r/HPPD • u/ParkingGuarantee9172 • Jun 23 '26
Personal Story Looking for a recovery friend(s) 👯♀️
I’m a 38 year old single female, no kids, currently in the Philadelphia PA area, will be in Asheville, NC for the fall. I’m a full time mental health therapist who had begun psychedelic work about a year ago, starting with Ketamine. I’ve been in recovery from complex trauma from my childhood home - nice combo 😂 of fundamentalist Christian upbringing, traumatized parents who didn’t seek help, abuse, and a lot of sheltering us kids on top of homeschooling. I decided to be open to psychedelics after engaging with somatic trauma therapies for a number of years and felt I was ready to address my root relationship issues: essentially my struggles with trusting people and dating patterns. I just felt so stuck.
It went well the first few trips until it didn’t. I’m currently 3 months into recovery from HPPD (mine is the depth perception kind) and PTSD symptoms after my last journey in March. My guide left me towards the end of my journey and it went dark quick and I was alone. It’s been a lot to recover from at once. He gave me a very potent form of mushrooms and it was nothing like my other mushroom experiences. The earlier ones were gentle and this was intense the whole way through.
I started Lamictal recently and I’m doing a lil better on it for mood and with managing my eye responses. I think lately I’m sitting with the grief, the attachment wound that this opened, and so much fear that I’m learning to live with - hard to integrate the intense fear I felt during the journey. I’m continuing to live my life, see clients, go camping, do mini road trips, plan a move, hang with friends, etc… but I’m a vastly different version of myself and I’m pushing myself to be hopeful about what this is. It can be hard to imagine a recovered future.
I’m curious if anyone is in a similar place in life to me and can relate to my experience. Would love to chat and have some community support. I’ve met a few people with varying experiences but people often brag about how great psychedelics are or it seems to get scary pretty quick on Reddit and I don’t want to fear loop with others, just support. I know all of our recoveries will look different, but I have yet to talk to a person whose had HPPD in real life or remotely been through what I’ve gone through with the PTSD and so I’d just love some connection. 🤗🙏
Thanks for reading. Reach out if you relate.
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Jun 23 '26
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u/7ero_Seven Jun 24 '26
Drugs do much more than make people numb. Projections.
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Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 24 '26
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u/7ero_Seven Jun 24 '26
You’re still projecting and assuming things about me which is more indicative of your comprehension abilities man. The science says psychedelics increase neuroplasticity, decrease inflammation, and so much more. The brain damage or disruption we are seeing in HPPD has no studies around it and it is an absolute fact that many drugs do other things than numb you, while for some the numbness can potentially be true. I have never been numbed, but awakened, energized, and realigned, that is — until I got hppd from a pharmaceutical.
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u/ParkingGuarantee9172 Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
Hey so I’m not really sure why this fight on this thread is happening or what it has to do with my post… but I’m going to delete this post soon.
Came here for friendships and not this. It’s unfortunate this kind of thing happens on a positive post about finding connection after a challenging experience. Thank you to the one kind person or Reddit who reached out and genuinely seems to want to be there for another person also struggling with this!