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HPPD Is Taking Over My Life

R

Rastahund

Bluelighter
Joined
Apr 19, 2011
Messages
59
What can I do about it? It's bad... I hate it and I want it to go away.
Being in a room with white walls is really stressful because there's odd, bright, almost glowing colored shadows (they should definitely not be there) on random objects in random places... it's EXTREMELY detrimental to my college education because our classrooms are all white rooms, with white dry erase boards and no posters on the wall... Random surfaces will be crawling and moving, but not all of them. Sometimes I feel like I can't even see... this is all a bit hard to explain, but I'm sure a lot of people here know what I'm talking about.
I get the worst anxiety all the time and anxiety hasn't previously been an issue for me in life. For a while, I thought the anxiety was coming from a weakened state of mind (which I thought was unacceptable) but now I'm starting to learn that HPPD is linked to anxiety.
I haven't been able to do any drugs, especially psychedelics (I wish I could, I love them...), because of the anxiety and freaking out over absolutely nothing.
Of course, because I decided that my mind was weakened, I decided to start smoking weed again to get over those anxious thought loops. Well, now my HPPD is REALLY bad and seems to be taking over my life.
Obvious answer: Stop doing drugs for a good, long while. I'm gonna have to suck it up and find another way to strengthen my mental state... so be it.
But what else can I do? Is there anything but time that can help make this process a little more bearable?
I can't concentrate in class, I have trouble understanding my textbook because I just can't concentrate, and I have trouble interacting with people at work... this is just so hard to deal with! I thought I could overcome anything but this is really proving to be an enormous challenge in my life that I've been struggling with for years now... =/

Any suggestions will be avidly attempted!
 
Well, I've done many psychedelics... LSD, mushrooms, 25C-NBOME, DMT, MDMA, marijuana, ketamine.... I'm sure they've all contributed. I'm guessing when I used to do MDMA every 3 days to a week for almost a year and a half is probably what triggered it. It seems worse than ever now because I've started smoking weed again though.

I would really like to do Ayahuasca with my close friends this summer but I'm afraid it would give me worst HPPD so this is very troubling to me... : (

I have seen an optometrist... they dilated my pupils and said my eyes were healthy. Should I make an appointment and tell them I think I have HPPD and need other tests done maybe? What if they don't know what HPPD is?
 
I've started smoking weed again [...] I get the worst anxiety all the time and anxiety hasn't previously been an issue for me in life. [...] I can't concentrate in class, I have trouble understanding my textbook because I just can't concentrate, and I have trouble interacting with people at work...
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It sounds to me like you might be smoking too much/too strong marijuana... remember, THC metabolites can hang around for quite a while, and THC is a known anxiogen. I don't think you can make a disgnosis of HPPD if you currently use even mild hallucinogens.
 
I agree with that... this definitely started getting really bad really recently. But I stopped smoking weed for about a year and I haven't done any psychedelics in months... it never went away in that time but it wasn't NEARLY this bad.
 
Your tolerance to cannabis has dropped in the time you stopped smoking it.
 
^word

If I'm reading correctly you stopped smoking weed for a while then hopped back on? That's a well known way to make even "normal" people trip hard and/or have nasty anxiety.

At all costs stay away from weed, MDMA, dissociatives , and psychs. Alcohol, opiates, benzos etc are probably safe and might even help, but then again run the risk of hard addiction which in the long run will leave you anxiety ridden mess

Eat healthy, exercise, don't drink caffeine(or other stims) as well. It may be you just have to give your body/mind time to heal unfortunately. You could go the route of trying things like trazadone at night, or other mild anti-psychotics/sedatives
 
i feel u, i only get flashbacks when i blaze also. just stop blazing and dont trip for a while. the only thing you can do is take time.
also, if u feel that flashbacks are hindering your everyday activities, small amoutns of benzodiazepans will help.
 
I get OEV's from weed man. You're probably freaking out because you're smoking a strong strain and have no cannabinoid tolerance. I've been smoking weed for years, and even smoking a small bong pack of top shelf still gets me ripped to the point of seeing OEV's.

