First off, a word from our sponsors. Check out the unique handmade mirrors from The Pinotti Collection. Any Color. Any Size.. And now, back to our regularly scheduled blog.


I’ve compiled a list of similar incidents that have occurred to me over the last 34 years. These scenarios normally happen 5 or more years apart. See if you can spot a pattern.

1. In the 4th grade I was in the Jersey Village High School auditorium rehearsing with my class for one of those ”America Is Great” programs. I complain about feeling ill to my home room teacher Mrs. Schaeper. She’s a b*tch and just blows me off. I pass out briefly by slumping up against the wall. She thinks I was kidding around. I think she sucks.
2. In 11th grade during summer marching band practice, I feel out of it. At one moment I’m staring at the band hall. The next minute, my band director Mr. Cunningham is asking me what I ate for breakfast and I’m flat on the ground, wind knocked out of me. Nice.
3. While attending college at HBU, I suddenly feel a weird unease and get up and walk out of my Microbiology class. I spot the elevator. I hop in. I pass out.
4. While attending an Anatomy and Physiology class in 1996 at HCC, I pass out during a spinal cord overview. Actually, I cracked my head against the table and completely collapsed to the floor. Same deal as the others. Except now I was in a room with chiropracters and they sent my ass off to the E/R. Diagnosis? Vaso vagal syncopy. What’s that mean? I dunno.
5. In 2001 after The Great Broken Ankles Incident, I black in and out while waiting in the hospital emergency room.
6. And finally, this past Friday night while I was at Numbers, I *nearly* blacked out again. I recognized it coming on (finally, right?) and shook it off.

So… this may seem like a lot of incidents, but over the course of time they have been extremely rare. My sister hit the nail on the head when I told her about the latest incident. I’ve got a freakin’ panic disorder. I feel that the ”panic” part of the name is a misnomer because I wasn’t really panicked about anything other than the fear of passing out.
You get into this fight or flight mode but there is no fight so you get confused about what’s going on. I get into some kind of strange feedback loop where I’m thinking about passing out and not wanting to and then overcompensating and the heart rate goes up and blood pressure drops and BLAM! It’s all in my head, though, and there is no physical reason for it according to the millions of web pages dedicated to the subject of panic disorder. I now understand that most people experience this disorder but never fully comprehend what happened, or that they don’t get to the point where it causes a critical disruption. There’s psycho-therapeutic options available that should solve the problem. How bizarro. Just wait til I write (later) about my weekend and my trip to Philly in my Eclipse. Major stress. Okay. More later.