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Dfekt
Your mother wouldn't approve...


Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 586
Loc: UK
Last seen: 7 months, 9 days
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I almost died a week ago... (long)
#5278177 - 02/08/06 03:57 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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I've only just got round to making this post now because i've been chilling out and recovering since this happened... but anyway.
I'll start by mentioning that lately i've been having these weird turns... im not really sure what they are or what causes them but it's happened three times now and when it happens i start to panic, my heart starts racing really fast and my vision starts to white out. I feel like im going to pass out... the first two times this happened to me at work but i managed to calm myself down, focus on my breathing and stop it before it took complete control over me like a bad trip and made me black out. The third time it happened it beat me and almost killed me.
The weekend before last i went to stay with my friend Dan, who is currently living on a canal boat. I got there on Friday night and had a wicked evening with him and a large bottle of Jim Beam, diggin the local scenery, catchin up on what's new and reminiscing over merry days gone by. The next day we had a good blast thrashing his boat through the canals of Manchester for a good few hours. That night we docked the boat and settled to watch a film with a couple of beers... after the film we were chillin out listening to some music in the early hours of the morning when i decided to go outside on my own for a bit of fresh air. I started feeling sick all of a sudden and leaned over the side of the boat to puke... i dont really remember what happened next but basically i had a blackout and fell into the canal. And no i wasnt high on anything, and i wasn't drunk. I'd had 4 cans of Fosters lager and that's it.
I dont know how long i was under for, but when i woke up i didnt have a fucking clue what was going on. My lungs were filled with filthy canal water and i was completely disorientated... i couldn't see, it was in my eyes, ears, up my nose, i was completely submereged and totally unaware that i was actually in the canal drowning. I was panicking and had absolutely no idea what was going on... i thought that i was perhaps inside Dan's boat and that something inside my body had burst and filled my lungs with water, or maybe i was internally bleeding... the only thing that i knew for certain was that this wasn't a dream, i was about to die.
I tried to stop myself from thrashing around and just be calm, treat it like a bad trip, don't fight it, roll with it, accept my fate. I stopped for a moment and relaxed. But i couldn't breathe... i started thrashing again, my throat making a loud glugging sound as my lungs were frantically spasming, pumping nothing but dirty canal water in and out. The glugging gradually slowed down until it was only happening once every few seconds and my limbs eventually stopped thrashing around... I could hear Dan's voice ever so quietly, shouting my name in the distance... he seemed miles away from wherever the fuck i was, preparing for the death trip. Then the next thing i know, he was dragging me out of the water. I dont know how the fuck he managed to find me in there because it was pitch black and i was completely under, somehow i'd managed to get right into the middle of the canal. I dont know why he all of a sudden decided to come outside but i'm fucking glad he did. He didn't hear me splash or anything, he had no idea at all that i'd fallen in. He told me later on that the vibe of the room all of a sudden completely changed and he just got a really bad feeling and came outside. There were no ripples or bubbles, the only indication he had as to where i'd vanished to was the horrifying glugging sound my throat was making underwater.
I couldn't believe it... "i'm not dead" i spluttered as i simultaneously vomited and choked up what must have been about 3 litres of canal water. I remember saying "i told you i was gonna end up in that fucking canal this weekend" as we both stood there by the boat in a state of complete shock. I was standing about like a gormless twat with my mouth open completely drenched and headfucked but Dan was like a true pro and made sure i got straight into a hot shower and didn't die of hypothermia. I violently puked up some more canal water into Dan's coal bucket and spent the next 24 hours coughing up black chunks of solid canal mud, grit and all sorts of rancid shite. It was the most disgusting fucking thing i've ever witnessed.
Anyway, went to the hospital the next day to get checked out (as im far too hardcore to be rushed straight into casualty lol), the doctor gave me some antibiotics and painkillers and some breathing exercises to help my lungs and sent me on my way. My lungs were ok after a few days as they're used to me filling them with toxic shite by now... but i've had a fucking nightmarish headache that's come and gone through the week and the results of some blood tests i had came back rather dodgy. Im not sure exactly what's wrong with me, but one of the test results was supposed to be around 7 and it came back as 53. I'm going into hospital tomorrow for some more tests so i'll see what that's all about soon enough. Hopefully they can tell me more about why the fuck i keep blacking out, cuz i have no idea what causes it. The doctor said the first two times sounds like a panic attack, and the third could have been caused by a nerve which connects the heart to the stomach and sometimes makes people pass out when they feel like they're gonna vomit.
To be honest i dont feel too bad physically, but mentally it's been really fucking with me. Im depressed, unmotivated, reclusive and my moods have been swinging even more than they normally do. I feel so unbalanced... i've been really quiet since it happened and that's not like me at all. I dont feel myself... it's like im not all there 100%. I dont know how to describe it... drained... diluted. Having a near-death experience has not changed me in the stereotypical ways people would expect it to. It's not like on TV... it wasn't peaceful... it was dark, lonely and intimidating.
At first when i got out i was filled with an urge to get my fucking life into gear and look at it as the kick up the arse i've been needing to get shit sorted and actually do the things i want to do with my life instead of talking about them and complaining... but i've just ended up slumping into a hole of isolation and self-loathing. I'm still too fucking broke to do anything worthwhile with my life and my mind is constantly racing, like im thinking enough thoughts for ten schizophrenic people at once and its driving me fucking spare.
I dont know whether it's temporary and will pass after a while or if i'm changed for life or what but i dont like this. Anyway, sorry this post is kinda long... i dont think im looking for sympathy or advice... im not really sure what i hope to gain from even posting this here... guess i just need to vent some shit before my brain splits my head in half...
-------------------- "Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." ~Oscar Wilde
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leery11
I Tell You What!

