I fainted, I was fine, I did it again the next week

Started 12 February 2025 · 14 replies · 158 hearts · read 2.9k times

PerrineStrasbourg, FR · 12 February 2025

1.4 years ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: I fainted, I was fine, I did it again the next week

I have avoided asking about this for six weeks out of pure embarrassment.

I would like to hear timescales more than remedies. Knowing how long other people's lasted would turn this from an open-ended thing into a bounded one.

It is not severe. It is relentless, which turns out to be a different problem, and one I have found much harder to describe to anybody.

What I cannot tell is whether this is the ordinary tax or the sort of thing that needs somebody today, and that distinction is the whole of my question.

Thanks in advance. Even a one-line "yes, me too" would help more than you would think.

PietPretoria, ZA

What helped was having a plan for if it went wrong. Knowing what I would do if I fainted meant I stopped being frightened of fainting.

BassCoventry, UK

I found the anticipation ran for two days beforehand, which meant a weekly thing was taking up two sevenths of my life. Reducing the anticipation was the whole project.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

Noting for anybody reading later: where the person who asked has come back with what happened, that post is usually worth more than everything offered before it, and it is never the one at the top.

19me too 3

Ollie OPeterhead, UK

Gently disagreeing with Piet, or rather adding the other half of it.

A specific technique taught by somebody trained is worth ten pieces of general advice from anybody, including me.

BessLouth, UK

Somebody in this circle described their phobia as a body response rather than a thought, and that distinction got me to the right kind of help.

TaaviTallinn, EE

The first time I did one without preparation I burst into tears afterwards, from relief. That is how big it was and I do not think that is an overreaction.

HéloïseGeneva, CH

Taavi, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Distraction did nothing for me and preparation did everything. I have watched other people here find the exact opposite.

Bryn MNeath, UK

I would say to anybody starting: tell your prescriber the actual word. I described mine as being a bit nervous and got advice for being a bit nervous.

TavitaApia, WS

I practised with the pen without doing anything, several times a day, for two weeks. Getting used to holding it was a real step and I nearly skipped it.

8me too 6

IslaOban, UK

#10

Coming back to what Bryn M wrote further up, because it is the bit I keep thinking about.

Mine came from a childhood hospital experience I had not connected to any of this until a therapist asked, and that connection was most of the work.

WinkleWeymouth, UK

#11

What changed it was doing it at the same time every week with the same person present, for about ten weeks. Repetition with safety, rather than repetition alone.

13me too 8

BronLincoln, UK

#12

What Isla described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

Mine improved and then regressed during a very stressful autumn, and I had to accept that it is not a linear thing and I had not failed.

EsiFacilitatorToronto, Canada

#13

Holding for a second on a habit rather than on anybody: people in this circle call their own symptoms trivial, and they are usually not. If you have done it on this page, I would rather name it than let it go by.

PerrineStrasbourg, FR

#14

No wisdom, just: I am sorry. That sounds genuinely hard.