I think I came close in the December of 2005. We had had an ice storm and lost power. I lived by myself and got off work late only to come home around 11 or 12 at night to discover I had no power. And I had to get up early the next morning for work. So I didn't have any time to call someone to stay with. It was already close to 40 degrees in my house and dropping, so I found every blanket I could and managed to fall asleep that night, awake the next morning, take a brief lukewarm to cold shower, and make it to work.
When I got off work, my power was still off, and the power company was saying it could be almost a week before my power was restored! So I called the last people I lived with (I rented a small room from them for a year) and asked them if I could stay with them, and they agreed. So I went over there, took a shower, and later that night, met some friends for drinks at a bar.
Anyway, I had drank a lot and taken some ativan for my occasional anxiety problems. Some friends from work called and asked me to come over to some girl's house, so I left my friends at the bar and headed over there. There were a small number of people there, a lot from work unfortunately. I was pretty drunk and they offered me a hit from their joint. I use to do it regularly but had long since quit, but I took their offer.
I remember feeling very weird. I got up from the table some of us were sitting at with what felt like draining strength and went to the bathroom, which was a freaky shade of red. I stood in there for a moment and noticed that time seemed to skip. As in every 5 seconds, I perceived only 1 second passing. That's really the best way to put it. It was a very bizarre and uncomfortable feeling. I went outside and could feel myself failing even deeper into this weird feeling, so I began to walk in circles and speak to myself aloud that I was ok, that I was just really high or something, and I would be ok. It wasn't working.
A friend came out and asked if I was ok. I told him I felt really weird and I needed some water. He went back in and seemed to take that as "hey everyone, come out and see how wasted this guy is" and as he came out, just about everyone else did too. I'm not really clear on what happened next, but I remember collapsing to the ground. I think everyone just dismissed me as really messed up, and mostly laughed.
A few of my friends came up to me and sat me up. I don't know if I couldn't talk or chose not to, but they tried to talk to me and I wouldn't answer. I couldn't or wouldn't move either. I was aware, but whether or not I could understand what they were saying to me is to this day a mystery to me. They picked me up and took me inside, where they took pictures of me and mocked me and laughed. I couldn't do anything about it, or again, wouldn't do anything about it.
Time passed and I was on the couch. I was asleep, or close to it, but I could hear my friends talking. I believe they were talking about me, but I do not know what they were saying.
The weird feeling had not subsided, and I could feel myself becomming more and more numb, and the voices of my friends were beginning to fade out, as if the volume wase slowly being turned down.
Most frightening of all, I could feel my racing heart begin to slow. I could measure the slowness, and it felt like how a clock was begin to wind down as it died. My heart was slowing, and it was scaring me. I felt like this was it, this was my time to die. I felt bad that I hadn't done a lot of things I wanted, but I felt reassured that death was something I would no longer have to worry about, as it was about here. I was becomming more and more numb, nearly cool, and the volume of the world outside me was being turned down. I was surprised that death didn't seem more inviting, but I came to realize that when you die, your senses simply fade out. Its like going to sleep, but you can actually feel yourself slip into it. I resigned myself to my fate and accepted that this was it. My time was here, my departure imminent. I felt myself fading even deeper, like the moment before you go to sleep...
After that, I remember telling my friends to take me to the hospital. Again, they had to carry me to the car, and I had to be put into a wheelchair and wheeled into the waiting room. I was slumped over, staring at the floor, non-responsive but still aware of my surroundings. The doctor saw me and my friends told them I had drank too much. They pumped some saliene or something into me, and after a bit, I got up and walked out of the hospital room and my friend took me to my car. I wasn't 100%, but I was alive, and happy for that. I was also deeply ashamed that these people from work saw me like that, and I was thinking of quitting to avoid the shame. It was more of how badly fatigued from the events and the toll of it on my mind that was doing the talking.
I drove home fine, but I was so tired, I kept forgetting where I was at at the time and how to get home. It took a lot of thinking, hard thinking, to recollect my surroundings and which road to take. I got home around 6 and slept, calling out of work the next day because of my mixture of shame and exhaustion.
Within a few days, my power was restored and I was able to go home. But that was one of the worst nights of my life, and something I won't ever forget. Some people say I was suffering from heart failure, others say I was just high, and then others say it was a severe fever causing me to feel that way and to percieve the feeling as death. I don't know, but it was scary and real to me. I myself think the joint was spiked with coke, and it affected my heart. That, with the alcohol and prescription pills already in my blood, didn't make things any better. Oh well. At least I am alive.
