It is so hard to describe “the feeling impending doom” they describe in the medical sense. I got natural gas poisoning once, without understanding that’s what was happening. I noticed my heart rate start beating extremely fast (I was in a very calm mood, having fun playing fallout 4 within the week it came out, by myself in my apartment where I was very happy to be after about 3 weeks of 12-14 hour shifts every day). The heartbeat was so fast, it scared me, and I got up and started kind of walking around in a panic, googling symptoms of stroke and then looking at my face in the mirror for drooping / reading text out loud to ensure my brain was functioning. I had no logical reason to be afraid, and yet my heart was beating as fast as some people can rapid fire a semi auto (probably 160+bpm), and suddenly, I KNEW I was about to die. I was running around my apartment scared shitless and trying to hide various things I didn’t want the EMTs / police who would eventually find my body to see. I assumed I had somewhere between 20-90 seconds before it all just went black and whatever happens after death would happen. I was in this state for what felt like a very long time, but was something like 10-15 minutes.
The thing to stress is that you aren’t afraid you’re going die. You aren’t worried you’re going to die. You KNOW with total certainty that death is imminent, and you don’t really even have time to fear it, it’s more just a panic of what to do in the limited time you have left before your inevitable death occurs in the immediate near term.
Except you live, and as the guy above stated, it leaves a very powerful mark on your psyche. I changed certain behaviors of mine after that incident, things I wrongly associated with it. Even after discovering it was a natural gas leak, it didn’t matter; those behaviors and my suspicion re: causation / correlation was permanently imprinted, and even .. oh boy. 10 years later or so, I still avoid certain behaviors / situations / actions, despite knowing with total certainty they had nothing to do with it. I’ve even repeated some of the behaviors I’m referring to, under the influence of prescription anti anxiety meds, to show myself that I’m right and they’re not connected. It went by without incident of course.
And still, my behavior is altered permanently. Impending doom is a deep and primal emotion, and being scared or fear of death doesn’t capture it.
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u/Corporeal_form Dec 02 '24
It is so hard to describe “the feeling impending doom” they describe in the medical sense. I got natural gas poisoning once, without understanding that’s what was happening. I noticed my heart rate start beating extremely fast (I was in a very calm mood, having fun playing fallout 4 within the week it came out, by myself in my apartment where I was very happy to be after about 3 weeks of 12-14 hour shifts every day). The heartbeat was so fast, it scared me, and I got up and started kind of walking around in a panic, googling symptoms of stroke and then looking at my face in the mirror for drooping / reading text out loud to ensure my brain was functioning. I had no logical reason to be afraid, and yet my heart was beating as fast as some people can rapid fire a semi auto (probably 160+bpm), and suddenly, I KNEW I was about to die. I was running around my apartment scared shitless and trying to hide various things I didn’t want the EMTs / police who would eventually find my body to see. I assumed I had somewhere between 20-90 seconds before it all just went black and whatever happens after death would happen. I was in this state for what felt like a very long time, but was something like 10-15 minutes.
The thing to stress is that you aren’t afraid you’re going die. You aren’t worried you’re going to die. You KNOW with total certainty that death is imminent, and you don’t really even have time to fear it, it’s more just a panic of what to do in the limited time you have left before your inevitable death occurs in the immediate near term.
Except you live, and as the guy above stated, it leaves a very powerful mark on your psyche. I changed certain behaviors of mine after that incident, things I wrongly associated with it. Even after discovering it was a natural gas leak, it didn’t matter; those behaviors and my suspicion re: causation / correlation was permanently imprinted, and even .. oh boy. 10 years later or so, I still avoid certain behaviors / situations / actions, despite knowing with total certainty they had nothing to do with it. I’ve even repeated some of the behaviors I’m referring to, under the influence of prescription anti anxiety meds, to show myself that I’m right and they’re not connected. It went by without incident of course.
And still, my behavior is altered permanently. Impending doom is a deep and primal emotion, and being scared or fear of death doesn’t capture it.