Registered: 06/24/05
Posts: 5,998
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
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Re: I almost died a week ago... (long) [Re: Dfekt]
#5278414 - 02/08/06 04:54 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Oh my God man.... that is insane.... I didn't know that you could get water in your lungs and still survive, i thought as soon as it entered you were dead and they shut down.
Holy shit..... I don't know what to tell you at all but give it some time to sink in. This is whatever you let it to be, if you want to get better, you can use it that way. Really sit and reflect on it for a while. If you were to have died what would you have wnated to do most with your life that you never got a chance?
-------------------- I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo! ....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human...... Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!
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Dfekt
Your mother wouldn't approve...


Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 586
Loc: UK
Last seen: 7 months, 9 days
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Re: I almost died a week ago... (long) [Re: leery11]
#5278547 - 02/08/06 05:50 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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leery11 said: Oh my God man.... that is insane.... I didn't know that you could get water in your lungs and still survive, i thought as soon as it entered you were dead and they shut down.
So did i!
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Holy shit..... I don't know what to tell you at all but give it some time to sink in. This is whatever you let it to be, if you want to get better, you can use it that way. Really sit and reflect on it for a while.
Thanks man i appreciate your perspective. I've sat and reflected on this for a long time, believe me, it's taken up most of my thoughts for the past week... i guess im just frustrated though coz it seems to have given me more questions than answers. You're right, this is a lesson and it's nothing more than what i choose to take from it, but it just feels like information overload at the moment... It feels like a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. I know nobody on an internet forum can answer these questions for me, it's something i really need to figure out for myself but it really does feel much better to be talking with someone about it and i think it's helping me to figure things out in my head by typing out my feelings so thankyou for listening.
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If you were to have died what would you have wnated to do most with your life that you never got a chance?
A whole load of things... most of which i cant afford! It's strange because lately i've been feeling really restless with the monotony of my life... i've been craving something inside... travel, adventure, excitement... It's quite ironic that this happened when it did as just a few days earlier i'd actually written out a list of things i wanna do before i die! As soon as i got out the water i felt as though life was shoving a firework up my arse to get me moving and make me accomplish these goals before it's too late... but as time has gone on i've slipped back into negative thought patterns and a "realistically, i'll never be able to do these things" attitude.
I feel like im letting life beat me back down but i also feel determined to do something about it this time. I feel like life is such a beautiful blessing and that i truly am so greatful to be given a second chance, but at the same time i also feel like i haven't been "given a second chance", it was just coincidence that im still alive and it's all a pointless bag of shit coz we only end up dead anyway.
My thoughts are so conflicted and contradictive at the moment it's like a load of small tigers are fighting inside my head.
I guess right now i've got a lot on my mind with the hospital tests coming up and the stint of depression which has followed... this could be the root cause of these negative pessimistic thoughts which obstruct my vision while im trying to learn from this experience. I hope so... i hope this is temporary. Its like i wanna reach for the stars but i see nothing but stormclouds in the sky.
But im gonna keep on looking up... once again, thanks for listening.
-------------------- "Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." ~Oscar Wilde
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The_Hobbit
Bilbo Baggins


Registered: 04/06/04
Posts: 1,382
Loc: The Shire
Last seen: 16 years, 10 months
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Re: I almost died a week ago... (long) [Re: Dfekt]
#5279059 - 02/08/06 07:52 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Cool story.
My advice is the advice that I always give myself. Meditate, exercise, adventure.
-------------------- Smoking my hobbit leaf... Please keep in mind that I am just a human being. Please read my posts carefully and interpret their meaning for yourself.
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leery11
I Tell You What!

