"I'm going to throw up" I mumbled to the MA who had just finished drawing my blood. It wasn't a threat, more of a hope that the nausea that had hit was a pre-symptom of puking rather than the more ominous alternative that I knew was a possibility. My vision blurred but I was aware of the grey bottom of the garbage bin that had just been thrust into my lap. For a second I noticed how the liner bunched at the bottom to make a kind of star formation. Ringing. Blackness. And then nothing existed at all.
To back up I pass out a lot, around 8 times a day. But there are two different types of fainting for me. Type 1, I am very used to and have become less afraid of. It can be set of by lots of things; dehydration, standing more than my allotted 5 minutes, eating (any kind of food), ect. When it happens, I lose control of my body and I slump down, can't open my eyes or move but for some reason I can still hear and am somewhat aware of my surroundings. I'm stuck in my own body, unable to escape until it ends. You'd think this would be my own personal hell, right? Especially given that being trapped in my body unable to open my eyes is my worst fear. Well after its happened a few hundred times you get used to it. The fear diminishes because you have to deal with it because that's what you've been dealt. Type 2 on the other hand is quite difficult for me. It has probably only happened several times in my life and has always involved needles. Don't presume it comes as a fear of needles, I get tests done so often that I know the prick doesn't hurt, and the draw will soon be over. But still type 2 comes and I don't always see it coming.
After the deafening ringing in my ears and everything goes black, there's not even nothingness. Nothing exists. Mankind doesn't exist, life doesn't exist, I don't exist. And then for no reason at all I'm in a dream, but I don't know what a dream is because to my knowledge I just started my existence 2 seconds ago. The dream always has to do with movement, the first time I was lying on a skateboard on my back that was careening out of control, other times its been vehicles of some sort, but always chaos and movement. This time I was strapped into a lime green roller coaster sitting acrossed from some middle-aged women all wearing matching pink t-shirts who were screaming that the ride had malfunctioned and we were all about to plummet to our deaths. I have no explanation for this scene that I was sure I was experiencing but it may explain my strong dislike and fear of roller coasters. As the women wailed the strap holding me in tightened and started to crush my ribs. I tried to draw breath but my lungs burned and my chest felt as if a boulder had pinned me against the seat. The women's howls turned to ringing and the coaster blurred into white walls. There was a woman standing in front of me. Something told me I knew her, but up until a few seconds ago nothing had existed so who was she, what was she? And while we're at it what was I? Human. And she is my mother. It seemed that the realizations took years to come to but looking back it was milliseconds. After what felt like forever I felt my sunken chest fill with air as I heard a loud gasping that I could only assume was coming from me. I kept panting as I tuned into what my mother was saying, I can't remember it now but I focused all of me on following her direction. I vaguely remembered where I was and what had happen. The MA was propping my feet up when a nurse came in and yelled at me. Why did they always yell and demand I talk? I was still struggling to breathe and all these people were still greyish white and other off colors in my blurry vision. Mom began to explain what happened and I tried not to hear because terror had taken hold of my body and I didn't know if I could fight to stay in it. I watched as Mom talked without moving her eyes from my face. I saw something in her eyes that my mind told me was fear but I could not quite process that with the nurse yelling. She said that her name was Cookie and wasn't that an odd name and can I say her name back to her. It took everything I had to repeat the word just so she would stop. I know she meant well and was just doing her job but even now just remembering it makes me so irritated.
They wheeled me out of the room into a room with a bed and a mirror. In the mirror I saw an ash colored face with dazed eyes and absolutely no sign of life in her. I slowly and horrifyingly realized that I was looking at me.
Over the next couple hours life came back into me but my memory was terrible and I felt confused. Somewhere along the line my mom told me I had stopped breathing for the minute or so that I was unconscious. That had never happened before.
The next few day I felt like a head trauma patient. For an entire day, maybe two, I kept having to remind myself that I was not 17 and it was not 2011 like my brain was telling me. Four years of memories were there but when I recalled them it was like I was remembering something that a friend had done or something someone had told me had happened. It did not feel like I was recalling memories of my own life experiences.
And then there was the oddity that when I came to I forgot I had siblings, when I got around to remembering them I only remembered half. I did eventually recall my other siblings 20 minutes later but it was still highly concerning for me to forget the people I love most dearly.
The whole thing was quite terrifying, but I finally feel back to myself. My 21 year old self that remembers and doesn't have to remind herself of the year. When I woke up and felt normal I breathed a huge sigh of relief. The worst of it was over.
No comments:
Post a Comment