First of all, I would like to thank anyone who takes its time to read my post (I know time is our greatest asset), since it’s a little long, I hope to hear your opinion about my experience and I also hope that if you are going thru something similar to this, this post might help you as well.
It was 10/2018, I woke up super early (5:00Am), the plan for that day was to give my sister a ride back to her house, I live in Los Angeles CA, and she lives in Indio CA, so it’s a two-hour drive with no traffic. We woke up that morning and left as planned, we made a quick stop on our way to give a friend a ride, and we had a quick drive thru breakfast, then we arrived to Indio at around 7:30Am, my sister had some doctors appointment she needed to take care of, so we did that before going to her house, by the time we got to her house it was around 11:00Am and at this point both of us are super hungry, so she calls her husband, to check with him what food from the fridge was ok for us to eat, he told her that the beef was ok, but somehow my sister thought that beef and chicken are the same thing, witch there are not, since beef comes from cows and chicken comes from chicken’s.
By the way I and my brother in Law had a mini physical fight a couple a days before this happened, and he called the cops on me, even thought he had started the fight and I was just defending myself from his attack.
Back to the meal, so, somehow instead of my sister giving me beef, as her husband had told her, she instead gave me chicken, so I ate the chicken, and I did felt a weird flavor in that chicken, But I was so hungry that I ignored the weird flavor and just ate all of it, then I laid in bed for a few minutes, and after like 45-60 minutes I started to feel something weird in my head, so I called my mom and told her that there might me something wrong with me, at this point I wasn’t sure because I just felt something weird but there weren’t any worrisome symptom’s yet.
From this point 45-60 minutes after eating the chicken, symptoms became very worrisome, first I felt very energetic (Like I needed to start running at full speed none stop), and then I was also a bit confused, and my heart rate started to accelerate extremely fast 190 palpitations per minute (I have the medical record), so I tell a random driver that’s passing by to please call an ambulance since I was feeling really bad, so the situation escalated very fast as well, within 10 minutes from when I called my mom, I couldn’t think straight and I couldn’t talk properly, if fact I had a hard time telling that random driver to call an ambulance, the worst thing is that since my sister lives in the dessert the ambulance took around 40 minutes to get to us, the firefighters somehow made it before the ambulance, they made it like in 10 minutes, so that’s 20-30 before the ambulance, by the time the firefighter had arrived I had taking my shirt and shoes off because I felt extremely hot, and I was begging my sister to give some water, my lips were very swollen, my whole body became very pale (grey, like a corpse), and I was sweating profusely, and in my mind all I was thinking is that since my brother and I had a fight days earlier he had tried to poison/killed with that meal, I was also having hallucinations, and I was seeing colors inside my mind, I was extremely scared, I was completely sure that my food had been poisoned and that I would die from a heart attack or a stroke or in a terrible way, like a freaking dog that dies is the street, I had never been so frighten in my life, not even when I had face real life threating events, like that time the a car hit me while crossing back when I was 13 years old, I have faced life threatening events many times before in life, I’d been in 2 bug earthquakes and things like that, but this somehow was very different, all I could thing is I am going to die at 26 years old, I have so many bills and debts I still have to pay, and I could pictures my parents crying at my funeral, and I was thinking this is so crazy, the last thing I could’ve thought that morning is that I was going to die poisoned like a dog on the street, obviously that didn’t happened since I’m alive writing this right now.
I begged the firefighter to give me some water but they wouldn’t give me, I still remember all they told me was to calm down, and they gave this look, like I was some sort of crazy homeless that was really high on God knows what kind of drugs, and well they were actually kind of right, see, what I didn’t know this whole time is that my brother in law had put over 200ml of edible marijuana in that chicken, and the thing with me is that I have never ever, not once, in my entire life had done drugs, I have never smoked a cigarette of any kind, and I have never been drunk either, that’s just not my style, it’s not how I was raised (Christian family), I had never done any type of drugs, so apparently I was having what people now a days call a bad trip, my blood sugar, blood pressure and heart rate were all dangerously high, I know this based medical records I requested from the hospital, so this was a really traumatic experience.
I remember the ambulance arriving, the paramedics putting me on a bed, and injecting me something to calm me down I guess, because after what they had put in my body I was staring to loose conscience, I remember asking the paramedics if it was ok for me to fall asleep?, I’d ask this because I was afraid that I was losing the battle, in my mind I was thinking the whole time, this is how it ends for me, this is how I die, I was thinking the ambulance took too long to get here and they didn’t have time to save me, I was most likely falling as sleep because of what they had injected me, so they took me to the hospital, at one point in the ambulance I lost conscience and woke up a couple of hours later at the hospital, I started recovering from that bad trip, and was able to go home like at mid-night, 12 hours after everything had started, little did I know that this was only the beginning of what would turn into constant panic attacks and PTSD. I couldn’t drive back home, sow my father in law drove us back home that same night, the next day I was so happy to be alive and to have made it another.