Registered: 06/24/05
Posts: 5,998
Last seen: 8 years, 9 months
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Re: I almost died a week ago... (long) [Re: The_Hobbit]
#5279105 - 02/08/06 08:05 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Well I definitely think it's a second chance.
If you had died you would have had to start everything anew all orver again, now who knows the nuances, or what you believe in, but do you agree in the general sense that you would have had to turn in your cards for a new hand?
Probably one of the hardest things to learn (and maybe I'm speaking out of my ass, I'm young and confused myself) is that life is only as meaningful or less as you make it. If you think life is completely pointless and random, then it will be. But if you think that you have purpose and you can use your life to embrace immensive creative joy and to become just a great actualised happy individual, then you can.
And frankly me, I'd rather die with a happy philosophy to take with me wherever it is I go than a sad one. My ultimate rationalization is that since it makes no sense for us to be alive and confined to individual bodies with individual egos and perceptions of reality.... that it makes even less sense for death to be the end of things.
We're just starting on our journeys but as humans I think we can make tremendous progress even in just one short life.
If you adopt a defeatist philosophy your life will be a lot less interesting, maybe not much better than if you had drowned even? (don't let me put words into your mouth) ... but if you use this as second chance then it WILL be one!
-------------------- I am the MacDaddy of Heimlich County, I play it Straight Up Yo! ....I embrace my desire to feel the rhythm, to feel connected enough to step aside and weep like a widow, to feel inspired, to fathom the power, to witness the beauty, to bathe in the fountain, to swing on the spiral of our divinity and still be a human...... Om Namah Shivaya, I tell you What!
Edited by leery11 (02/08/06 08:06 PM)
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Dfekt
Your mother wouldn't approve...


Registered: 02/27/05
Posts: 586
Loc: UK
Last seen: 7 months, 9 days
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Re: I almost died a week ago... (long) [Re: leery11]
#5279190 - 02/08/06 08:34 PM (17 years, 11 months ago) |
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Quote:
leery11 said: Well I definitely think it's a second chance.
If you had died you would have had to start everything anew all orver again, now who knows the nuances, or what you believe in, but do you agree in the general sense that you would have had to turn in your cards for a new hand?
That's the problem... 2 weeks ago i would have said yes, but at the moment i feel like this event has somewhat let a bull into a china shop when it comes to the personal philosophies on life and existance that i had been thoughtfully and carefully developing up until that weekend.
When i came out of the water i was left with a sickeningly horrible impression that everything i believed in was wrong, that there is nothing at all after death and that's the shitty anticlimactic end to it. Technically i dont think i was officially dead at any point, and perhaps if i'd been under there long enough for the DMT to kick in i might see things in a different way! As it happens though, it seems to have shook me up mentally and changed my perspective on things for the worse, although i do think (and hope) that this is only temporary...
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Probably one of the hardest things to learn (and maybe I'm speaking out of my ass, I'm young and confused myself) is that life is only as meaningful or less as you make it. If you think life is completely pointless and random, then it will be. But if you think that you have purpose and you can use your life to embrace immensive creative joy and to become just a great actualised happy individual, then you can.
And frankly me, I'd rather die with a happy philosophy to take with me wherever it is I go than a sad one. My ultimate rationalization is that since it makes no sense for us to be alive and confined to individual bodies with individual egos and perceptions of reality.... that it makes even less sense for death to be the end of things.
We're just starting on our journeys but as humans I think we can make tremendous progress even in just one short life.
If you adopt a defeatist philosophy your life will be a lot less interesting, maybe not much better than if you had drowned even? (don't let me put words into your mouth) ... but if you use this as second chance then it WILL be one!
That is an amazing response and i dont think i can explain how much better this has made me feel. It's advice like that which helps me restore my damaged faith in my philosophies which would appear to have been thoroughly shat upon that night.
In a sense, i'm still metaphorically stuck in muddy water, but once again there's someone there to pull me out from it!
Thankyou for your insights.
-------------------- "Quotation is a serviceable substitute for wit." ~Oscar Wilde
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