wasps Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 so I have 1mg Lorazepam that I take as needed. I sometimes have to take them in public as I have pretty severe social anxiety and I have panic disorder as well meaning... being out in public is a mess for me in general anyways a couple of months ago when I was working, I took one before I headed off to work. later in the day I started feeling pain in my head but the pain that I felt was like.. in colours and shapes? now, I am a synesthete but this is like nothing I had ever experienced before. I actually drew out how I felt the pain but I unfortunately don't have the drawing with me. anyways I usually take Lorazepam before bed to help me sleep since I've been having bouts of insomnia lately. so I haven't experienced any weird brain shit because I'm asleep. anyways yesterday I popped two during school because something was triggering a panic attack and I really wasn't going to risk having one in public. so I sit down in a private area and I can feel my face tightening up. nothing serious but it did feel weird. afaik benzos are a muscle relaxant so that might of been why? later I head off to a class and I can't even focus on typing out notes because all the letters were really intense. bold letters were pulsing and hurting my eyes. italics were slanted so hard they felt sharp. it was surreal. i didn't know what to think of it. later i drive home and as i'm driving, im seeing weird colours as i drive. i can't remember much of my drive home as theres a hole in my memory there. i get home, and here's where the fun begins. i'm sitting there on my laptop and then suddenly I hear voices. now i knew these weren' t voices I could control (like if you have a conversation with an imaginary friend) because i didn't feel like i could. eventually a sort of conductor dude crawled up onto my head and announced that "everything inside is going well" or something. there was singing. dancing. all inside my head. it was confusing. things were being said over and over again. i tried to write down what was being said but when i went to write it down, it disappeared from my memory. one I was able to catch was "inquire instead of count, they say". like what the hell. and also colours seemed to meld together at points. anyways the hallucinations eventually stopped. but it sure was an experience... tl;dr I take lorazepam to stave off anxiety attacks and end up having mild hallucinations my question is, is this even normal? is it normal to have hallucinations like this on benzos? because I'm fairly certain that's not what theyre supposed to do... haha. it wasn't affecting me negatively in any way, I was just confused. oh, and has anyone else had an experience like this before? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aura Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 I've had mild psychotic symptoms the few times I accidentally mixed alcohol and clonazepam (forgot I'd taken it... I've since stopped drinking altogether). But not by itself. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasps Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 I've mixed alcohol and benzos before as well (albeit accidentally.. I forgot I had taken them, I was at my graduation ceremony for high school and I was not going to deal with anxiety attacks in that setting) and just felt really sleepy. without the alcohol I start hallucinating like that. I did research this and apparently I should be reporting these symptoms to my pdoc... I have a meeting with her soon so I might as well, I just hope I haven't damaged my brain or something by continuing to take lorazepam. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IcePrincess88 Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 This sounds similar to something that happened to me when I was still smoking marijuana. I hadn't smoked in months, then I dumbly smoked a whole blunt of pretty strong marijuana. What happened after was like nothing I've ever experienced. I closed my eyes cuz I couldn't handle how fucked up I was. Then I started seeing all kinds of colors and weird images. The TV was on too, so while listening to that to try to focus on something else, my mind literally started playing a movie in my head based on what I was hearing. I really thought it was laced with something, but someone else smoked some and they were totally fine. I felt that I was tripping and on Ecstasy. It was the weirdest thing ever, and sorry that it probably doesn't help you. But I've been on benzos a long time, and ever had any problems with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasps Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 no, it does help. it's interesting how my reaction to benzos is similar to your reaction to marijuana. I've never smoked before but I definitely had that sort of feeling. once I noticed the visual hallucinations and the "melding" of colours I knew something really weird was going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IcePrincess88 Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 28 minutes ago, wasps said: no, it does help. it's interesting how my reaction to benzos is similar to your reaction to marijuana. I've never smoked before but I definitely had that sort of feeling. once I noticed the visual hallucinations and the "melding" of colours I knew something really weird was going on. Yes it actually odd that our experience was so similar, but from two different drugs. And this isn't great to admit to, but I've actually taken real Ecstasy a couple times and I never felt anything really. But just that one "trip" of marijuana had me really feel I had taken a combo of Ecstasy and Acid.(I have way too much anxiety to ever try Acid, but I imagine it's exactly like I was feeling). My theory to both of our stories is that we both probably took much of a certain substance and had a panic attack that had very weird symptoms. I know that Lorezapem is for anxiety, and marijuana is used for the same thing in some places. But I theorized when you have a panic attack anyway even after taking the meds/drugs for it, it makes it a really crazy experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
melissaw72 Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 I take lorazepam here and there right now, and I've had no hallucinations on it. I do have hallucinations in general, but I have been hallucination-free for about a month or so. No voices, no music, no echoes ... pure silence. And during this time was when I started the lorazepam. And none of the hallucinations started up again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wasps Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 11 hours ago, IcePrincess88 said: But I theorized when you have a panic attack anyway even after taking the meds/drugs for it, it makes it a really crazy experience. you know, this might have been it. I was already halfway into having a panic attack as I had gotten some pretty inconvenient news that day (I missed a lab by accident, fucking executive function issues, I relied so much on my schedule I put into my phone but my school miraculously decided to switch schedules after my spring break... "I should have known", said the lab director - school really isn't a healthy environment for someone who's mentally ill) and by the time I had taken the lorazepam I was practically edging on it actually happen. I really only took two because I wasn't in the right mindset. hell, I got up and bought two donuts and began to stress eat, which isn't something I normally do. anyways I ran upstairs and started crying in a private area and I was breaking down, really. by the time it was time for me to head home (roughly 2 or so hours after I took the lorazepam) I was starting to hallucinate. it wasn't an immediate thing but I definitely noticed the visual hallucinations when I was in my last class of the day. really weird stuff. and @melissaw72, I have auditory hallucinations a lot in general but it moreso has to do with hearing my name being called/yelled out of nowhere (also when I was younger I had visual paranoia-induced hallucinations). now I'm wondering if this might explain why I start hallucinating more heavily on lorazepam, since I'm already prone to mild hallucinations... but that's not true in your case. I'll have to ask my pdoc why this might be happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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