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struggling to cope after brain damage from opiate overdose

B

burn out

Bluelighter
Joined
Nov 11, 2006
Messages
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Location
Michigan
a few days i did some heroin after being clean for a long time and my tolerance was too low and it caused me to go into a heavy nod. When I woke up the next day I realized something had gone wrong, my breathing must have become too shallow because I woke up with the symptoms of a hypoxic brain injury.

now i am really struggling. i dont know what to do with myself, i will try to watch tv but its so dreary so i try to read a book but lose interest. Nothing I do seems to bring any relief. I feel depressed, anxious, can't stop regretting the overdose, feel hopeless.

the first 2 days i had problems with memory and articulating my speech but those things seem to have improved rapidly. now i am just left with this dulll, listless feeling, like the part of my brain where all the action used to take place is not working.

i know i need to give myself more time to recover, but even an hour is hard to get throiugh how am i gonna get through the months or years it takes to recover from this?

has anyone been through similar and how long did it take to recover?

i have been watching videos of people who have been through far worse hypoxic brain damage and i cant even imagine the suffering they must go through if i think this is so bad. its just too much for me.
 
It sounds like classic physical (your brain) and psychological trauma. This happened to me a few times when I lived in Boston - scared the shit out of me and my life vacillated between a dark depression and periods of really poor decision making due to all the stress I was experiencing from my near death experiences. I also didn't have anyone in my life at this point I could talk to about this, and I think that made it a lot worse.

I think it took a week or three for me to recovery physically, but psychologically it took far, far longer. What kind of support do you have?
 
what happened to you in boston? a hypoxic brain injury? I dont have any support. thats my biggest problem. i really need to talk to someone about what i am going through emotionally right now. i had already had serious problems i was just barely able to cope with before this happened, but things were going well. i just cant believe another major traumatic event has happened to me.
 
I've experienced similar from benzos and booze, and one time drinking a case of beer on Anatbuse (I stopped breathing and my bp hovered around 30/10 for hours). It's pretty scary, try not to obsess about it as you'll make the depression and anxiety worse. Eat healthy (clean), exercise (whether you feel like it or not - at least go walk an hour a day), take a good multivitamin (Garden of Life), and get plenty of sleep (if you can). Make sure you are eating enough healthy fat and protien - these are critical for quicker recovery. You'll feel significantly better in a few weeks, and will continue to improve.

You say you need to talk to somebody and need support - talk to us. Most of us have had serious and difficult life issues, debilitating addictions, and mental health issues. We can listen, we can most likely relate, we can support, and we don't judge. What's going on?
 
In boston I OD'd a number of times, and one of them I was alone at home. I came to about 10 hours after the fact thanks to my partner, who probably ended up saying my life. I had been sitting on a chair without a headrest and my head was bent 90 degrees over the back of the chair. I am very lucky, if she hadn't woken me up or I had vomited I almost certainly wouldn't be talking to you today. I don't know the extent of the damage, but when I was found she (with paramedic training) could barely tell if I was breathing.

Human bodies and brains are incredibly resilient. Try not to let yourself write your situation off as unchanging or forever.

There are lots of helpful, nonjudgemental folks here (that pretty much sums up the community), so whether you feel safer talking privately via PMs or in this thread, please don't hesitate to reach out to any of us.
 
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thank you both for your responses. you have no idea how much it means to me. Can I ask if you guys had symptoms like mine and did they go away?

I went to work today for the first time since the episode (Im only working part time right now so i had a few days off and didnt even need to call in sick) and i did really well, so i am functioning at a very high level. No one noticed anything amiss with me.

what concerns me though is how i feel, i just don't feel like my old self, it feels like my mind has been damaged. How much more recovery can I expect? Will things to continue to get better as they have been?

I don't think I am dealing with this well at all. In my research on hypoxic brain injuries I saw people so much worse than I am, people who took years to learn how to walk again, and I admire their bravery and persistence. Me on the other hand, all I can think about is what I have lost and how life is not worth living anymore. It was barely worth living beforehand.
 
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Try not to let yourself implant the idea that you have caused permanent damage--that will only create stress and make any symptoms worse. Take it a day at a time. Mark the times you feel good or normal just as much as the times you feel off. If life was barely worth living before, you have work to do. Concentrate on yourself, on your deepest desires. Make small changes in your habits, challenge yourself and never consider anything a failure--look at everything as a "try" and know that there is no limit on how many times or how many ways a person can try to create the life they want.
 
