I’ve seen it happen when I was the one delivering bad news. I’ve since learned to have the person sit down first!
I was working in a scuba diving shop at a resort hotel when the dive boat reported that one of the guests was showing symptoms of decompression sickness (aka the bends).
I was sent to the guest’s room to inform his wife. She dropped straight away. next time it’s better to lead with, “Bob is conscious and breathing just fine.” rather than " There’s been an accident you need to come now."
I once got so distressed that I eventually passed out, when visiting someone in hospice. That was a long gentle slide into it, though, not a sudden thing.
I, personally, have seen it happen. And I don’t mean someone getting weak in the knees or dizzy. Straight fall down faint. Why do you think it is a “gross exaggeration”?
My grandmother fainted when she found out her daughter died. The doctors didn’t make sure that everyone was seated before delivering the news so maybe they don’t see that sort of response very often.
Like some others, I’ve had the whole “legs don’t function” thing happen a few times. Once when I was under a lot of stress for a long time, it happened at random, several different times, which made me worry that I was sick and added to the stress. Fun.
Victorian homes were actually furnished with a “fainting couch”, sometimes actually situated in a dedicated “fainting room”, to which the modest and sheltered young ladies of the house could repair if they should be exposed to unbecoming utterances.
I don’t know if this is an answer to your original question (do people faint from bad news), but I can tell you that I have had an experience that makes me think it is not only possible but actually an attempt by our body to protect us from sudden shocks.
I once closed my hand in a car door. If you’ve ever done that, you know that it is exquisitely painful. What was strange was that at the moment the accident occurred, I felt no pain whatsoever. I stumbled inside and sat down, feeling very “groggy” and with limited vision (as if I was going to faint). My grandmother said I was quite literally “white as a sheet.” She fanned me with a magazine and, as I sat there, the feeling began to seep back into my hand. That is really the best way to describe it–like water trickling into a bucket.
After a minute or so, my hand was throbbing, but my head was clear and I no longer felt dizzy or woozy.
I have to think that this is the brain’s way of protecting us at the moment of a sudden shock. I’m not a doctor, but it makes sense that we would have this type of protection–maybe connected to our “flight or fight” response?
If that is so, then fainting at bad news may not actually be syncope, the medical term for fainting from physical causes, but a complete shutdown of awareness in order to protect the body from the “shock” of the bad news. I can see how that might be possible.
I know it’s a zombie, but I nearly fainted when I learned my first husband was dead. He collapsed at home. I had heard the clang of him dropping a pan but didn’t think anything of it until I found him. He was blue. Called 911 and an ambulance came and they tried to resuscitate him as they were taking him to the hospital. As I was following along, I was hoping that they were unable to get his heart started if he had been gone as long as I thought, since the brain damage would likely have been extreme.
The doctor met me in the hallway and told me he was dead. I felt my knees go. He was so kind and caught me by the elbow.
It was a combination of grief, relief that he wasn’t dying slowly, and extreme adrenaline from rushing to get there, I think.
Yes, people do faint upon hearing bad news. I don’t recall the details of the explanation, there may be something from The Master in the archives. Whatever it is, that sympathetic nervous system or something causes a sudden drop in blood pressure that makes the person light-headed, and if that doesn’t drop them immediately they still may be too distracted by the bad news to recover before falling over.
My own anecdote is that I became light-headed like that when I was told I must have cancer. My knees were wobbly and I put my hand on the wall to steady myself. Luckily that doctor was an idiot and I didn’t have cancer.
There was a physical issue that exacerbated things greatly. Victorian women tended to wear incredibly restrictive girdles that made it difficult to breathe comfortably. That was primarily why the ‘fainting couches’ became fashionable. All too often a woman would begin to feel faint from a variety of factors, including excitement.
I had a similar experience with my dad’s death. He had a heart attack in the shower and we called 911, etc. When a paramedic told us that they could continue their resuscitation efforts, but he hadn’t been breathing for a very long while and if they did get him breathing again he’d likely have extensive brain damage. I ended up on the floor. I didn’t exactly faint but everything swayed and it felt like I wasn’t present for just a bit.
When I was doing one of my first clinical rotation in a hospital, my class was meeting early in the morning beforehand. I had done my prep work on a sheet of notebook paper and, looking around, saw that everyone else had an official printed worksheet. Long story short, I had done the whole thing wrong because I hadn’t kept up with the emails.
