DOSE:

1250 mg

oral

Diphenhydramine

(pill / tablet)

BODY WEIGHT:

215 lb

[Erowid Note: The dose described in this report is very high, potentially beyond Erowid's 'heavy' range, and could pose serious health risks or result in unwanted, extreme effects. Sometimes extremely high doses reported are errors rather than actual doses used.]

I've struggled with depression for as long as I can remember. Because of the way I think about things, and feel about myself, I have a very addictive personality. When I find something that makes it difficult for me to think clearly, or just knocks me out for a couple of hours, I'll take it over and over again, in increasing doses, until it either makes me sick or has an effect I don't like.

I've abused Diphenhydramine since I was able to take medication on my own, without adult supervision. I've gotten a bit more self-control now, and only take about 125mg at a time, and not every day. At one point, I was taking about 250mg a day, every day, and sometimes more. I had to cut back down on it when I started having insomnia, and began fainting in odd places.

Usually, taking a little bit of it, and not being able to really dwell on the things that haunt me when I'm sober is enough for me. And sometimes, that's not the case.

In January of this year (2008), I was going through a very, very depressive period. Like I said previously, I've always struggled with depression, but this was an especially intense time for me. I thought daily (more like hourly) about killing myself. And one day, the thought came to me that I could just swallow all of the pills I was taking every day. Just take them all at once, and pass away into that tingly, mind numbing bliss I was so fond of. How wonderful would it be to just fall asleep and let all of my mental anguish fade away into nothingness?

I didn't plan on doing it. I hadn't thought about it for hours or anything, and then finally plucked up the courage. I literally came to the realization that that would be the best way to go, stood up, went into the bathroom, and swallowed every pill of Diphenhydramine that I had. The bottle was of 100 pills (25mg each), but I'd taken about half of them over the past couple of weeks (that's why my dosage is approximate... I didn't count them). Then I went and sat down in the living room, as if nothing had happened. Luckily for me, I wasn't home alone, and my eldest sister shares my mental state. She knew what I had done, without me saying a word, about five minutes after the fact. A few minutes later, we were in the car, on our way to the hospital.

I started feeling it much more quickly than I usually do. Usually, it takes about forty-five minutes to an hour for me to really feel that it's working, but that night, I started feeling it about twenty minutes in. By the time we reached the hospital, I felt like I couldn't breathe. Somewhere inside me was still rational thought, because it hadn't been long enough to truly mess with my concentration, and I realized that I was breathing. I tried counting the breaths to send that thought home, but even as I counted, it felt like my lungs were growing more and more heavy.

As the nurse was getting information from me for admittance, I found it increasingly harder to speak. At this point, I was terrified, because I could still think clearly. I felt like my mind was alive and screaming, while my body died all around me. By the time they had all of the information they needed, and had taken me to an ER exam room, I was beginning to slip in and out of consciousness, even with my sister smacking my hand and telling me to wake up. I managed to open my eyes every now and then, but what I saw didn't make sense. I thought I was at home, throwing my clothes into the garbage can. I thought I was on a television show. I thought that my sister was my mom (she died in 2002). And I kept moving my arms, even though I didn't feel them, or realize what I was doing. There was a nurse on either side of me, trying to put in an IV, and draw blood, and evidently it took them much longer than it should have, because of my erratic movements.

All at once, in my stupor, I was overwhelmed with nausea. The nurse/doctor brought me a bedpan, and after a lot of painful dry heaving, I threw up what I thought were little bugs in my delirium, but I later realized were remnants of the pills I'd swallowed. After that, I completely lost consciousness to myself. Supposedly, I woke up several more times, and talked to a few of the nurses, but I have no actual recollection of it. They put a catheter in me, and I had no idea until my sister told me about it, later on. The next thing I remember was waking up in a hospital bed the next morning, with my sister and a nurse who'd been instructed to stay with me.

I ended up being admitted into a psychiatric ward for a week, and almost losing my job during my absence.

In conclusion... don't do this. Seriously. It's a fun drug to take a little bit of, but in large doses it's completely terrifying. And that's coming from someone who thought she wanted to die! When that stuff kicked in, all I wanted was for it to be out of my system. I was so terrified of what had occurred that I wasn't able to take any more Diphenhydramine (even when I actually needed to, for allergies) for several months, afterward. I take it fairly regularly now, but never more that 125mg. I never want to experience anything like that ever again.

Exp Year: 2008	ExpID: 74486
Gender: Female
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: Jul 20, 2010	Views: 41,659
[ View PDF (to print) ] [ View LaTeX (for geeks) ] [ Swap Dark/Light ]
Diphenhydramine (109) : Bad Trips (6), Overdose (29), Post Trip Problems (8), Train Wrecks & Trip Disasters (7), Alone (16)