Let me start off by saying I'm dutch, so English isn't my native language. Explaining what is happening to me is hard enough in my own language, so if something is not clear dont hesitate to ask.
Almost 14 years ago, i was 18 at the time, I went away for a weekend with 3 mates. All of us have been smoking weed on a daily basis for about 4 years at that time. Myself and one other mate expiremented a bit with other drugs, mainly xtc and speed. While the other 2 already were quite experienced with harddrugs. Long story short, all of us had enough of that life, it was time to move on and say goodbye to drugs and make something out of ourselfs.
So as a goodbye to that period in our lifes we rented a small cottage for the weekend and stacked up on drugs. We had lots of weed, coke, speed, xtc and mushrooms. Once we arrived we started with weed to get in the mood. Pretty soon after that each of us took xtc, followed with some speed. Somewhere along the way I started feeling anxious. Instead of dealing with it or talking about it I just ignored it and continued taking speed. Somewhere around midnight, we had been using for at least 8 hours at that point, that anxious feeling resulted in a panic attack. The following 20 or so hours was dictated by panic attacks. Me and my friends had no clue what was going on or what to do. Even though all of us were experienced users, none of us whitnessed anything like this.
During this 20 hour period Ive thought several times I wasn't going to survive or at least end up in a hospital. These thought kept feeding the panic attacks obviously.
Once I finally calmed down enough, I went to bed to try and get some sleep. I remember feeling that there was a good chance I wasnt going to wake up at all.
When I woke up the next day I obviously wasn't feeling very well. Instead of having a hangover of some sort, it felt more like as if I still was under the influence of all that drugs we took the day before. On top of that I felt anxious and kinda numb at the same time. I also wasn't experiencing life as I did before. It's hard to explain but it was almost as if I was hiding inside myself or in some sort of weird and blurry shell. I've always been very sensitive, but that shell is blocking most emotions.
After a day like that I expected to feel shitty for a few days, but I assumed that it was going to be temporary. It wasn't. Im still feeling as if im a little bit under the influence of that drugs cocktail I had that night.
Im not experiencing life as I did before. Not only is it like im seeing things as if im looking trough a blurry go-pro camera, my head is really blurry as well. I used to be a decent student, I varied from being above average to being top of the class. In this state I wouldnt be even close to average.
For a long time I was convinced that I had brain damage. That thought scared me and I was embarrased to talk about it. I've had some therapy but I never really openly talked about what had happened and what the consequenses were. Therapy did help me with my panic attacks though, After having panic attacks weekly for about 6 years I finally had them under control.
I hoped that as soon as I no longer was suffering from panic attacks, that weird and blurry feeling would go away as well, sadly it didn't.
2 years ago I couldn't take it anymore and decided to just go for it, I needed to know what was going on and if possible what I could do about it. First thing I did was going to the hospital to check if I had brain damage, after a few scans and tests they couldnt find anything, it all looked normal. Finally I found some answers online, by accident I came across a story of someone that had depersonalization/derealization disorder. Since I found out that this was what I've been dealing with I've been in therapy. But even after alot of therapy, living healthy and being open about what happened I stil feel the same.
That's why I decided to sign up on this forum. Hoping that I could find some answers and possibly help others.
I'm also very curious to find out if there are more people that feel as if they are drugged, or feel as if they are constantly hungover.
Thanks in advance for taking your time to read this, I hope everything is clear.
