“You have anxiety.”
That’s all I heard from doctors, nurses and even my friends and family each time I regained consciousness after passing out. During the first month of my freshman year of college, I passed out every time I exerted a little bit of energy. The first time I went to the emergency room the doctor dismissed me as having anxiety and depression, and a week later when I returned with a similar episode they dismissed me with the same diagnosis.
As someone who has suffered from anxiety in the past, I knew this was not an anxiety attack.
Subscribe to keep reading
This story is from our archive. Get your SandPaper Annual Pass for access to our digital archive, plus everything else a pass includes. Details below.
Annual Pass — $18 Details
365-day access to:
- The complete SandPaper digital archive (stories date back to 2012).
- Full photo galleries from our photographers.
- The entire catalog of SandPaper games, puzzles and quizzes.
How it works
- Enter your email below and click to pay the one-time $18. Card details are entered on Stripe’s secure page.
- You’re in straight away — no password to create, and nothing to set up or manage.
- You stay signed in. If you’re ever signed out, or you read on a new phone or computer, we’ll email you a code to get you back in.
- Never auto-renews. Your pass is good for one year. We will email you when it expires so you can renew if you’d like.
See our site policies for more information.
Already a subscriber? We’ll email a code to get you back in.
















