DOSE:

450 mg

oral

Diphenhydramine

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

120 lb

Similar to most of the other diphenhydramine experiences here, I was bored, drug-less, and wanted to 'trip out'. I had previously had plenty of experience with altered mindsets (marijuana, alcohol, painkillers abuse, valium, meth, shrooms, morning glory seeds, opium, etc etc.)

However, the combination of a chime-alarm system keeping me from sneaking out at night for drug hook ups and confiscated weed by the parents put me in a very sober position! Anyway, I have lots of stupid friends and too much free time to read about cheap ways to get stoned, so I knew everything about all that OTC crap. CCCs, diphenhydrmaine (Benedryl�), Dramamine �, dxm (robotripping) and I was finally desperate enough to try it.

I bought a box of some generic sleep aid from the local pharmacy and remembered to check that it was diphenhydramine HCI� no acetaminophen or pseudoephedrine type chemical. I went home, set out 8 pills (each 25 mg.) for a total of 200 mg. This seemed like a good test-run dose being a 120 pound teenage female. I started to notice the trip about an hour after ingestion and felt pretty neutral. I was very tired and felt too dizzy to sit up, so I went to lie down in my bed. My legs felt insanely restless; I constantly had to shake or stretch them out, or I would feel so tense in the rest of my body. I started having lucid dreamlike thoughts, where I would completely forget I had been staring at something and snap back into reality.

At one point, I was staring straight into the eyes of a very old woman who was getting her hair done at a salon. She just kept staring me straight in my eyes, and I asked my friend sitting next to me, 'Is it rude to keep staring?' After I had spoken aloud for the first time during any of these trips, I snapped back into reality and realized that I had been staring at jeans and talking to absolutely no one.

I started to get freaked out by how real all of the trips were. This was nothing like acid, where I felt such intense euphoria and love for emotions that I could taste and hear in the form of music. There's nothing trippy or profound about diphenhydramine. Its more like �Hi, wanna experience the biggest W.T.F. of your life?� At least with acid or shrooms when a trip is outrageous, you say to yourself (or friends) man this is amazzzzing. With diphenhydramine I was just in this horribly sedated, uncomfortable zone and I didn't even know it!!

So, naturally, I decided to try it again the next weekend. But this time, it would be better because I would do more pills, or I would have better music, or a trip sitter, or something. I just knew it could be better. (Although I never ended up having a sitter.)

This time, I downed 18 pills for a total of 450 mg. I assumed that since it was still 50 mg below the LD-50 that I would be perfectly fine. I assumed that because I had an 80 pound friend who could handle 1200 mg and 3 shots of vodka, that I would be fine. I assumed that because 18 was only 10 more than 8 that I would be perfectly, completely fine. Although it could be argued that you can't 'responsibly' abuse OTC drugs, I felt that I was pretty damn responsible about it. I read everything I could get my hands on before, I measured out seemingly perfect dosages� what happened should NOT have happened.

I barely even remember anything from that night, but I remember going to the bathroom 10 minutes after ingestion and feeling as if I were in a padded box and there were dozens of hands pulling at my hair, but that I didn't really care. Then, I became very paranoid and quickly stood up and looked across my room to see a perfectly normal shadow. The shadow started to move and turn into a figure that wanted to hurt me. I quickly just bolted out of my room and across the hallway into my brother's room (He was playing video games and even in this delirious state, I thought that I'd feel safer around him, even though he was only 13 at the time and not up on my drug usage). I was sitting on his bed and I remember rocking a lot.

After that, the first thing I remember (that I haven't been retold by my brother, doctors, or parents) is having these large faceless/figureless blobs prick me with needles and asking me questions; they kept telling me that I was doing great and to keep on swallowing. That's all I remember until the morning after when I woke up really disoriented.

That day I found out that the previous night, I passed out, started having seizures, and going into hyperthermia. My little brother yelled for my parents, and they called 911. The EMTs rushed me to an emergency room, where I managed to swallow 8 oz. of charcoal but then vomited so they had to pump my stomach. I was also put into this ice bath to lower my body temperature. Apparently I had a conversation with the hospital psychiatrist and social workers, asking me why I did this and other questions but I couldn't have been more incoherent so they assumed I was basically crazy. The hospital would not release me until they felt I was better, so I stayed inpatient for a gruesome 4 days.

To be released, part of the deal was that I had to go to a 14-day inpatient rehab program and a 12-week outpatient drug and alcohol program. Aside from that, a lot of psychological problems resulted from the diphenhydramine overdose. I'm extremely paranoid in my house and I have all these conflicted subconscious issues that I can't deal with because I don't remember that night (Such as, only in my room-- I started getting anxiety attacks if I look at anything too long because it morphs and distorts, and the shadow on the door still freaks me out. My head starts to hurt if I stare at the tiles in my bathroom too long. Basically anything that my subconscious associates with that night, I can't deal with.)

The whole process just sucks. Please, please take into account your SELF. Everyone really does react to drugs differently. Weight distribution might not always be a sure-fire thing to go by. If you're thinking about using OTC drugs to get high, just don't. I'm one of hundreds of kids that had really lighthearted intentions, but now (as a result) getting pee-tested every couple of days, therapy, etc...its not at ALL lighthearted. It bugs me all the time that I can't even remember the night that has shaped so much of my current life and time. It seems like I'm always either at therapy or at required drug & alcohol program, and one night of dissacosiative tripping was NOT worth 6 months of all this.
---Peace and Love.---

Exp Year: 2005	ExpID: 49192
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Oct 9, 2006	Views: 138,764
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Diphenhydramine (109) : Small Group (2-9) (17), Overdose (29), Health Problems (27)