How to Write Blacking Out {Or How it Feels}

So, there I was, minding my own business, taking a shower, right? I was in immense physical pain and trying to hurry up the process. And all of a sudden things started getting weird.

The pain increased about times ten--I'm sure it was the most pain I've ever been in. And then...I realized...I was about to black out. Okay. So after a little while of standing there, feeling the symptoms, I was like: I don't know what to do but I should probably sit down.

Let's talk about how this felt. I mean, shoot I've gone through so much these past few days. Almost getting a black eye to almost fainting. Man.

What goes into the sensations of blacking out:

1. Bright colors in vision.
So one of the first things that happened was my vision started to go. At the corners, these brightish flashes like when you stand up too fast started to creep in. It was freaky. And then it was in the middle and I was like, Uh NO. I'm not blacking out in the shower.

2. Ringing in the ears. 
Okay, so my ears always constantly ring anyways, but that's a story for another day. When all this other stuff started happening, the ringing in my ears got immensely louder. Like, almost to the point that the noise of the shower I was in was drowned out. And I knew that wasn't good. I remembered a time when I was little and it was New Year's Eve and my ears were ringing and somebody told me that was a sign you were about to faint. So they had my lay down until it stopped. It didn't stop, but I didn't faint. I guess so started my life living with ringing ears. But I remembered that and I was like: SHOOT. This is BAD.

3. It got hard to breathe real fast.
All of a sudden I was struggling to breathe. Like, I didn't know what to do. I was trying to take deep breaths, but it was so difficult. I don't even know how to explain it. I could hardly speak or anything. I was praying out loud because I was so scared I was going to black out in the shower. I thought maybe it was a mind thing triggered by the pain I was in, so distracting myself would help, but I couldn't even sing. Just so we're clear, it was not a mind thing. Okay, but back to the breathing. It felt like I was breathing in hot air but not able to breathe it in fully.

4. I knew I needed to sit down or something.
I could tell something was wrong--obviously, because it felt so weird--but I knew I needed to sit down or get out of the shower. The problem was I hadn't finished showering and there was still tons of shampoo in my hair and I didn't want to deal with that if I ended up fainting outside of the shower. So I pushed back the shower curtain and sat down at the edge of the tub, not caring if water got all over the floor. Dude, I didn't want to die. Like, it was so scary.

5. Tingling and Trembling.
So my hands and feet were all tingly and stuff and it was real weird. I also couldn't stop trembling. But that lasted for a little while during and after.

6. Exhaustion.
Afterwards, I was exhausted. I got a late start that morning--about eleven thirty--because after I'd gotten the gumption to actually partly get ready, I slept for about an hour. First I'd tried to read my Bible but my eyes kept fluttering closed. I managed to read one chapter of Ezekiel before I was like: Okay, I'm going to sleep. I can't keep my eyes open any longer. (Don't worry I was actually sleeping, I didn't black out). I didn't wake up until Mom came in and checked on me.

7. Fear.
Okay, fear during and after. I was first of all afraid of blacking out and what could happen. I could bump my head, breathe in water, etc. Afterwards, after I sat for a good long time and finally felt it would be okay to finish my shower (it really wasn't but I had to do it. I couldn't sit on the side of the tub forever), I was afraid of standing up again. I didn't want to have the blacking out vision or the ringing ears or the difficulty breathing. So I finished my shower, my mom helped me and gave me pain meds, and I sat on my bed for at least half an hour. I was afraid that if I stood up that the sensations would come back. It had freaked me out! But as I sat there on my bed, I prayed and God's peace washed over me.

God Bless! I hope this is useful! And, no, I don't go around wishing to black out just so I know how to write it. Man, weird stuff just keeps happening to me!

Rachel

Sock It To Me {How Getting Punched in the Eye Feels}

Dearest readers, few and far between...but still there...today we are going to talk about how it feels to play four-way capture the flag and get punched in the face. Ahem, punched in the eye.

As a writer it's natural to think: "If only I knew how this (insert some random thing here) feels so I can write about it realistically." In fact, we think it a lot. It would be so helpful to have a multitude of life experiences under your belt to utilize in your writing. But just because it'd be nice to know how something feels...does not mean we actually want it to happen to us. Like, you don't go around wishing to get punched in the eye unless you're super hardcore and just like epic and stuff. I, for one, do NOT go around wishing to get punched in the eye. Obviously I'm not super hardcore or epic enough. I'm still working on that...*sigh*.

So...here I am playing defender to my team's flags, right? Waiting to grab flag belts of the attackers (anybody who's ever been in gym class should know what I'm talking about. This did not take place in gym class, however, as I have not been in public school for years. Yay, homeschooling!)

We're in this huge Dystopian/post-apocalyptic looking bunker gym thing called "The Field House". It has a ginormous American flag hanging by some of the doors, basketball hoops suspended from the dome-y ceiling, and various bleachers on the side of the court--which, by the way, is also huge.

I'm trying to grab an eighth grader's flag belt and his hand slips and PHOOMPH, his fist is in my right eye. Can I just say: OUCH.

It didn't feel so great. Believe me, he was not a puny eighth grader. Here's how my experience with pain and the eye and how it felt went:

1. Stunned. Okay, for a very short moment it was kind of like...WHAT? Lift a hand to the eye and be like uhhh did that just happen?

2. It stung. Bad. Think of like a million bees repeatedly stinging the whole area around your eye. And because they stung you so much, it goes numb. You feel it going numb, it kind of spreads in a uhh ripple effect? I can't think of the correct term, but think of when you throw a rock in water and the ripple goes out circularly. That's how it felt numbness wise.

3. It was hot. Where I'd been punched, it felt like I was on fire. Okay maybe not so bad there, but yow.

4. It was wet. Like, I don't know if that's because there were tears building up from the impact or what, but I felt like blood was going to drip out of my eye. If felt so weird, guys.

5. Swelling or something. I was blinking a lot to try and make sure my eye would be okay and there was this weird thing at the bottom of my vision and I don't know what it was but I think the cheekbone thing under my eye swelled a little bit.

6. Bruises. I knew for certain that later my eye was going to be black and blue because it was sore for at least an hour and sometimes a stinging sensation at the corner of my eye would kind of flare up. As I kept on playing, I was absolutely sure I was walking around with a horrid black and blue and purple eye.

Surprisingly I did not have a horrid black and blue and purple bruised eye. I hardly had any bruising, maybe a bit discoloration on my eyelid area. There was a kind of reddish mark at the corner of my eye where I think the most impact occurred, I still have a red mark that reminds me of a little scrape. (I mean, it only happened yesterday.)

7. Tender. After it happened, it was very tender. It still feels a bit strange as I'm typing this. ;)