I don't think we've done this one yet - are you a fainter?

[SurrenderDorothy]

@Jayn_Newell

I’ve only ever passed out once, I was watching TV, and when I got up to get supper I had a really bad dizzy spell. Almost made it to the table, but my food still landed on the floor (bet that scared my parents something fierce). The most amusing thing is I wound up daydreaming while I was out, so when I came to it was something like this–“Why am I sore? And why’s the floor behind me? Oh, I’m laying on it. How’d I end up on the floor?”

I do that too… When I’m about to come to, my mind becomes sort of semiconscious, but I don’t realize exactly what’s going on. The first time I ever passed out, I woke up thinking vaguely that I was faking it and that I was a complete idiot for faking something like that and now… how do people who have fainted wake up? becuase I don’t want everybody to know that I was faking…

I realized after I woke up completely that I was not faking.
Nowadays, I know I’ve passed out, but can never quite remember the situation until I’m fully conscious. I can be on my bedroom floor thinking, “I hope they didn’t call my parents. my parents are going to kill me if they know I’ve passed out in front of people again.” or at an evening dance class thinking, “damn! I wonder how long I’ve been out. I’m going to be late for school!”

[seosamh]

Never fainted in my life (I’m 46; male). But have probably been close twice.

First time was the first time I gave blood, about 20 years ago. Came over all queer (ooh-er, missus) and a passing nurse was sufficiently worried by the look of me that she administered a cold towel to the forehead, which perked me up immediately. They probably ought not to have accepted me as my blood pressure in those days was high enough to embarrass a giraffe.

Second time was just last year while having a blood test from what seemed to be a first-time phlebotomist (he could hardly speak English, but that’s totally irrelevant). The git took ages to stick the needle in and then - only after he’d stuck it in - decided that he needed some vials in which to collect my precious bodily fluid. Hurt like hell and took ages. I saved myself from going under by concentrating on the gorgeous Italian phlebotomist across the room - why didn’t I get her?

My mate - an otherwise healthy 42 year-old Kiwi - faints at the drop of a hat. Keeled over during a Jack The Ripper walk in East London while the guide was relating some gruesome details of one of the victims and a couple of weeks ago hit the deck while having a routine check-up from the nurse at work. What a twat!

[Unauthorized_Cinnamon]

I’ve fainted two times, but only that few because I now know what it feels like and can avoid it.

First time I must have been around ten, and I was staying at my aunts’ house. I’d packed my stuff in my dad’s old suit bag, which had a hefty metal hanger hook, about half an inch wide, flat, in a squared-off shape, and it was lying on the floor at the moment in question, with the pointy side facing up. I accidentally stepped on it, carving off a good portion of my arch in the process. Immediately got woozy, shambled around a bit, then fell face-first into an unplugged box fan. I got to get an x-ray of my skull to see if my nose was broken - thank goodness, it wasn’t.

Second time I was about twelve, and my mom made me go to the doctor to have my ears pierced, instead of letting me go to the mall like a normal person. She figured it would be safer.

Their method was unconventional - use a damned thick needle to inject novocaine into the front and back of the lobe, then ram the earring post through whatever flesh hadn’t been pierced all the way through. Mom said I heard/felt this maneuver, and the blood drained from my face like in a cartoon. They made me lie down for a while. However, as we were leaving, and my mom was paying, I went right over, doing a fake to the front, then keeling over backwards.

I started to come to as they dragged me into an exam room, and I could have sworn I heard someone say, “Batman.” Odd.

Now I know if I’m in a squicky situation (getting blood drawn, dissecting pigs’ eyes, giving blood), and I get tunnel vision and/or feel my upper lip and nose start tingling, to get my head between my knees double quick.

Unfortunately, I almost passed out while giving blood, and was a huge spectacle as three nurses fanned me, clapped in my face, and yelled, “Stay with me!” This was at law school, and for a while thereafter my classmates called me “Blood Girl.”

Thank goodness for mono - it got me mostly over my problem with blood draws, through sheer repetition, and disqualified me from giving blood ever again.