One thing that MASSIVELY pisses me off is how fainting is shown in media. It’s always the person sways a little, collapses in one movement, and then is unconscious for like… fucking ages??? They wake up hours later tucked under a blanket and it’s acted like that’s normal. It’s NOT. A person that’s fainted should be back with you pretty quickly, actually:
(From NHS website)
I had an experience in my last work place where I fainted, but because it looks so different to how it’s shown in film and TV my managers had no idea what had happened. Here’s a comparison of usual media vs my actual fainting that they were all confused by-
Films, TV shows, plays etc:
1) Person goes “oh goodness” or something similar whilst holding hand to chest
2) eyes roll back, gracefully falls to the floor
3) nearby people see the poor fainted person, pick them up, put them on a bed or sofa
4) person comes to hours or even days later with no idea what happened and everyone else is just like “oh good you’ve woken up 🙂”
My usual fainting experience:
1) Everything starts spinning. Incapable of making words as my sole focus is on trying to get myself to the ground ASAP
2) Stumble to floor/chair/ anything I can lean against
3) Quick violent slump as actual faint occurs. There is no dainty falling- the whole body has hit shut down. Usually smack my head on the floor if I haven’t managed to get myself somewhere soft
4) Aware of surroundings almost immediately, but takes a few seconds to fully come back round
5) Carefully sit back up and explain to everyone going “what the fuck happened” that I fainted, and no, I do not need smelling salts actually.
This is like the heart attack discourse… much needed.
100% how fainting looks and feels, from both sides.
My experience of fainting is that everything goes fzzmfpfosidfkssfdksljfjsjdf and then less than a second later I am like, “Oh. A floor.” The time this happened, I was already processing again (if only at the level of, “Oh. A floor,” and “so where the fuck did my toothbrush go”) before other people could address questions like Why Was There A Loud Thump In The Bathroom and Are You All Right.
My last thought before passing out was “what happened to the light?” and then I hit the floor
I’ve fainted a few times from dehydration, hunger/blood sugar, and orthostatic hypotension (AKA being too tall for an ordinary human heart). My whole visual field turns into TV static (if you’re a Young'un, your vision is slowly washed out by random tiny pixels of color and when I’m really about to pass out it covers everything), I get a weird warm pressurized feeling in my face like it’s been inflated from the inside, and then I wake up on the floor. The best ways I’ve found to combat this are, in order:
1. Fucking eat and drink regularly and get at least Some Sleep
2. Take a deep breath when I stand up if I’ve been sitting or crouching for a long time
3. Tense my abdominal muscles if I get the face feeling
4. Immediately crouch down if the Colors start taking over so my skull isn’t carrying all the momentum of falling from six feet in the air
5. If I haven’t eaten all day, don’t take a bunch of huge bong rips and then immediately stand up
6. If at all possible, collapse towards the nearest couch and not onto hardwood or concrete
Using these simple tricks, you, too can prevent your local buff-ass sweetheart ex-Gangster Disciple IHOP server from smacking you in the face as hard as he can and giving you a really awkward but comforting hug when you wake up because you scared him so bad HE was having a panic attack. You can also save yourself from having to go to the ER while you’re tripping balls on shrooms (THAT was a Time, lemme tell ya. Weirdly I was never in any pain at all, despite needing seven stitches because I split my eyebrow so bad I could actually see my skull)