I know I have work to do, that's the problem I am afraid this new damage is going to prevent me from accomplishing it. I was in already in a major healing process when this happened, working through deep pain and trauma and after years of loneliness and isolation, just beginning to desire to reconnect with other people and the world. Now I feel like that process has been interrupted and I don't know where to pick up or what my brain is even up for.
 
I don't know the degree to which I was harmed, but your symptoms sound familiar. Generally things like this don't seem to get worse, they only get better. But if you ruminate on the what if's and catastrophize you will almost certainly psych yourself out. Try and go about things with the most open mind possible, with the understanding that you really don't know how you'll end up, for worse and for better.

You sound like you are well on your way to mending, though the psychological trauma of OD can last a long, long time. Can you see a therapist who specializes in trauma to discuss this? That would be ideal.
 
I havnt experienced anything close to what you're going thru, but I would recommend what moreaux said: sleep (iv found if you have trouble melatonin supplements are good), exercise, and eat healthily (iv found that cutting out all non-natural sugars and most bread products helps me think clearer and feel better after as little as 3 days, just don't eat anything with any form of sweetener in the ingredients list and try to eat less carbs)
 
toothpastedog said:
It sounds like classic physical (your brain) and psychological trauma. This happened to me a few times when I lived in Boston - scared the shit out of me and my life vacillated between a dark depression and periods of really poor decision making due to all the stress I was experiencing from my near death experiences. I also didn't have anyone in my life at this point I could talk to about this, and I think that made it a lot worse.

I think it took a week or three for me to recovery physically, but psychologically it took far, far longer. What kind of support do you have?
Click to expand...

I think that when we actually grok in fullness that we are impermanent beings that are very vulnerable and death is where we are headed it brings on a serious depression in many people. The same thing can happen with psychedelics. So I wouldn't say the issue for the OP is brain damage per se but rather a deeper awareness of the actual facts of life. Schopenhauer can put it all in an overwhelming perspective if you read his work "Studies in Pessimism". I'm in the same place as the OP and have been for many years now. I haven't worked out a way to live with this deeper knowledge of reality and be happy but I do believe there is a way to live with it. Schopenhauer addresses that cosmic challenge also. This is only my 2 cents.

OP I wish you the very best of luck you've gone very deep into the rabbit hole and it's fucking scary. I'm always available for a chat via PM if you feel that might benefit you. I don't pull punches however. I'm not going to reassure you that everything is going to be alright. But I'm good to go deep into it.
 
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toothpastedog said:
I don't know the degree to which I was harmed, but your symptoms sound familiar. Generally things like this don't seem to get worse, they only get better. But if you ruminate on the what if's and catastrophize you will almost certainly psych yourself out. Try and go about things with the most open mind possible, with the understanding that you really don't know how you'll end up, for worse and for better.

You sound like you are well on your way to mending, though the psychological trauma of OD can last a long, long time. Can you see a therapist who specializes in trauma to discuss this? That would be ideal.
Click to expand...

I don't have medical insurance or very much money but I will try to find a way to see a therapist. I feel like this experience broke open another emotional wall I had put up and a lot of my feelings of loneliness and my inability to connect with people and form relationships have been coming up.

I definitely seem to be getting better and am actually starting to think I might be ok even as pessimistic as I tend to be. If things would just keep improving, over the next few weeks I should be close enough to normal to where I can reach a point of acceptance and look at this as a learning experience rather than a horrible life ruining event.

One thing it has taught me is to appreciate the life you have no matter crappy it may seem, because it could always be so much worse. I now look at life in the following way: As long as things aren't absolutely terrible, excruciating, maddening and unbearably awful, then you're doing well. Most people dont realize how bad life can get.
 
toothpastedog said:
I don't know the degree to which I was harmed, but your symptoms sound familiar. Generally things like this don't seem to get worse, they only get better. But if you ruminate on the what if's and catastrophize you will almost certainly psych yourself out. Try and go about things with the most open mind possible, with the understanding that you really don't know how you'll end up, for worse and for better.

You sound like you are well on your way to mending, though the psychological trauma of OD can last a long, long time. Can you see a therapist who specializes in trauma to discuss this? That would be ideal.
Click to expand...