The next day I remember having weird thoughts, I was wondering if I had died the day before and if this was some sort of alter reality, obviously that was something really weird to think about, I still had some of the marijuana in my head I guess, I tried to continue my life just like always, at that time I was delivering food for a living, I remember driving the car when all of a sudden I feel fear and panic, like something really bad is about to happen, and I start to sweat, my heart rate started to increase really fast, I start to hyperventilate, and I thought I was having a heart attack, I felt tingling in my hand, so I called an ambulance, they arrived and took me to the hospital, at the hospital they did an EKG, and everything was ok, I remember this specific panic attack, because I was lightheaded, confused, scared to death, and I now know that I had actually experienced 2 or 3 attacks within that hour at that time, I then discover what a panic attack was, but that didn’t stopped me from calling ambulances in the near future, I called ambulances for this same issue like 3 more times, totaling around 4 time, after that I was very well aware of what a panic attack felt like and to not be afraid of them, so I stopped calling ambulances for panic attacks.
I was having nightmares were someone would come and poisoned my food, I was having a really hard time falling asleep, I was having terrible nightmares constantly, there were other factors contributing to my anxiety, few months before all this happened I was in 2 car accidents, one as a driver and one as a passenger, I had no money to pay my bills, I was diagnose with diabetes, I had to close all my credit cards and enrolled in hardship programs, I was also basically jobless, one can’t really make much money delivering food, and also I was living (still do) with my parents and my dad is sick, he hasn’t worked in over 4 years, and that was something also I was also worried about, every month I have to come up with a little over 2200$ to cover bills, so there were a lot of things I was going thru, which didn’t help with the anxiety, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack.
Overall I am doing better now, I would say much better, the panic attacks have basically stopped, I learned not to fear them at all, but that did take me a few months to learn, no more nightmares, I am sleeping better now, I remember having nights were I could barely go to sleep because I felt so scare, and that hasn’t happened again, I stopped worrying about having a heart attack (I am a big guy), or a stroke, at one point of this whole ordeal, I was having what some people call health anxiety, I was constantly worried I had some deadly disease (like cancer), this fear would sometimes trigger panic attacks, I was afraid something could’ve happen to a family member if they didn’t answered the phone right away when a I called them. At this point I have overcome all of this to certain extend (85%), I know this battle isn’t over yet, this is still an ongoing battle, that thanks God I am winning, what has helped me a lot is prayer and faith, actually faith is the opposite of anxiety/fear/doubt and all those bad feelings, talking with family members has helped a lot too, recognizing that a panic attack can’t kill you also helps, something that would help me a lot when having a panic attack was too shower immediately before the panic attack or during the attack, I would also sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack and I would shower, and then go back to sleep listening to the Bible with my ear pods (Psalms), and that would do it for me. In my personal case, Prayer and Faith did played a big role in my recovery, and I am happy for that.
It was 10/2018, I woke up super early (5:00Am), the plan for that day was to give my sister a ride back to her house, I live in Los Angeles CA, and she lives in Indio CA, so it’s a two-hour drive with no traffic. We woke up that morning and left as planned, we made a quick stop on our way to give a friend a ride, and we had a quick drive thru breakfast, then we arrived to Indio at around 7:30Am, my sister had some doctors appointment she needed to take care of, so we did that before going to her house, by the time we got to her house it was around 11:00Am and at this point both of us are super hungry, so she calls her husband, to check with him what food from the fridge was ok for us to eat, he told her that the beef was ok, but somehow my sister thought that beef and chicken are the same thing, witch there are not, since beef comes from cows and chicken comes from chicken’s.
By the way I and my brother in Law had a mini physical fight a couple a days before this happened, and he called the cops on me, even thought he had started the fight and I was just defending myself from his attack.
Back to the meal, so, somehow instead of my sister giving me beef, as her husband had told her, she instead gave me chicken, so I ate the chicken, and I did felt a weird flavor in that chicken, But I was so hungry that I ignored the weird flavor and just ate all of it, then I laid in bed for a few minutes, and after like 45-60 minutes I started to feel something weird in my head, so I called my mom and told her that there might me something wrong with me, at this point I wasn’t sure because I just felt something weird but there weren’t any worrisome symptom’s yet.
From this point 45-60 minutes after eating the chicken, symptoms became very worrisome, first I felt very energetic (Like I needed to start running at full speed none stop), and then I was also a bit confused, and my heart rate started to accelerate extremely fast 190 palpitations per minute (I have the medical record), so I tell a random driver that’s passing by to please call an ambulance since I was feeling really bad, so the situation escalated very fast as well, within 10 minutes from when I called my mom, I couldn’t think straight and I couldn’t talk properly, if fact I had a hard time telling that random driver to call an ambulance, the worst thing is that since my sister lives in the dessert the ambulance took around 40 minutes to get to us, the firefighters somehow made it before the ambulance, they made it like in 10 minutes, so that’s 20-30 before the ambulance, by the time the firefighter had arrived I had taking my shirt and shoes off because I felt extremely hot, and I was begging my sister to give some water, my lips were very swollen, my whole body became very pale (grey, like a corpse), and I was sweating profusely, and in my mind all I was thinking is that since my brother and I had a fight days earlier he had tried to poison/killed with that meal, I was also having hallucinations, and I was seeing colors inside my mind, I was extremely scared, I was completely sure that my food had been poisoned and that I would die from a heart attack or a stroke or in a terrible way, like a freaking dog that dies is the street, I had never been so frighten in my life, not even when I had face real life threating events, like that time the a car hit me while crossing back when I was 13 years old, I have faced life threatening events many times before in life, I’d been in 2 bug earthquakes and things like that, but this somehow was very different, all I could thing is I am going to die at 26 years old, I have so many bills and debts I still have to pay, and I could pictures my parents crying at my funeral, and I was thinking this is so crazy, the last thing I could’ve thought that morning is that I was going to die poisoned like a dog on the street, obviously that didn’t happened since I’m alive writing this right now.
