Tripping Into Neverland

1. The Beginning

My 21-year-old son knocked on my bedroom door at 3 in the morning. He was freaking out; he thought he was going to die and wanted to call an ambulance to take him to the emergency room. Before I realized he was tripping — -he initially told me he was just “too high” — -I thought I could bring him down by getting him something to eat, acting casual, and maybe making some tea or having him drink enough water to calm him down.

But he persisted. Instead of calling an ambulance, I drove him myself. We were in the depths of COVID and I couldn’t go in with him, so I waited outside on a bench as the sky eventually took on more light. We texted for awhile before someone was able to see him. He was being treated really well, given ice cream and a movie to watch. I finally decided to drive the eight short minutes home and wait to get the call to pick him up from there. We had a puppy at home who had never been left alone before. I came into the house to find him waiting for me next to our two cats.

When I was able to pick him up, he was coming down but still hallucinating on the drive home. The experience had been terrifying for him (and me) and the doctor in the ER classified it as an overdose. I acted as calmly and casually as I could but told him that he had to promise me that he would never do this again. Acid is too unpredictable and he could experience something just as bad or worse next time. He said he agreed. But by the time he started heading up the stairs to his bedroom, he wavered. As he turned to go, I said, “You will never do this again, right?”

He said, “I can’t make any promises.”

2. Early Days

He did do it again.

I found out on a beautiful, hot day when I wanted to take Finn, that puppy I mentioned, to some place to cool off. J came with me and we ended up at a stream with a view of a red covered bridge. Quintessential Vermont. As we walked across the stones in the cool water to get to a good spot, J decided to come clean. Up to this point, I didn’t know that his last trip had any lasting impact or even that there had been another trip after the visit to the ER.

Now he told me that he and a friend had tripped again and when I saw them talking so earnestly in the backyard the other day, it was because they were both freaking out. This time, something stayed with him and he couldn’t shake the visual disturbances, the floaters, and disassociation. He had already been to his doctor who prescribed a medication that was meant to manage anxiety, but it only made matters worse.

He told me he had Hallucinogenic persisting perception disorder or HPPD. I had no idea what this meant, but later learned that, according to Psychology Today, HPPD is a cognitive disorder in which people continue to experience hallucinations they first experienced while under the influence of a substance. I read that it “…is more than the experience of psychosis while under the influence of a hallucinogenic drug or a flashback in the days following a ‘bad trip.’” It isn’t diagnosed under the trip is over. The article went on to say that, “The person continues to experience persistent flashbacks that can negatively impact their vision, cause anxiety, and make it difficult to function properly and manage day-to-day responsibilities.”

I sat and listened, stunned that he had done this again. I knew I couldn’t lash out or express how disappointed I was that he had taken this risk. But what the hell! Here was my 20-something-year-old son knowingly adding more roadblocks to his already not easy path. I was honestly so afraid of what was next. As we did more research on this diagnosis — (a self-diagnosis, by the way) — we found again and again, people — sometimes doctors, sometimes people in an HPPD facebook group — -saying there was no cure. Saying that for some it was a life-long struggle, one that never went away, one that took away their ability to function fully in life and that also took away any option of drinking coffee, never mind drinking alcohol or getting high. Those days were over. Any kind of partying would obliterate any progress that was made.

I took it in. I was thinking for sure there was medication or some other option that would fix this. What couldn’t be fixed? There was a solution for everything.

But this was early days.

3. No Cure?

According to Psychology Today, this happens to about 4.3 % of the people who take hallucinogens (Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder (HPPD) | Psychology Today).

We researched doctors who may have better answers than the ones we were finding locally and came across Dr. Henry Abraham of the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts Medical School in Massachusetts. He has researched and treated the condition for many years. He is considered an expert in this field. He discussed HPPD and its treatment in an interview with Neurology Times. Dr. Abraham noted “there’s a tremendous lack of understanding of this condition and a tremendous lack of awareness.” He and colleagues have discovered much about this disorder, including that it is neurobiological in nature and characterized by “occipital disinhibition.” This means, from what I can surmise, that when a person with HPPD closes his eyes, it can be like tripping all over again. To get a much more specific definition, check out this article by Dr. Abraham. (For more on what appears to be happening in the brain, Abraham’s papers are a good place to start. Here is a link to one of them: https://www.neurologylive.com/view/when-partys-over-case-hppd.)

According to Abraham, about half of those with HPPD will fully recover over five years. He also stated that “there is no cure for HPPD other than mother nature.”

This is what we hear from all sources. But how can this be true? In this wide world with so much possibility, how? There has got to be someone who knows the answer. Or has a different answer.

I want to find out. It seems to me that with all the increased attention to the ritual of ayahuasca and the recent promotion of using psychedelics for mental health, there must be experience in some pocket of the world with healing the negative repercussions. If psychedelics have been part of rituals for years in Native American rites of passage, wouldn’t there be knowledge about healing? The least I can do is try to find out.