To have been repulsed by DH fainting?

[meMillyme]

I?m a regular user who has name-changed as I know I will likely be flamed for this! Not a wind up either ? promise I know I am unreasonable and a horrible person. Sharing my horribleness with you.

So yes DH fainted in Tesco today. We were standing by the bread when he suddenly went white and started staggering around, finally sinking to his knees in a very dramatic fashion. I rushed to him but was elbowed out of the way by loads of people trying to drag him to his feet. He was given water and gradually sat up ? then went faint again when he stood up, que more tottering and slumping over and a load more fuss.

Anyway I have taken his home and fussed over him all day, he says he still feels weak. Now the horrible bit: I just found my 6ft 3 husband staggering abound and being all weak and woozy and needing support to walk repulsive.

I know, I know I?m a cow.

OP please don't be hard on yourself. Clearly you love your husband, to feel so guilty about your reaction.

You were shocked. People around DH gave him poor first aid. He should not have been dragged to his feet. This prelonged the faint and delayed his recovery. A faint is a short temporary lack of oxygen to the brain.

I have epilepsy and have given numerous strangers a fright over recent years. When an ambulance is called the paramedics routinely check blood pressure, sugar level, responsiveness, reflexes, heartrate and give oxygen.

Even though paramedics were satisfied DH did not need hospital or did he sign form to refuse to go? Ask him. IMO he should still go to GP to find treatment to manage his faints. There must be an underlining course as he has had them since childhood.

Have a and I wish you both all the best.

Fainting isn't really serious, tbf. You can faint because you're hot, hungry, thirsty, hungover... I can't see why anyone who fainted then recovered would feel the need to wait in A&E for most of the day in an attempt to find out why (the staff in A&E won't treat it very seriously either) although sudden bouts of fainting or any other symptoms are probably worth a trip to the GP when you an next get an appointment.

I agree with the others, I think it's shock and the vulnerability. Hope you can reconcile your feelings.

This is a really interesting thread!

My first reaction - to you and to the PP who 'didn't want to see' her husband crying with kidney pain - was 'You bitch!'

But really, it's bizarre how you process feelings. I started a thread t'other week about how I felt demeaned by being asked to use a wheelchair in hospital, and ended up realising that it was because I was actually really scared about what was going to happen to me but couldn't fully admit that because I like to be a 'good, calm' patient.

I think others are right that you are scared about your DP's health. Fainting is a little like an intimation of mortality iyswim: you see what someone might look like in death, almost. I think it can be hard to deal with.

I also wonder if there is some buried resentment here: why didn't he come to the birth?

(And also Imperial's sentence wasn't a comma splice because 'but' is a conjunction. )

Have you ever fainted yourself OP?

I have, several times (always following having blood taken or an injection, before everyone rushes me off to the doctor!) and in my experience, coming round afterwards is the single most unpleasant sensation I have ever experienced. I can cope with it now, because I know what's going on, but it's still pretty unpleasant. I get a whole lot of bad-dream experiences, become aware of feeling incredibly physically unwell, and a sort of sensation of intense depression (I just want to go back to the state of unconsciousness I've come out of, because being conscious seems far too unpleasant). It's pretty scary.

And this has always been in a medical setting, with loads of trained people around who have treated me appropriately and given me plenty of time to come to and lots of reassurance. I can imagine if I were dragged about by the customers at Tesco, and came in and out of the faint, that would freak me out for the rest of the day.

I know you said you were elbowed out of the way by the other customers, but - if your DH is prone to fainting - please learn what this feels like, and be really firm with people who treat him in a way that's going to make this nasty experience 10x worse (and slower to recover from!)

Like several other posters I am sure your reaction is about fear- worrying how you will cope if your big strong man isn't strong.

Having said that, I do find such an uncontrolled fear a bit weak...I wouldn't go so far as calling it repulsive but I'm glad that dh handles difficult situations better. Perhaps something for you to work on- first aid training maybe?

Sooner or later, if your stay together, you and your dh will grow old together, and that will involve scary and embarrassing situations. A bit of experience and thinking in advance goes a long way.

Maybe you'll bemore sympathetic when the brain tumour is diagnosed.

This thread is reminding me of one where a poster was frustrated by and critical of her friend being seriously ill.

She kept being annoyed that her friend didn't cure herself or accept the poster's quack cures.

Then she tried to re-diagnose her friend to have something more treatable.

Eventually she admitted that she considered the friend's role in her life was to be the strong one she could look up to. And her interference (which she called "help") was all because she didn't want to have to deal with this changing.

Unfortunately, she had by this stage put the poor sick friend through quite a lot of grief so that she, the poster, needn't adjust her world model.

I think you're a good step ahead of that, OP, because you've at least identified this as a problem. As many have said, that gives you a chance to work on it.

op I wonder if your reaction (which I think is understandable as a knee jerk 'can hardly bear to admit it to yourself' kind of thing) is a result of your Father's illness and fear that you may have to care for your husband? One of my parents died last year after a fairly long illness and I am very scared of DH becoming I'll (yes what a bundle of laughs I am!).
If your Dad's got a long-term health problem, is your Mum in carer mode? It is a difficult thing to see. Sometimes it is difficult to control immediate reactions to shocking events.

Some people are wayyyy over analysing this.

And bragmatic what a stupid thing to say.

Some people faint in a weird way, it's a fact. It doesn't mean that we don't worry, it's afterwards when you think back to their movements.

It's like, I dont like my partners cry face. It makes me feel a bit.. Cringe. But I love him dearly and want to sort out anything that is making him feel so upset he would cry.

I get this, it is emotionally easier to deal with being repulsed than being scared when someone you love is poorly. I hope your DH is OK, i hope he is going to get checked out xx

But at least he didn't stand like a T-Rex before he fainted OP.Then you would have been fully justified in belting him one.

My friend looked like he was doing the Thriller dance. I'm not even joking.

I think the OP is being very honest and knows full well her gut reaction is one that most people would be very about. But a few people have actually thought this through and posted more considered responses. Which is nice.

OP, I don't have anything to add really, but I think yours is a very commonly-held reaction and I bet it'll change as you process it. We often find it very, very hard to cope when someone we rely on to be strong shows that they can't always be strong. I'd agree with other posters that you're probably, deep down, more scared than repulsed. Hope he, and you, are ok now.