DOSE:	hits	oral	DXM
	repeated	oral	Diphenhydramine
	repeated	smoked	Cannabis
	7 hits	oral	LSD
	1/16 oz	oral	Mushrooms
	.5mg repeated	oral	Pharms - Clonazepam	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

I used to be really big on drug use, especially hallucinogens. I did skittles (DXM), LSD, psilocybin mushrooms, and shitloads of deliriants, i.e. diphenhydramine (Benadryl). and obviously, weed.

I did DXM once. Then I went on a diphen spree because it was cheaper than weed. I was on it for maybe a month or two or three (that stuff FUCKS with your memory). I did it maybe twenty times in all. Of course I got mental problems from this. Since being on diphen is basically putting yourself into a psychotic state, I pretty much bought the ticket and took the ride. And I got what I deserved. I got really bad HPPD from this, for those of you who don't know what this is, it's basically like your whole mindset is one flashback to whatever hallucinogenic drug you got it from. (However this is usually associated with LSD.)

After I got over the benadryl shit because I realized it was ruining my life (plus its bad for your liver, heart, BRAIN, etc.) I realized that I not only had HPPD but I was also hearing the voices that I would hear on diphen trips, only at night when I went to sleep. I found that I only heard them at night when I tried to sleep. Also I got extreme depression, to the point of suicidal thoughts the majority of the week. Well marijuana basically solved the problems of depression and hearing voices for me, so for pretty much the whole summer I sat around with my friends and toked. My HPPD didn't get worse in the long run but it definitely turned weed into a strangely pseudo-psychedelic experience that I had never experienced before. It was weird.

Eventually my parents caught me for smoking pot. They decided that in order to keep me from making this 'mistake' again, they would drug test me. Well the voices came back. However now they started making coherent sentences, unlike the garbled random crap that wasn't even real words that I heard on diphen trips. I basically lost it, not because of the voices but because my mind was constantly in this weird psychotic state with my thoughts branching off like a tree, over-analyzing everything from a building to a speck of dust. Everything was a weird metaphor for something or some kind of strange symbolism.

A few months later I was offered LSD at my work. I said to myself, what the hell, this can't get any worse. I dropped acid by myself once at night (1 hit) and then once during the day at school, however it was something like 5 or 6 hits this time. I felt afterwards like my mind had returned to complete normal, except the HPPD was still the same, no better or worse. The best part of the experience of all was that it completely killed the voices in my head and constant thoughts of suicide.

Then I made the dumbass mistake of doing mushrooms. Not that LSD was the greatest idea in the world, but the little good that LSD had done (by accident) was undone by shrooms. I did them once, I ate about a half eighth. It was cool I guess but the voices came back and so did the depression.

After a few months I just couldn't handle it anymore and finally explained to my parents what I had done and what my mental and psychological issues were. We went through multiple doctors, some good, some straight-up retards. I got an MRI, etc, but there was nothing physically wrong with my brain, save the fact that I had a 'small' amount of tissue loss in my rear right hemisphere of my brain. Well when I looked at the MRI I said 'that's not exactly a small amount of tissue loss' but since the area didn't have anything to do with my problems (?... I dont know how they 'knew' this)
I was sent back to a psychiatrist. I told him about what I had read on the internet about HPPD patients and that my symptoms were very similar, even though I got it from diphenhydramine instead of LSD. He originally suggested Risperidal and I shot him down immediately because I've read MULTIPLE stories of risperidone making HPPD much worse. I suggested Klonopin since I had read great things about it helping HPPD patients. He agreed to try it, I started on .5 mg at bedtime.

WHAT A DIFFERENCE. My mind completely shifted back to its normal state. I felt calm and not always on edge. My HPPD reduced by maybe 65%. I still had some static but not much else. He agreed to increase the dosage to .5mg at night and .5mg in the morning. Since then my HPPD has improved by 85% and the only effects I still have are some minor static. I would say that clonazepam is the closest thing to a miracle drug there is for HPPD sufferers. Unfortunately, Klonopin did not solve the issue of hearing voices at night, nor did it solve my depression.

I don't want to take antipsychotics because they usually make HPPD worse (like I said before) and also because having the diagnosis of schizophrenia is a very bad thing, it makes it hard to get a drivers license, and since I want to be a politician someday (I'm still in high school now) it would be bad if someone found out that I was 'schizophrenic' which I'm not, I know the voices aren't real and I don't really have any other symptoms in common with schizophrenia.

I don't want to use antidepressants because the vast majority of them use the serotonin system to improve your mood and fucking with my serotonin (and acetylcholine) systems is what gave me HPPD, I dont want to trigger a flashback or reversal of the good that Klonopin has done.

In short, Klonopin has changed my life for the better. I am a much more stable and sane person because of it, not to mention I can make the long process of HPPD recovery much mroe tolerable and maybe even shorter because of it.

I hope to all you who have HPPD learned something from my mistakes or maybe even your own. Klonopin works miracles.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 71297
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Aug 23, 2009	Views: 76,985
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Pharms - Clonazepam (125) : Various (28), Therapeutic Intent or Outcome (49), Multi-Day Experience (13), HPPD / Lasting Visuals (40), Medical Use (47), Health Problems (27), Retrospective / Summary (11)