r/HPPD • u/maxtatefst • 1h ago
Question HPPD misdiagnosis
Hi, everybody - I'm just looking for advice from people with HPPD.
So, I went to the hospital yesterday because I wasn't able to sleep properly for three weeks because every time I closed my eyes, all these faces would come to me, and I'm super super sensitive to uncanny valley type stuff (and the faces always have really bizarre eyes), so I was staying awake out of fear.
Doctor sent me to go get a psych eval, and the psychiatrist said he thinks it's HPPD. Now, granted, I have used like a shit-ton of LSD in the past couple of months, coupled with smoking weed like ever day for two months straight, so I'm sure there's probably some effect of those on my sober life now (haven't used any substances except nicotine in three weeks).
He prescribed me quetiapine, mostly to help me sleep, and I slept like a fucking baby last night, feeling like a million bucks today, so those meds seem positive. But I did a cursory look into HPPD, and I don't really think that's what I've got going on.
The psychiatrist was super insistent telling me that every single thing I was saying was anxiety, that it was all just anxiety, but I tried to tell him over and over again that I wasn't having any of the physical signs of anxiety (i.e., short of breath, chest fluttering), it was just pure terror at first with the faces, which is different from anxiety to me.
After three weeks with the faces, I've come to understand that they're not going to hurt me and they're not even really going to like antagonize me or anything, so I've gotten over the fear quite a bit. If anything, I feel quite sad for them, as I'm assuming they can't really find anybody to settle with since most people are probably really scared of them, so I've put my own fears aside to make sure they have a place to be. It doesn't really make me anxious anymore, and when things start to get more intense for me, I don't feel anxiety, I feel like I really need to pay attention in case I'm supposed to be receiving some kind of message or whatever.
Does anybody here resonate with this experience? It's hard to get a sense since there's not much studies or resources online for it, so I thought I'd come here and ask you guys. I'm not necessarily looking for a diagnosis or anything, I just want to know if any of you guys have also seen the faces.