u/Mundane-Respond-6136

hi all!

i’m like 99% certain i have this but just wanted to check and see if my symptoms match with you guys.

i have fainted many times in my life, to the point where i understand my triggers well and always take precautions to prevent it. because of this, i have developed pretty bad anxiety because of my dizzy spells being so common.

i was 8 when i fainted for the first time. i was in the hospital visiting my grandfather, and watched him get his blood sugars tested with a prick in his thumb. after seeing a small drop of blood, i fainted about a minute later, hitting my head on the bedside table.

other times were for various reasons (though all similar):
- i was around 13 on a school excursion in 32°C (humid australian heat). no hat, no water. standing in direct heat for a long period of time. passed out on the concrete and threw up. taken to the medical booth and was told it wasn’t heatstroke.

- young teenager, my dad was confronting me about something i was in trouble for and made me stand still as he lectured me. i was under a lot of stress, and was standing for about 10-20 mins without moving. had to immediately lay down as my vision started to go.

- young teenager again, baking cookies with my grandma and standing for an hour or so. the heat from baking got to me and had to lay down or i’d pass out.

- teenager, out walking to the beach with my friends. hot day as usual. started feeling ridiculously dizzy and had to lay down. passed out.

- teenager, walking to breakfast with my dad. it was a hot morning and i was on my period. had to lay down in the middle of the pathway, passed out, threw up.

- teenager, ran a track race and accidentally fell at the finish line and ripped open the skin on my knee. the sight of the blood made me pass out multiple times and continuously throw up.

- there are countless others, but my most recent one was about a year ago: 32°C humid morning as usual. walked about 1km to my local post office and had to wait about 10 mins in line. started feeling extremely dizzy, prickly, vision blurring, the basics. quickly went to try to buy a gatorade next door before i’d pass out, but didn’t make it in time. ended up fainting at the cash register and nearly throwing up.

there’s a very common pattern: heat and humidity, physical exertion/exhaustion, blood, and stress. it’s very mentally taxing as because of the commonness of my fainting, i’ve developed anxiety doing very common things. this makes me stressed way more often, leading to dizziness, making me more stressed, and well… you see the cycle.

i’d love to know what you guys think. i know this is a super long post but it’d really help me out.

thanks!

edit for clarification: i don’t have low iron, and my natural blood pressure is fine. i don’t pass out as often as i used to as i’m very particular with my water, salt, sugar, and electrolyte intake due to my anxiety surrounding the condition.

the qut film course is lwk so buns. i’m a second year and it’s nothing like what i was expecting. in highschool i did a certificate in multimedia at tafe, which honestly made me feel way more prepared than whatever tf this degree is.

it’s all group work (which yes, is industry standard) but there has been no individual development of skills at all. at most it’ll be one small theory assessment due in the early weeks, then you’re dunked head first into a huge group project where everyone has more experience than you and takes over.

i have learnt nothing. no skills gained. still have no clue how to operate a camera, or work with lights or audio or pretty much anything. because students who have previous experience working on set (which is surprisingly A LOT) just take all the hard jobs, leaving basically nothing to do for the people who don’t know how to do anything. which is great because it makes the assessment go smoother, but how the fuck is that gonna help me when i graduate and have no skills for the industry?

plus, there’s absolutely nothing about post-production. for pre-production there’s maybe one or two classes about script writing, but that’s it. one of my passions was video editing, and there’s been genuinely not a single class or assessment about that, when it’s an entire (important!!) category in the industry itself.

i don’t know. i’m just super disappointed. there’s only one year left so i may as well just finish the degree, but it feels very useless and like i’ve wasted my money and 3 years of my life. it makes it really demotivating to attend class and actually put effort into trying.