Love that they put āa sense of impending doomā as one of the symptoms of a heart attack, like girl, thatās just how it is to be alive these days, youāre gonna have to be more specific
This made me chuckle but after scrolling away I felt the need to come back to it.
Because as someone who has felt this I can not stress how different it actually is from anxiety. Which is saying a lot because I have a massive anxiety disorder.
Iāve only felt this twice in my life - once when I was going into kidney failure due to an infection and again when my body was going into shock due to dehydration and malnourishment due to GI issues - and I can not stress how much it saved my life. Itās hard to even put it into words. Itās not like a panic attack, or anxiety. It is a horrific gut turning feeling of absolute dread.
Especially if you have anxiety youāll know the difference honestly. Itās so much worse. Itās every cell in your body and your brain screaming that thereās something horribly wrong in a way youāve never felt. Itās your brain screaming out that you are going to die in a way no panic attack has ever done before.
I can not stress how important it is to get yourself to the ER if you feel this way. Especially if your having other physical symptoms.
This is amazing and incredibly helpful, oh my god. Thank you.
Seconding the above : I was going into shock from internal bleeding, and that sense of āsomething is gravely wrongā was entirely different from my day-to-day whirlwind of anxiety.
For me, it was very quiet. For me, there was a deep sense that I could just lie down on the floor and not have to ever get up again, no effort required.
That combined wrongness/relief was so weird and so unsettling that I drove myself to the ER.
The āimpendingā part is really key to that symptom, I think, based on my experience. Itās not the existential dread of late-stage capitalism grinding the world into nurdles. Itās a ghost crow on your shoulder whispering āitās here, itās now.ā
Impending doom is also a feature of anaphylaxis, something Iām intimately familiar with as someone with mast cell dysfunction.
For me, its the overwhelming, near calm certainty of doom that distinguishes it from the jittery panic of ābut something could go wrong.ā
Thereās no āwhat if?ā Thereās no room to question it. It just IS. And itās very different from the ācalmā of disassociation too. Iām not disassociated from myself when it happens. Iām probably actually the most present ever.
Iāve turned to doctors and told them calmly and with utter certainty āI am going to dieā and the reaction that calm certainty gets is immediate intervention because doctors also recognize that stillness as the body not bothering to waste any time on fight or flight and just going straight to ādeath is imminent due to some internal failing, act accordingly.ā
When I was lying in bed recovering from a hit to the head, I remember a moment in the middle of the night where I went from a sorta half asleep state to being instantly wide awake and feeling, with absolutely certainty, that I was about to die. It was dead silent in my head other than that thought, screaming at me that Something Is Wrong, something is Terribly Wrong. It was like I could feel the dread seeping into my bones, my chest, like I could see it in the back of my eyes, sense it around the corner. Everything was going haywire, like a train was blowing its whistle and I was on the track and my body was trying to get me to Move Dammit.
I called emergency services and tried to explain what Iām feeling. I thought I would be written off, but when I started describing the feeling, immediately the dispatcher sent paramedics to my apartment. Good thing too, as I had a stroke in the ambulance.
Impending doom is real, and a defense mechanism created by the brain to get you to get medical help for something that you cannot handle by yourself, and as someone with panic disorders, it is wildly different and arguably even more terrifying than any attack Iāve ever had.
Oooh oooh! I had this when my kidneys gave out after having been backed up and infected for a couple years!!!!
It was this āSomething is Wrongā feeling and it is very difficult to describe just how urgent and different it feels from the usual āWhelp, Iām going to die.ā feeling anxiety has.
I got to the ER in time and they slapped antibiotics on me before even knowing what was wrong, and I felt better by the next morning but I was thisclose to dying.
Iām married to someone who deals with both severe anxiety as well as CPTSD. Might be a shot, but would anyone have a comparative description of the dread caused by Ā©PTSD and this?
I happened to see this post again by pure chance when a mutual reblogged it and Iām not sure I can adequately describe it but I can try my best.
I am someone with severe Ā©PTSD that predates my experiences of almost dying. Before knowing what the āimpending doomā of dying actually felt like, the fear and anxiety caused by my Ā©PTSD felt very much like what you think death should feel like.
The danger feels so real, and it has driven me to the ER a couple of times because there was no way my body could feel this cold, this hot, this shaky, this fast, this full of dread, and for something to not be wrong.
And there was something wrong. My body was flooded with all kinds of stress hormones in response to trauma. It was my brain misfiring and insisting we had to run because there was a metaphorical tiger stalking me through the tall grass, and we needed to get away now, now, now.
I still experience episodes like this ā largely due to the repeated trauma of almost dying several times, but while I know the danger feels real (and that there could be something else wrong with me, I do not dismiss that), I am now also in a unique position to know that this feeling is not what they mean when they talk about Impending Doom.
Even when Iāve been detached and disassociated from myself or had psychosis from medication interactions, part of me still knew on some level that I was panicking, and I was alive enough to panic.
Impending Doom is not like that.
There is no franticness to impending doom. No room for questions. It just is. Itās in every cell of your body; every piece of your brain resonates with it. Thereās no anxiety. Thereās no panic. Thereās no fear. Thereās no fight, flight, or freeze. Youāre just certain.
I know it sounds trite to say it, but you will know because there is no way to mistake it for anything else.
You are going to die, itās a fact, and you are eerily calm about it.
Like I donāt think words can ever fully express how still everything feels. How still you feel as a person. Itās like your body just shuts everything else off but in a very present and coherent way.
Itās like feeling the weight of the ocean bearing down on top of you and still somehow being able to think, āhm, this isnāt good. I should probably call an ambulanceā in a way that I have never experienced from Ā©PTSD or anxiety.
And it freaks people out.
I had a doctor friend tell me once itās a bit like the uncanny valley of calmness. No one should be able to look at you and describe what theyāre feeling at that moment with that level of calm certainty. If they do, something is very, very wrong, and it pings a sense of urgency that you donāt always see in the ER, even when someoneās sitting in the corner holding their detached finger on ice.
Sorry. I feel like this is a lot of inane repetition on my part. But hopefully, it helps somewhat. It really is such a unique experience words canāt do it justice.
@thebibliosphere
Impending doom is also a feature of anaphylaxis
I did not know this. When I was thirteen I went into anaphylaxis for the first time, and I remember it vividly. I was sat on the side of the road just gasping on nothing, in full panic mode because I couldnāt breathe and I was losing my vision, and suddenly I had this moment where I thought, āoh Iām going to die.ā I felt sort of peaceful, like this is it, the moment and Iām ok with it. I remember just sticking my head between my knees and waiting for it to happen. When I regained consciousness I was in the back of the car and my mum had her fingers down my throat. It was so jarring just being alive. I spent a lot of my life thinking about that feeling, that at thirteen I was ready to die, and i donāt think itās an exaggeration to say that it kind of messed me up. I should probably talk to my therapist about that. To find out its a symptom and that didnāt come from me is such a relief. So really, thank you for sharing. You have really just reshaped something that has lived in my head and felt massive and disturbing for two decades.
Oh, Iām so sorry no one ever told you that and youāve been carrying that around for so long :(
It is 1000% a symptom of going into anaphylactic shock, and I could see how that would mess with your head if you didnāt know that. I hope talking about it in therapy helps. Wishing you good luck and hugs if you want them š
