Another one to add to the list...

Some of my friends at home were strangely impressed when I told them years ago that I had a syndrome, and it was something to add to a certain strange reflex I have too.

This morning I was coming back from a doctor's appointment and was waiting in the s-bahn station to get the next train home when I noticed that someone was being stretchered off to an ambulance. Curious, I watched as she passed me on the stretcher. She didn't look injured so I thought to myself perhaps she had fainted or fallen over or something. And that is exactly when I started to feel faint myself, vision deteriorating into whiteness (I think the worst it has ever happened to me), a cold sweat coming on and feeling a little dizzy and disoriented.

"Uh-oh", I thought to myself, "I'm going to faint if I can't get some water/chocolate/somewhere to sit." Thankfully I've never actually fainted when this light-headedness (or presyncope as I learned in my research this evening) but today I think is the closest I've felt to it. Luckily the train came in just in time so I could get a seat. I found it interesting that I instinctively held one of my arms above my head and raised my feet up onto the seats opposite. The feelings started to fade and I noticed, as my vision started to come back a little more, that a guy was looking over at me, probably wondering why I looked as white as a ghost (or at least I presume that I did).

It seems perhaps I have a blood/injection/injury phobia. I'm not a fan of injections, and they do cause me occasional problems with lightheadedness afterwards, though I have successfully watched the whole process a few times without problem. I think it's the injury phobia that is worst for me, as I noted the other week.

Fat lot of good I'm going to be if ever I have to put my first aid training to use.