DOSE:	450 mg	oral	Pharms - Bupropion	(daily)
	repeated		Alcohol
	1350 mg	oral	Pharms - Bupropion	(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

I have bipolar disorder & have faithfully been taking Wellbutrin XL 450 mg every morning for the last 4 years. At the time I was not on a mood stabilizer & was in the midst of a major depressive episode. I don’t believe that had any effect on the physiological symptoms, however.

After drinking enough to be fairly inebriated, I thought it would be a good idea to take approx. 9 tablets of 150 mg Wellbutrin XL because it was the only drug that ever worked for me; if it didn’t improve my mood I’d hoped it would at least kill me or knock me out for a long long time. I took the pills around 2 or 3 am & went to bed immediately after.

Around 6 am I practically jumped out of the bed extremely disoriented due to the incredible nervous energy radiating throughout my body & mind. I was twitching, uncoordinated, & had slight difficulty choosing words. I snuck out of my apartment without waking bf or friends & hopped on a bus to get to a train station which would take me to a hospital I knew fairly well.

I definitely blacked out on the bus & probably looked like I was overdosing on something. At this point my sense of time was non-existent & I knew that Wellbutrin can cause hallucinations. I was terrified that my heart was going to simply stop from beating so fast, and incredibly paranoid that I was seeing & interacting w/ things that weren’t there (or failing to register important information like oncoming cars).

30 ft from the bus stop I had a seizure & fell down all the stairs leading into the subway. I have no idea how long I was unconscious or whether it was because of the seizure or my head making the acquaintance of each & every stair. I woke up feeling very strange & all I could think of is “Why is my face so cold? Why do I feel like I’m lying down when I’m not? Why is my face so cold?” That went on for a while & then I realized there was a man standing over me. He asked me if I was ok. I definitely was not ok but I nodded on post-seizure autopilot. I kept laying there on the ground & he walked away w/out another word. That was a fairly strange interaction so I’m not sure if he was real.

I was growing more & more disoriented, incoherent, & I knew my auditory, visual, & tactile perception was distorted. I eventually made my way onto the train & wound up getting off at the wrong stop & having no idea where I was, where I was going, or if the people I was seeing everywhere were real. I kept hearing very fast footsteps all around me, hissing whispers in male voices & gentle muffled feminine voices, almost like singing. After I saw there wasn’t a living soul on any of the blocks I could see, my thinking was a little less realistic. Instead of suspecting a rapist or mugger I thought maybe they were demons & angels arguing & coming to escort me from this world (but they were definitely auditory hallucinations lmao). I had lost my phone when falling down the stairs & had no money or ID. Thankfully I remembered the word, “hospital” & my heart palpitations, increasingly fast pulse rate, higher & higher blood pressure, & terrifying confusion kept reminding me of my ‘mission.’ I believe I found my way to the hospital myself because that’s where I wound up.

By the time I got there, (rough estimation 10-11 am) I was so incoherent that I insisted it was the year 2006. (But I did know who the president was!) When they asked how many pills I took I said “A multiple of 3...like 3 or 9 or 12.” Well, it obviously wasn’t 3...lol & for personal reasons it makes a lot of sense that I would take a multiple of 3 so 9 or 12 is what I’m sticking with.

11 to noon is when the barfing began. It wasn’t cathartic in any way. I was afraid my heart was going to come out my mouth. Literally everything felt like it was shaking & twitching including my heart & other organs. It was probably exacerbated by my frantic & incoherent racing thoughts and distorted sensory perception. That went on for hours. It was impossible to sleep or rest because of the terrible nervous energy & thudding heart. They kept me in the cardiology unit for three days hooked up to IV, mad electrodes & just so many wires that I couldn’t get out of bed w/out help. After about a day & a half my heart slowed down enough that I could sleep fairly well. After 2 days I felt mostly fine & eager to get out. They gave me some more brain scans & sent me on my merry way. Throughout the entire experience, I felt incredibly guilty, terrified, embarrassed &, later, belittled by understandably insensitive hospital staff.

I do NOT recommend taking Wellbutrin recreationally. I have experimented w/smaller dosages (750 mg – 900 mg) & the effects are the same only a bit less intense. None of them are enjoyable because there is an overwhelming sense of paranoia & any visual hallucinations are usually terrifying or startling at the least. From my personal experience...

EXAMPLES:

Male voices hissing & female voices singing which are quite disconcerting when alone.
Seeing movement & shadows in my peripherals which disappear rapidly the second I turn to look.

I once saw an overturned bowl in my kitchen w/two wasps flying around inside & buzzing clear as day. I didn’t understand how they possibly could have gotten there so I had a friend come over to verify. There were no wasps & amusingly there was no bowl either...

Very convincing footsteps EVERY time I have overdosed or even taken one or two extra. The creepiest part is that when I stop to turn around & see if someone is following you, the footsteps always stop too. I thought maybe I was hearing my own steps but they’re always the same - I’d hear heeled boots hitting concrete even when I was walking barefoot on carpet. Pair that up w/the sneaky shadows & movement in the peripherals & you have created a nice little nightmare for yourself that can last up to 24 hours.

There are so many better things to do recreationally than Wellbutrin. Do yourself a favor - never take more than 450 mg, & only use it for its amazing depression-ravaging properties!

Exp Year: 2010	ExpID: 96276
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: 20
Published: Feb 27, 2013	Views: 17,102
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Pharms - Bupropion (87) : Hospital (36), Hangover / Days After (46), Overdose (29), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Health Problems (27)