before tonight, i've fainted once in my entire life. that was my 10th grade biology class, while my bio teacher was "helping" me with the rib separation of a fetal pig dissection. the initial incision was fine, it felt like i was cutting play-doh. but when she had to come help me separate the ribs.... i felt dizzy and had to go to the window. i was humiliated in front of my entire class.
tonight, there were no snickering witnesses. tonight was scarier because i was alone. scarier because i'd managed to stumble upon a grisly depiction of an unspeakable practice inflicted upon women around the world, by far the most graphic i've ever read. "oh my god. oh my godohmyfuckinggod...." why couldn't i just stop reading? why wouldn't my retinas just stop processing such information?
but then they did. the vertigo set in. the phantom bile rose in my stomach, the image of the fetal pig with its swollen shut eyes flashing through my head as i made my way to the toilet.
in retrospect, that quick and decisive move to the toilet was the worst thing i could have done, because the next thing i knew my left eye was staring up at ecru porcelain while the right observed the cracks and grooves of the red formica bathroom floor of a place i had NO FUCKING CLUE where it was. it took me maybe 40 seconds to realise that it was my apartment, the place i've been living for almost a year and a half.
i stood up again, slowly... and promptly fell back to the ground.
i called the manager of my school in a groggy state and breathlessly told her about my fainting spell. she's extremely concerned that i might have fainted without any discernable cause, a sign of some serious underlying medical condition... but the reality is i know exactly what set it off. it's just too horrible to relay or explain. even in blog form, at the moment i fear that relaying what i'd read about tonight might send me into unconsciousness again.
i'm tired. so tired. physically and psychologically exhausted, but i can't go to sleep because i'm afraid of the imagery of what i'd read haunting my dreams and sending me into some kind of... i don't know, coma or something; i mean coma seems to be the only place you can faint to when you're already unconscious. and that fear, that deprivation of a normal human need for fear of self-inflicted psychological terror makes me cry. i've been downing water since the episode, thinking maybe dehydration has something to do with it (i went running today and then didn't have much to eat or drink, at least after the pancakes at Chieko's house and then the few pieces of sushi at maybe 4:30) and it's as if my body now has enough water to produce the tears over this awful thing.
i want to talk to someone. holy shit this is freaking me out now. not the health implications but what initially set off my fainting. but i can't, the images haunt me. maybe i'm supposed to work against this sort of thing, maybe that's like my purpose in life or something but... how can i address something that sends me into a coma?
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