So my advice is to stop smoking weed, for many weeks, and if you're still anxious, see a doctor.
 
i have hppd 2c-b blanket visuals always. been 2 years since my abuse period (daily for about 6-8 months mdma/mda/2cb/2ce)
its easiest to see on dark things or in the dark at general.

the only thing i can offer is " youll never have nothing to laugh at"
i laugh at my hppd all the time like "haha i wonder what the fuck i did to my brain"

edit:i guess you gatta have a dark sense of humor to think permanent brain damage is funny, but i still laugh at it
 
definitely stay away from all psychs and cannabis! not only this but also caffeine and other stimulants (ime caffeine is much worse then amphetamine in this respect). i have found benzos to be quite effective in helping with anxiety, which is one of the worst contributing factors. ime less anxiety -> less hppd -> less anxiety -> ... (time) ... -> you start to get used to it / ignore it -> ... (time) ... -> it goes away completely.

besides the above mentioned, avoid stress and not being properly rested. being very tired still sometimes gives me (barely noticable) patterns on walls under certain conditions.
 
I have experienced HPPD for twenty years. For ten years I could not admit it to anyone and when occasionally I came before a psychiatrist (I was prescribed prozac for a time) I did not communicate what I was experiencing visually at all. Eventually, while being treated for heroin addiction ten years ago, I described it to the consultant psychiatrist I saw regularly, who labeled it LSD poisoning as well as a poisons specialist who agreed what I had been experiencing by way of visual disturbances were the consequences of LSD poisoning - 'sticking to neurons' - causing chronic anxiety and depression. I also took ecstasy, mushrooms, alcohol, amphetamines and cannabis, separately or alongside LSD, before.

The way to beat it is to live as well as possible. Eat healthily, exercise, just try to live positively. I read The Art of Seeing by Aldous Huxley. Try to be as relaxed as you can so you can find your way through it. The greatest barrier is your own mind. You need to relax enough not to even care before you eventually choose not to really notice any visual disturbances.

I enjoy cannabis often in small doses. It can make the visual disturbances potentially worse but I always enjoy its beneficial effects more. HPPD can be stark after a while without it I discovered... however, a sober approach can be very good too. In many ways I'm healthier nowadays and I feel better, the reward's reduced HPPD.
 
sounds like your psych is full of shit, how is that even possible?

HPPD isn't a big deal so long as you aren't getting anxiety from it. Sometimes it's nice to look at a white wall, as it becomes an open canvas for your brain to paint visuals on. I have HPPD and still trip often enough and i really don't mind that i have noticeable visual artifacts constantly when i'm not tripping. Sometimes objects distort right in front of me. Maybe something is messed up in the place where the brain interprets this sensory input and translates it to your brain but it's just what you see. Depersonalization and derealization on the other hand can be really annoying and distracting/scary. I guess the 3 kind of go hand in hand along with anxiety, so clear up anxiety = less hppd imo. Smoking cannabis will only increase your anxiety (well depends on strain and you but in general) so that's why smoking cannabis increases your symptoms of HPPD.
 
Rastahund said:
I have seen an optometrist... they dilated my pupils and said my eyes were healthy. Should I make an appointment and tell them I think I have HPPD and need other tests done maybe? What if they don't know what HPPD is?
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How do they test this ? And how do they dilate the pupils ?
 
i think they commonly use atropine (alkaloid of datura) to dilate the pupils, using eye drops. They do this so they can see the optic nerve better, i'm not sure how often they use atropine but my gf had this done once and she said her eyes were fucked for a few hours after (sensitivity to light, not seeing properly but not hallucinating or anything). I'm quite sure i've read reports of people using these eye drops for recreation.

HPPD isn't well understood, it's hard to get treatment but i think treating it as an extension of an anxiety disorder is the best route, as i mentioned before.
 
Nobody uses atropine to dialate pupils, it lasts too long (weeks), the common drug is something like tropicamide that only lasts a few hours. It's used to image the cornea and the retina.

Also, optometrists test your vision with undialated pupils too.
 
sekio said:
Nobody uses atropine to dialate pupils, it lasts too long (weeks), the common drug is something like tropicamide that only lasts a few hours. It's used to image the cornea and the retina.

Also, optometrists test your vision with undialated pupils too.
Click to expand...

yes you're right i just couldn't remember which anticholinergic was typically used, but it seems that Tropicamide is the one. I just remembered that some of the datura alkaloids have some medicinal uses and have been isolated and used recreationally by some.
 
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