AIBU to feel shaken after being criticised for blacking out at the airport?

[doorss]

Last night I returned back from a foreign holiday last night. I went with my parents and my godmother

At the foreign airport, DM cut her leg badly somehow with the either a luggage trolley or the barriers around the trolley park. Blood going everywhere. I have a phobia of blood and blacked out almost immediately. A couple of passengers ran into the terminal getting help. Whilst DF and GodM were getting tissues they had in their hand luggage. Another woman went up to my GodM and looked at me saying I’m a disgrace.

DM got first aid attention and was taken around the airport with assistance (airport was quiet). I recovered.

The four of us had a coffee, past security, and I went to the toilets with GodM. The woman who said I was a disgrace was there. She had a go at me. I said I have a blood phobia. She said I don’t care!

This woman’s attitude was horrible. I am not sure which flight she went on. She could have been on my flight- sitting on the opposite end of the plane.

I am still shaking from this woman’s attitude. I may not see her again.

It’s so interesting to imagine you sitting on your sofa, drinking and giggling to yourself because you enjoy the little nasty barbs you’re sending to OP trying to make her feel ashamed and upset. Little poison poster you are dripping hate to people because you’re a sad, lonely little person who enjoys the little thrill of power it makes you feel.

She assumed you were pissed. Not nice but not that big a deal really.

To be shaking over it at any point, let alone hours after she said something to someone else, is so far beyond dramatic that you must have other things going on.

@PixieTales

Are you saying you don't believe her when she says she has a phobia, then? You think she's lying about that?

I wouldn't expect a grown woman without a phobia of blood to faint at the sight of blood.

But yes, if I was aware that an adult had a severe phobia of blood, I would presume that fainting might be a possible outcome.

We're not talking about adults with a "normal" attitude to blood; we're talking about people with an extreme fear. Fainting can be the body's response to that.

I'd assume she was dragged up by alcoholics and that's why she a) jumped to the conclusion that you were drunk and b) has trouble gauging what's appropriate to say to strangers.

You can get your phobia treated, but she doesn't get another childhood. Try to pity her.

Immensely tremendously true & wondrously well said
💚🤗💚

But again, how can she help her physical reaction of her body shaking? Nothing suggests she made this happen or was complaining in any way.

Therapy?

I just think that yes there are genuine, rare 'conditions' where people do faint at the sight of blood, puking, injuries etc, The human body is weird - I mean there are genuine weird conditions like where people come spontaneously multiple times a day - in public! Obviously these conditions and other weird things do exist and people can't control them. But I also believe they are vanishingly rare. What is very very common though is people being a bit pathetic, wimpy and dramatic and also making it part of their personality that they have weird conditions/allergies - fainting at the sight of blood/injury, puking and shaking over eating lamb/seeing a horror movie/changing a nappy etc. Im amazed more people haven't come across this or are people just being so nice? Or more tolerant than me perhaps?
Dont get me started on people who have convinced themselves and their poor kids that they have a egg/nut/gluten allergy. And yes yes, I know these things genuinely do exist - but for the vast majority its just made up/exaggerated.

I do find the psychology behind all this kinda stuff quite fascinating (im in that field). I think people just want to feel special, like they have something different about them - and the same for their kids. Dont get me wrong, I can be dramatic myself. I genuinely felt quite traumatised by a recent dental experience, and was shaking all arvo afterwards - but the difference is I didn't think that was ok, or that I had a condition - I just genuinely thought I was being a wet lettuce and had to royally pull myself together. I had kids with me too and I completely hid how I was feeling from them - like a normal person! I suspect OP and the vast majority of others on here genuinely feels a bit icked out by injuries (dont we all) but they indulge that feeling, and enjoy the attention it gives them - so they must have people around them who enable that rather than eyeroll and tell them to pull themselves together. I don't believe for the vast majority its a spontaneous uncontrollable reaction. I stand by that.

@seanconneryseyebrow

I just think that yes there are genuine, rare 'conditions' where people do faint at the sight of blood, puking, injuries etc, The human body is weird - I mean there are genuine weird conditions like where people come spontaneously multiple times a day - in public! Obviously these conditions and other weird things do exist and people can't control them. But I also believe they are vanishingly rare.

Fair enough, you accept that it is a real 'phenomenon', for want of a better word. While I agree that a blood phobia is quite rare, I also think it's probably a bit more common than you think it is.

Im amazed more people haven't come across this or are people just being so nice? Or more tolerant than me perhaps?

I think it's just that people are giving this OP the benefit of the doubt and presuming that her blood phobia is severe enough that it does indeed cause her to faint spontaneously, as she has said. We're just taking her at her word. I don't see any reason not to do so.

Given how you have said that you do accept that fainting uncontrollably is a spontaneous reaction for some people, then I'm curious as to why you are excluding the OP from that? Why, in your mind, is she not one of the minority of people for whom fainting genuinely is something uncontrollable?

Because the odds are she is likely in the dramatic category, statistically speaking. Far more likely than the woman just being that crazily outraged.

but that’s just weighing the odds. Anything is possible

Given how you have said that you do accept that fainting uncontrollably is a spontaneous reaction for some people, then I'm curious as to why you are excluding the OP from that? Why, in your mind, is she not one of the minority of people for whom fainting genuinely is something uncontrollable?

The key word here is 'some'. I think given the womans reaction, it is likely that she was in the dramatic category. I also don't think that some people get the spontaneous reaction. Just as I dont think some people are so wildly allergic to nuts they can die. I think the reality is that these things are rare. But, as I said, people like to dramatise these things to get attention and to feel special. I dont get why at all.

Ive just come back from a girls trip with someone who insisted on coming after knee surgery and bringing crutches. The fuss she made and the lengths we had to go to to accommodate her was infuriating. She wanted lots of specialist support and attnetion in airports, the plane, the hotel, restaurants. Lots of tears and fuss and performative limping. But I saw her dancing at one point and walking normally at others. She held up the plane FFS. Call me a bitch but
people are weird, what can I say.

It's not your fault OP, she should feel shame, not you. It's a recognised medical condition, ignore the insensitive people who attack you over something you have little control over, it must be sad for them in their intolerant skin. That woman is the disgrace, not you.

https://www.healthline.com/health/hemophobia

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/7939819/