Respect phenibut - Warning to the minority of people like me

TLDR: This doesn't apply to most people, only to a small sect of people with a similar disposition to me. Phenibut is fine to use when used safely, don't do what I did.

To get to the point quickly, I found out about phenibut and bought some for eliminating the anxiety felt during stim use. I saw all of the warnings and decided to maintain an arrogant and ill-informed view on what the drug would do to me in particular. I would dose 1g/day every other day to start off with and would experience no apparent bad symptoms on the off-days which would result in me believing that I did not have the potential to develop dependence, this was further made "reality" to me by the posts I read on reddit that claimed that either phenibut withdrawals were not that bad, or that the people experiencing them are "pussies". I believed them.

Yes I did not follow the advice that is given to avoid dependence, and yes it was extremely stupid, but it made me realise that it is actually easy to justify ignoring the good advice and to disregard it due to a belief that I was somehow immune to the risks or that people giving this advice are being overly-cautious. It is easy to fall into the trap of dependence even if it seems obvious to those who use properly. There are a minority of phenibut users who will fall into the same mental traps as me.

What followed this arrogance was a rapid yet somewhat subtle increase in dosage/frequency in which I'd take daily instead of every other day, and I'd take 1.5gs instead of 1g etc. With each off-day I'd feel fine and it'd reinforce this idea that I was not dependent yet and could keep going until I felt mild symptoms to stop. The reality of my increasing dependence was ignored in lieu for my primal desires which would justify "one more dose".

After only 13 days in which I used, yes only 13 days, I didn't take phenibut for 36 hours as I thought I'd take a casual break. Little did I know that I was about to experience the most hellish experience of my entire life. I woke up to a heart rate of 120 (usually 60), severe agitation/anxiety, a feeling of impending doom, exhaustion among other things. At this point the symptoms were not peaked and I was worriedly trying to figure out why I felt the way that I did. Obviously after a few minutes I realised it was the phenibut and that was the most soul crushing realisation I've ever had. I had signed myself up for a ride that I could have easily avoided had my own arrogance not ignored the good advice of others.

That night I had 4 hours of sleep of which I had extremely disturbing nightmares, followed by waking up feeling even worse than the day before. It was now 60 hours into the withdrawal and shit got fucking horrifying. I was so anxious that I genuinely thought I was dying for the whole day, felt so depressed that I genuinely could not fathom a positive thought, I could not stop moving, I was hearing voices and people touching me that weren't there, I was so tired and wanted to sleep but couldn't. I spent the day wandering around outside in literal hell for 8 hours before I got so tired that I had to lie down. I still couldn't sleep for hours past my normal sleep time and the hallucinations got worse, along with the other symptoms until I managed to sleep for a total of 3 hours. I woke up to the same as the day before and was in complete desperation for the entire day until the night came around and I managed to sleep 4 more hours. I'm oversimplifying the negativity of the experience because otherwise I'd be explaining for too long.

The next day I felt the same for half the day, and then halfway through the day I suddenly started to feel a slight relief, the severe symptoms became moderate and it stayed that way for the rest of the day and I managed to sleep for 6 hours instead of 4. The next day was slightly better than the day before and eventually after a gradual shift to normalcy, It felt tolerable by the 6th day, and then all symptoms were gone by the 11th day.

This happened after 13 days of using, which is so unbelievable to me that I can't help but think that I may be neurologically unlucky. Phenibut is fine to use so long as you stick the the once a week rule. Don't cold turkey like I did, it's extremely dangerous.