Story Failed exsanguination attempt

[CringeNihilism]

Hi Im new here
I've been struggling with depression for 4 years and attempted to ctb 5 months ago.
I want to share my experience in my failed attempt.
I used to self-bloodlet from the beginning of 2022 as way of self harm to relieve my emotional pain. When I first self bloodlet I used to draw a small amount of blood (3~5ml) with syringes. After a month or so, I gained the ability to self bloodlet as nearly as 300-600 ml. There was a time when my family went to travel to a remote city and I was the only one home experiencing a mental breakdown at the time, I thought I could self bloodlet freely without interruption.

- First day: I drew around 750ml and I didn't experience any symptoms

-Second day: I drew 1116ml (516ml in the morning and 600ml in evening) I felt drowsy at the time

-Third day: I drew 600ml and I wasn't planning to draw that much blood but did it impulsively. I was very thirsty, had tachycardia, couldn't get out of bed, pallor lips, conjunctiva, so pale, nauseous (didn't vomit btw) and was having a headache. At that moment I was thinking I had to go to the hospital because I was experiencing clear signs of hypovolemic shock but decided not to. I wasn't actually planning to ctb at all I was just self harming my self until the fourth day.

-Fourth day: I thought that if I drew more blood, I would die. I was having suicidal thoughts since forever and thought that that day will eventually come so if not now then when? I then drew another 600ml of my blood with the intention of ending my life. That makes it a total of (3.1 Liters ) of blood in 4 days. When I stood up after I finished, I collapsed on the floor immediately and had to crawl to get water bc I was dying of dehydration. I went back to my bed waiting for the moment I leave this world. My heart was beating so fast my chest could burst lol, i was having severe headache, could feel the arteries on my neck with each bump my heart gives, and shortness of breath.

I was like that lying on my bed for 6 hours then went to sleep, only to find myself waking up in the morning and my body hurt like hell. The back of my neck hurt like it was hit bluntly and I felt like my cerebral arteries could burst and rupture due to the fast heart rate. I was confused bc I was supposed to have severe hypotention but my BP was 120/60, I found out later that my blood pressure was like that bc of the amount of water I drank in the 4 days I self bloodlet. My heart rate was 130 bpm. I literally fucked up I couldn't move at all to draw more blood and I used all of my syringes and couldn't afford to go and buy more. My family came home that day. My mom saw my current state and had me confess what I did. I went to ICU and received 4 units of blood (packed RBCs) and fluids.
My hemoglobin was (5.1 gm/dl) way below the normal value, after the blood transfusion it became (9.6 gm/dl) and my hypovolemic shock was treated. No more tachycardia and my heart rate became relatively normal. my skin went to its normal color no paleness. I was discharged after staying at the hospital for 2 days and went back home.
home sweet home

 

[jodes2]

Christ. I didn't realise that method was so nasty! I'm glad you're ok

 

[CringeNihilism]

Christ. I didn't realise that method was so nasty! I'm glad you're ok

Thank you

 

[Domimi]

Thank you for relating your experience, I'm glad you are well now. In the paper, exsanguination sounds like a relatively peaceful method for those who are familiar to self harm, but by your report it seems that it is not that simple... Actually you may have been "lucky" to survive, because according to some sources in the internet, +40% of blood loss is very likely to lead to coma and organ failure when no saving measures are taken. I too have an interest in this method, but by severing my carotid artery instead, which I assume that blood loss would be too fast to experience these symptoms.

 

[CringeNihilism]

Thank you for relating your experience, I'm glad you are well now. In the paper, exsanguination sounds like a relatively peaceful method for those who are familiar to self harm, but by your report it seems that it is not that simple... Actually you may have been "lucky" to survive, because according to some sources in the internet, +40% of blood loss is very likely to lead to coma and organ failure when no saving measures are taken. I too have an interest in this method, but by severing my carotid artery instead, which I assume that blood loss would be too fast to experience these symptoms.

Yes I thought I was definitely going to die because of that reason I lost more than half of my blood, But that information accounts only for acute blood loss not chronic blood loss. I thought four days was acute blood loss but the doctors suspected there was an internal bleeding causing the chronic blood loss indicated by thrombocytosis ( My family didn't tell the doctors about what happened)
I think what made my experience painful was the normal blood pressure with fast heart rate
normally hypotention develops when you lose too much blood in a short period of time but because I was drawing blood for 4 days and drank tons of water my BP became normal

Thank you for relating your experience, I'm glad you are well now. In the paper, exsanguination sounds like a relatively peaceful method for those who are familiar to self harm, but by your report it seems that it is not that simple... Actually you may have been "lucky" to survive, because according to some sources in the internet, +40% of blood loss is very likely to lead to coma and organ failure when no saving measures are taken. I too have an interest in this method, but by severing my carotid artery instead, which I assume that blood loss would be too fast to experience these symptoms.

I do not recommend severing the carotid artery though it can be very painful and you might fail if you don't press enough force.
if you want to die through exsanguination you can practise using 14 gauge cannulas and anticoagulants such as oral warfarin or heparin
you can achieve the same goal of severing your carotid if you can lose more than half of your blood by self bloodletting in a short time.
severing your carotid can leave irreversible symptoms if you fail while self bloodletting can be reversible.

 

[Domimi]

Yes I thought I was definitely going to die because of that reason I lost more than half of my blood, But that information accounts only for acute blood loss not chronic blood loss. I thought four days was acute blood loss but the doctors suspected there was an internal bleeding causing the chronic blood loss indicated by thrombocytosis ( My family didn't tell the doctors about what happened)
I think what made my experience painful was the normal blood pressure with fast heart rate
normally hypotention develops when you lose too much blood in a short period of time but because I was drawing blood for 4 days and drank tons of water my BP became normal

That makes sense, thank you for the info. I'm also surprised that 4 days count as chronic blood loss, it's insane how rapidly our body can adapt to and deal with stressful situations sometimes.

 

[FuneralCry]

That sounds like a really horrific experience what you went through, at least you didn't end up with any kind of permanent damage.

 

[Unknown21]

R.I.P