I don't have medical insurance or very much money but I will try to find a way to see a therapist. A therapist specializing in trauma is something I should be seeing even before this happened, I have had so much trauma I am just a shell of a person. I feel like this experience broke open another emotional wall I had put up and a lot of my feelings of loneliness and my inability to connect with people and form relationships have been coming up. I have really desired to have a girlfriend in my life, to help support me emotionally, but I feel too fragile and damaged to approach girls and talk to them and act confident how they like.

I definitely seem to be getting better and am actually starting to think I might be ok even as pessimistic as I tend to be. If things would just keep improving, over the next few weeks I should be close enough to normal to where I can reach a point of acceptance and look at this as a learning experience rather than a life ruining event.

One thing it has taught me is that if you're not in a state of extreme, unbearable suffering, you're doing pretty well in life.
 
burn out said:
a few days i did some heroin after being clean for a long time and my tolerance was too low and it caused me to go into a heavy nod. When I woke up the next day I realized something had gone wrong, my breathing must have become too shallow because I woke up with the symptoms of a hypoxic brain injury.

now i am really struggling. i dont know what to do with myself, i will try to watch tv but its so dreary so i try to read a book but lose interest. Nothing I do seems to bring any relief. I feel depressed, anxious, can't stop regretting the overdose, feel hopeless.

the first 2 days i had problems with memory and articulating my speech but those things seem to have improved rapidly. now i am just left with this dulll, listless feeling, like the part of my brain where all the action used to take place is not working.

i know i need to give myself more time to recover, but even an hour is hard to get throiugh how am i gonna get through the months or years it takes to recover from this?

has anyone been through similar and how long did it take to recover?

i have been watching videos of people who have been through far worse hypoxic brain damage and i cant even imagine the suffering they must go through if i think this is so bad. its just too much for me.
Click to expand...

burn out said:
thank you both for your responses. you have no idea how much it means to me. Can I ask if you guys had symptoms like mine and did they go away?

I went to work today for the first time since the episode (Im only working part time right now so i had a few days off and didnt even need to call in sick) and i did really well, so i am functioning at a very high level. No one noticed anything amiss with me.

what concerns me though is how i feel, i just don't feel like my old self, it feels like my mind has been damaged. How much more recovery can I expect? Will things to continue to get better as they have been?

I don't think I am dealing with this well at all. In my research on hypoxic brain injuries I saw people so much worse than I am, people who took years to learn how to walk again, and I admire their bravery and persistence. Me on the other hand, all I can think about is what I have lost and how life is not worth living anymore. It was barely worth living beforehand.
Click to expand...
How are things now man? Have you recovered? Did you ever see a neurologist?
 
Things are worse than ever now, though not directly because of that overdose (another traumatic event happened to me since that was 1,000 times worse) but I never saw a neurologist and I recovered to pretty much 100% except my brain is very sensitive to low levels of oxygen still. This past year of people trying to force me to wear a mask was awful. Every time I was forced to wear a mask, it would bring back the hypoxia symptoms I had after that overdose and I couldn't take it, so I had to deal with people shaming me and telling me what a horrible person I was and how a mask couldn't possibly effect my ability to breathe for a whole year. Thank God that's over, although it doesn't really matter because life is so horrible for me anyway that I pretty much just want to die all the time regardless. Not to sound dramatic, I just feel so over life, it has nothing to offer aside from endless pain.
 
burn out said:
Things are worse than ever now, though not directly because of that overdose (another traumatic event happened to me since that was 1,000 times worse) but I never saw a neurologist and I recovered to pretty much 100% except my brain is very sensitive to low levels of oxygen still. This past year of people trying to force me to wear a mask was awful. Every time I was forced to wear a mask, it would bring back the hypoxia symptoms I had after that overdose and I couldn't take it, so I had to deal with people shaming me and telling me what a horrible person I was and how a mask couldn't possibly effect my ability to breathe for a whole year. Thank God that's over, although it doesn't really matter because life is so horrible for me anyway that I pretty much just want to die all the time regardless. Not to sound dramatic, I just feel so over life, it has nothing to offer aside from endless pain.
Click to expand...
I'm so sorry to hear that man. I hope things get better for you <3
 
HOOH said:
You tried psychedelics?
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Please do not suggest other drugs to people with addiction and mental health issues. This is the second post I've had to pull you up on in The Dark Side in 2 days. Please be more mindful when posting here, or if you can't be helpful and considerate just avoid TDS altogether. Thanks.
 
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