This is my time line from beginning to end, when I was "saved". Times may be off because as my condition worsened, my timing became a mess. I do know(I think) that the situation ended somewhere near the end of April.
Please note that not everyone will have the same outcome, nor will all results be the same. Your age, health condition, and weight will make factors different for everyone. It also takes a lot of willpower to not eat, and I couldn't tell you how many times I almost lost.
Voluntary Stop Eating and Drinking(VSED) means exactly that. Except in my case, I just chose not to eat, as I have read about how painful it can be without liquid, so I went with the liquid only routine. Although drinking just water can make you survive longer, no food intake can have consequences. By just liquid, it can take upwards of 2 to 3 months ( again, it depends on age, overall health, and your weight), but for some people, it could be less, could be more. I was also hiking day after day, up and down hills, so I'm sure that didn't help with all the calories I was burning up. During this entire attempt, I was in the woods.
I will skip the days as to keep this read shorter.
Week one(beginning of March): Started the no eating attempt, and started hiking on a trail(a very long trail). Stomach mad and growling because it wants food, water helped the pain subside.
Week two: Still moving along fairly well on the trail, but hunger pains are starting to hit the stomach.
Week three: The pains intensified causing cramping and severe pain, but by end of week, the pains have reduced to a dull pain. Came to a road crossing, stopped at a store and got cigarettes and a bottle. Continued hiking for about 6 miles and stopped, as this is where I planned to let VSED do it's thing.
Week four: If the pain was still there, it no longer bothered me. Was also losing weight as I had to keep pulling pants up. Several times through the next few weeks, other hikers would come by, and when they cooked their food, the smell had me feeling nauseated.
Week five: Really starting to feel the effects. Head hurting, I was pale(according to some hikers, but I passed it off that I wasn't feeling good). Was also starting to see things that weren't there. I was miserable as hell, didn't want to move. Just wanted to lay in sleeping bag and sleep all day. By the end of that week, I was starting to lose focus, and was losing the difference between fiction and reality.
Week six: I was in bad shape. I was having out loud conversations with someone who wasn't there(nobody was there). Everything around me felt like a dream. Everything around me wasn't real, to me I was just imagining everything I saw. Even though I was in this state, I still understood what I was there for, and planned to keep it.
I'm completely lost from here on out(at least for 2 weeks). I don't know days, or times. It's all blank, and I'm sure all the whiskey I had been drinking, didn't help. Week seven(or whereabouts) is when this came to an end.
Week seven: I was no longer me. I say this is because you know how when a kid pretends he's a plane, he spreads his arms and pretends he's flying? I don't know if I really did that, or if I was dreaming, but for some reason, I'm convinced I actually did it.
At some point during this week, I got out of my sleeping bag, hiked back to that grocery store. The next thing I know, I open my eyes, I was laying in a hospital bed. I remember none of this, the getting up, the hiking, being at a store, or coming to the hospital.
I had IVs in my arms, wires on my chest, and a hose up my nose. A nurse came in a short time later and says she will let doctor know I'm awake.
When the doctor gets in there, he says he doesn't even understand why I'm still alive, and he didn't expect me to pull through. I had been in the hospital for a week and a half, and they kept me under anesthesia to give my body time to heal.
I was told that while I was at the store, I dropped to the floor and was not breathing. Someone did CPR on me and I started breathing again on my own, then was transported to the hospital.
My insides, liver, kidneys, stomach, and intestines were on the verge of destruction. He said had it not been for the person giving me CPR, I would have been gone, then said I should be gone, and he doesn't know how I pulled out of it. He says for me not to expect my body to fully recover. He also asked about my eating habits, I lied and said that I had eaten, but I was sick for a few days and was throwing up what I ate. I don't know if he believed it considering how messed up I was.
I spent two more weeks in the hospital, with several weeks in a rehab(nursing home basically). I'm not 100 percent better, but for now health wise, I'm ok.
I look back on that trip, and it feels like it never happened, like it was a bad dream.
Would I attempt this route again? You're damn right I would. The reason being is because once I got into that trance to where I couldn't tell the difference between fiction and reality, I felt like I was trapped between two worlds, and in that spot between the two, I was at peace.
In my opinion, had I stayed on that trail, I would have successfully succeeded.