I begged the firefighter to give me some water but they wouldn’t give me, I still remember all they told me was to calm down, and they gave this look, like I was some sort of crazy homeless that was really high on God knows what kind of drugs, and well they were actually kind of right, see, what I didn’t know this whole time is that my brother in law had put over 200ml of edible marijuana in that chicken, and the thing with me is that I have never ever, not once, in my entire life had done drugs, I have never smoked a cigarette of any kind, and I have never been drunk either, that’s just not my style, it’s not how I was raised (Christian family), I had never done any type of drugs, so apparently I was having what people now a days call a bad trip, my blood sugar, blood pressure and heart rate were all dangerously high, I know this based medical records I requested from the hospital, so this was a really traumatic experience.
I remember the ambulance arriving, the paramedics putting me on a bed, and injecting me something to calm me down I guess, because after what they had put in my body I was staring to loose conscience, I remember asking the paramedics if it was ok for me to fall asleep?, I’d ask this because I was afraid that I was losing the battle, in my mind I was thinking the whole time, this is how it ends for me, this is how I die, I was thinking the ambulance took too long to get here and they didn’t have time to save me, I was most likely falling as sleep because of what they had injected me, so they took me to the hospital, at one point in the ambulance I lost conscience and woke up a couple of hours later at the hospital, I started recovering from that bad trip, and was able to go home like at mid-night, 12 hours after everything had started, little did I know that this was only the beginning of what would turn into constant panic attacks and PTSD. I couldn’t drive back home, sow my father in law drove us back home that same night, the next day I was so happy to be alive and to have made it another.
The next day I remember having weird thoughts, I was wondering if I had died the day before and if this was some sort of alter reality, obviously that was something really weird to think about, I still had some of the marijuana in my head I guess, I tried to continue my life just like always, at that time I was delivering food for a living, I remember driving the car when all of a sudden I feel fear and panic, like something really bad is about to happen, and I start to sweat, my heart rate started to increase really fast, I start to hyperventilate, and I thought I was having a heart attack, I felt tingling in my hand, so I called an ambulance, they arrived and took me to the hospital, at the hospital they did an EKG, and everything was ok, I remember this specific panic attack, because I was lightheaded, confused, scared to death, and I now know that I had actually experienced 2 or 3 attacks within that hour at that time, I then discover what a panic attack was, but that didn’t stopped me from calling ambulances in the near future, I called ambulances for this same issue like 3 more times, totaling around 4 time, after that I was very well aware of what a panic attack felt like and to not be afraid of them, so I stopped calling ambulances for panic attacks.
I was having nightmares were someone would come and poisoned my food, I was having a really hard time falling asleep, I was having terrible nightmares constantly, there were other factors contributing to my anxiety, few months before all this happened I was in 2 car accidents, one as a driver and one as a passenger, I had no money to pay my bills, I was diagnose with diabetes, I had to close all my credit cards and enrolled in hardship programs, I was also basically jobless, one can’t really make much money delivering food, and also I was living (still do) with my parents and my dad is sick, he hasn’t worked in over 4 years, and that was something also I was also worried about, every month I have to come up with a little over 2200$ to cover bills, so there were a lot of things I was going thru, which didn’t help with the anxiety, I would sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack.
Overall I am doing better now, I would say much better, the panic attacks have basically stopped, I learned not to fear them at all, but that did take me a few months to learn, no more nightmares, I am sleeping better now, I remember having nights were I could barely go to sleep because I felt so scare, and that hasn’t happened again, I stopped worrying about having a heart attack (I am a big guy), or a stroke, at one point of this whole ordeal, I was having what some people call health anxiety, I was constantly worried I had some deadly disease (like cancer), this fear would sometimes trigger panic attacks, I was afraid something could’ve happen to a family member if they didn’t answered the phone right away when a I called them. At this point I have overcome all of this to certain extend (85%), I know this battle isn’t over yet, this is still an ongoing battle, that thanks God I am winning, what has helped me a lot is prayer and faith, actually faith is the opposite of anxiety/fear/doubt and all those bad feelings, talking with family members has helped a lot too, recognizing that a panic attack can’t kill you also helps, something that would help me a lot when having a panic attack was too shower immediately before the panic attack or during the attack, I would also sometimes wake up in the middle of the night with a panic attack and I would shower, and then go back to sleep listening to the Bible with my ear pods (Psalms), and that would do it for me. In my personal case, Prayer and Faith did played a big role in my recovery, and I am happy for that.
