LACK of belief in reality (because LSD changes your perception of reality, MDMA for example does not even come close to that extent), Dilated pupils including more extrasensory distortions, and so on.

MDMA makes light brighter but does not induce heavy visuals. This results in pupil dilation causing starring and slight auras amd a differed ability to adapt to changes in light. LSD takes those side effects a step further.

First step is certainly wean oneself off Prozac. Then treat your depression and other symptoms that were there first. Eventually, moving on to treating the Serotonergic symptoms and HPPD. You will get over it with time, but it will take work and habituation. The mind is a far more powerful thing that you are letting yourself believe. Fullheartedly believe and you will succeed. The reason people get stuck with these symptoms long term is because they let it become their normal or they accept it. All that does is habituate one's problems.

A great example of this is realizing one has been sad for some time. They go to the doctor and the doctor LABELS them depressed. Then gives them medications to change their brain chemistry. They then go home amd tell their friends amd family they are depressed which reinforces this to them. With proper therapy they could have done it without being labeled OR taking drugs that artificially change their brain chemistry.

 

[Solipsis]

Welcome to the forum! But I'm sorry to say: that doesn't seem right at all ^, although you sell it with apparent confidence. Why don't you share sources for the most important arguments please?

Things like bruxism also happen with many stimulants, plenty of which are hardly serotonergic at all but instead act more on the other monoamines. Serotonin syndrome does not cause depersonalization although it does cause confusion.

Deep mental changes like this tend to come from either crucial changes in awareness, perception or experience or things like serious neurotoxicity or changes in brain chemistry of the order of 4-methylamphetamine or chronic cocaine abuse.
How many people do you see becoming deeply troubled after MDMA use, even after high doses which can cause serotonergic imbalance (more or that in a minute). Depression, possibly, but not the DP/DR type confusion described here.

Serotonin syndrome is a life threatening condition that typically presents acutely and "unmistakably" in the sense that chronic or mild serotonin syndrome is not a thing. Sure, serotonin imbalance can happen and shares some similar symptoms like issues with maintaining body temperature / sweating, chills, confusion, withdrawing with brainzaps and more. None of that is really the topic here.

It's not education of you grasp at straws, if you sell it as fact that's misinformation. If you think you see some connections, let your wording reflect that uncertainty.

HPPD while an actually fair conclusion is not really on the mark because it is a perceptual disorder primarily (see the full name of the disorder), while the main complaint here is/was feeling disconnected / like a shell / unhappy / lost. But it does depend on what constitutes "feeling like hallucinating still". Is that the being weirded out, or perceptual disturbances? Mental issues following a trip are often much too easily connected to HPPD because HPPD is so conveniently and explicitly associated with psychedelics. We'd have to find out more about the emphasis being on perception or mental state. For now, the mental state seems the focus... perceptual disturbances don't have to be problematic and are often found interesting or annoying but not the source of deep confusion IMO.

Depersonalization / derealization are therefore considerably more accurate, but they are not necessarily helpful here to identify and describe the problem. I've gone through something not too dissimilar, for me the important similarity was that I felt dislodged from who I was before, lost and in need of answers as to what the hell I was doing with my life. I can easily see this causing a reaction like in the OP. In my opinion it may be part of feeling 'woken up' but with a more powerful and negative impact triggering a sort of existential crisis.

This seems much too complex to try to explain by speculating about serotonergic interactions between LSD and SSRI's. I and plenty of others never took SSRI's and something like that happened, whereas enough people who combine them have unpredictable experiences and outcomes but certainly not serotonergic imbalance, let alone serotonin syndrome or any of this being effected reliably.

If any of the development I've been through after it happened would ring a bell, I'd offer any tips from my own experience to see if it helps. If nothing like that helps maybe seeking help for a potential DP/DR diagnosis would be the alternative.

I don't know everything about this kind of stuff either, but I do know what's incorrect about that, no offense.

 

[Cotcha Yankinov]

Hi there ConsciousDreams, welcome to bluelight. The necro status of this thread aside, I don't believe serotonin syndrome is a good description of what has happened/is happening to the OP. I think HPPD/depersonalization and SS are discrete entities. While 5-HT2A is thought to be responsible for a large portion of SS (ie hyperthermia), I think 5-HT2A activation can cause HPPD/depersonalization without necessarily causing SS. HPPD has been theorized to result from issues with GABA interneurons which express 5-HT2A receptors, and these issues persist after the drug is gone.

While its possible that there is an excess of synaptic serotonin/serotonergic signaling that persists in some of these cases of chronic HPPD/depersonalization, I would expect the peripheral symptoms like muscle rigidity and so forth to be present in order for the person to qualify for a diagnosis of serotonin syndrome. In other words, the physical symptoms are the core of what is considered SS from what I understand, so excess serotonin =/= SS unless those peripheral symptoms are present.

As an example, cerebral vasoconstriction, while it may result from excess signaling at 5-HT2A in psychedelic overdose, is not necessarily serotonin syndrome.

 

[PriestTheyCalledHim]

IME/IMO Prozac is an evil drug whose methods of action and effects are not understood and are often attributed to placebo. I personally found LSD to help me in fact find more meaning to life, when I had been borderline athiest before. I remember my time spent on prozac being fucked up, I remember never truly being myself, and I remember it negatively interacting with most every drug I tried. So, my advice would be to stop taking prozac or listening to greedy psychiatrists, but then again you shouldn't just up and quit your medication. Perhaps mention to your psychologist that you are having these effects, but make it out like you think it's the prozac, and don't mention the LSD. The LSD is long out of your system; the prozac is still coursing through your veins, blocking vital receptors in your brain and just generally mucking up your emotions and reasoning skills.

Just my 2C.

Yet prozac and other SSRIs combined with therapy are far more effective at treating depression, anxiety, and even OCD than self medicating with large, moderate, or even micro doses of LSD and other psychedelics.