I was already terrified about starting this new clinical, then time came for me to present my information, and I remember thinking, “I’m about to be humiliated,” and then everything was tunnel vision, and I got woozy and felt like I might throw up. According to my professor, I went sheet white.
I was still a drinking alcoholic at the time, so there’s a decent chance a hangover was also a factor, though I don’t recall for sure.
I passed out from the shock (not a good thing whey you’re alone and bleeding).
I tore up a finger and went to the ER - they did a pulse/BP. The nurse gave me the numbers. I said “Great. Shock.”. She said Yep, Here’s your gurney. Let me know when your OK.
A really, really bad response to medical emergencies involving blood loss.
p.s. - the finger (table saw) did not hurt initially. I can now confirm the “serious injury does not disable you with pain”.
This is the first reference to “fainting room” I’ve seen since looking at houses in SF.
My Edwardian (1918) had a fainting room.
These were great respites for the womenfolk - if the noise got too great a “I feel faint” got her a room all to herself without the hubby and kids screaming.
These later were called “sewing rooms”…
The battle of the sexes goes back many, many years.
Fainting is an odd thing apparently. I replied to this thread, in post #8, and it was two months later when I learned the father I mentioned had been killed in a motorcycle accident. I got to the hospital and he was gone already I think, full of tubes and stuff, with my mother holding his hand. I asked the surgeon, in disbelief, if he was gone and the man nodded a “Yes”. I was in shock, but I didn’t feel faint, although Dad looked so much worse than the other time. I think the difference was anger, as I’d heard the man who struck and killed him was a distracted driver.
We went to a workshop where we would sing our prepared piece and a critic would give us advice about how to do better.
It was cold outside, but the auditorium was warm. While waiting our turn to perform, I noticed that several people in other choirs would sit down on their riser with their head tucked between their legs.
When it was our turn, we took to the risers and sang as we had practiced. Out of nowhere, my vision narrowed to tunnel vision and I became disoriented and dizzy. I could feel myself starting to be unable to stay upright, and I began to fear that I would pass out.
I was on the back row, and so about five feet above the floor. I felt that I was in danger of falling off the risers and doing some damage to myself. There was no way that I would willingly allow myself to pass out!
I tried to hold onto the guy next to me, but he kept shaking me off. Finally, I reached behind me and grabbed hold of the curtain behind me. That gave me sufficient support to keep from falling long enough for the spell to pass.
A short while later, I noticed someone else “swaying in the breeze.” I knew what was going on and braced him from behind (he was on the riser directly ahead of me), until he was able to stand on his own. He thanked me profusely later.
Our choir director had seared into our minds, “Always keep your eyes on the critic. Make him your center of focus.” And that’s what I did.
Which Victorian women? I have known people, some of whom are currently alive, to fake feeling sick (not quite fainting, but for some of them the symptom reported was “I feel dizzy/weak”) in order to snatch the center of attention, but it had nothing to do with being Victorian and much with being assholes.
I have fainted a few times. Once when I was getting stitches in my hand. I just kinda fell over. Another time my mom had just had an IV removed and blood spurted out in a stream across the room. That time I fell and hit my head on a metal chair so when they came running in to help her they had to help fix me up too.The last time was when I got the news my SO had lost his case and was about to be deported. I dropped so hard my daughter thought I died right there. I only remember coming around in the floor. She said my legs just buckled. A few times after that I felt like I was going to faint, like everything went hazy and I felt myself falling but I was able to catch myself. I was diagnosed with high blood pressure so maybe that was part of the problem then.
I have a similar choir-related tale, except that I was somewhat younger than you (Grade 4 or 5) and had no idea what was going on. So one minute I was standing on the risers feeling hot with my pulse racing, next minute I was sitting with my head between my legs in the auditorium with absolutely no clue how I had got there.
It was dress rehearsal, and we had another dress rehearsal the next day. Half way through I started to feel just the same as the previous day, so I stuck my hand up and asked to go sit down. The teacher they stuck me next to, sitting in the auditorium, clearly thought I was a complete shirker. She gave me a very supercillious look and a ‘well you don’t look faint to me.’
Moral of the story - people’s bodies respond differently to stress. And you can’t necessarily tell from the outside. I’ve learnt as an adult that I have very low blood pressure generally, which I think accounts for that particular fainting spell - I’ve always had trouble standing up in one spot for long periods, but generally I organise my life so I don’t have to. I have no idea if sudden really bad news would have the same effect, and hope never to find out.