So. I had ANOTHER flashback. This time of an event linked to my ability to go ““dead”"
i was pregnant with my first child. I was suffering from sleep crashing a lot. And the fact that I had trapped the father of my future child into a relationship neither of us wanted. Because I did not want to do this on my own. There was a lot of weird hidden angst and turbulence inside I did not understand. I had no parenting. Now I was pregnant and I didn’t know what to do.
i started bleeding from the bowel. Deep inside, my poop turned marble and tar like, the blood sank out of it into the toilet pan and was unnerving the quantities I was bleeding. I called the doctor, he threatened me with ambulance OR starve overnight and go in for emergency biopsy.
i had an interview for my first career that day. Which I blew off because the doctors ordered me to do the biopsy. I was a mental state. And didn’t know it.
i went in for my biopsy, as I was pregnant, I could not be x-rayed, and I could not be sedated. So they all said I had to be brave and do an endoscopy without sedation.
they fit a mouthpiece to stop me biting on the metal snake, and enable the nurses to use suction and keep my windpipe clear. Without sedation, I had to swallow the metal snake, do not cough, do not react, do not thrash convulse or vomit. As the muscle reaction itself will tear the throat against the metal camera snake.
the nurses said they would talk me through and keep me focused. LOL.
but, I knew what I was doing, I went dead. I DEFOCUSED. I went limp. I have always done this - not as a reaction to tense and freeze, but to go completely hypotonic and let go of everything. Let the snake pass through without coughing, wrenching, gagging, tearing my throat apart.
everyone in the operating theatre was shocked. Utterly shocked. They said ““how brave I was” they had never seen anyone do this. They had never seen a body so compliant and unresponsive.
I watched the camera on the screen pass through my stomach. I watched and felt everything closer and closer to the disturbance.
i felt the nurses so shocked by my limp body, they forgot to apply suction to my saliva and it leaked into my windpipe and started chocking me. They heard it and sucked it up quickly but it was bubbling in my lungs as I breathed because they were too late.
my saliva burned my lungs like vomit. And still I played dead. I slowed my heart rate and breathing down to barely visible or audible and they thought I had fallen asleep.
i watched everything on the screen, I saw them tear a chunk out for the biopsy, one, two three. It hurt. Worse than the vomit burning in my lungs. But still I played dead.
as they wheeled me out the nurses said the doctor will be with me to talk to me after, and that they had never experienced this procedure with someone I sedated before WHO DIDNT REACT. They were stunned. They said they didn’t know how I could do that. I must be very brave.
i said. It hurt a lot. I needed time to recover from the pain. They said I would be fine in 10 minutes unlike everyone here who would lose the rest of the day recovering from sedation.
i waited for the doctor. He said it was a strange experience for him, he said there was no such thing as pain in the gut, you can’t feel in the gut. He argued with me and said I was watching the camera and reacting to that.
the biopsy results came back negative. No one explained anything to me. They made me feel like I was a hyperchondria who was making up symptoms of bleeding from the gut. AND I LOST MY JOB because I was having a biopsy and ordered to stay home until the bleeding stopped. So I felt doubley fucked over.
i learned i had a weird control over my body that no one knew or understood or even heard about. I knew this reaction was well trained, I had used it throughout my childhood. I knew, if I didn’t react, I would tear less. So even though I could feel what was happening to me, I started to separate and control my visceral reactions and had found a way to separate from my body. I went into the fourth dimension willingly, eyes open, aware of everything around me and inside of me. Aware of everyone in the operating theatre, aware of their shock at my limp body and declining heart rate and blood pressure. I have done this to the point of heart attack on two occasions infront of people.
but training like this puts my life in danger, as on occasion, I have to snap into reality to cough myself back. Punch my heart with wracking ribcage coughs and get me backbefore I lose consciousness