Student who faints ‘almost every time’ she leaves the house becomes TikTok star by sharing videos of herself collapsing
An American student with a condition that means she faints “almost every time” she leaves the house has attracted two million followers on TikTok and a girlfriend with the same illness by sharing videos of herself collapsing.
Kimberly Rhoades, 25, an English student at Pennsylvania Western University, has postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) and faints if she is slightly stressed, whether at a university lecture or the supermarket.
Kimberly, from Pittsburgh, posts videos of her fainting episodes, as well as skits and her singing, to her TikTok page, where one viral video has more than 12 million views.
Sharing the videos is also how she met her girlfriend, Hannah Stoodley, 24, who also has PoTS and moved in with Kimberley after they connected over their shared struggle – which sees both constantly look out for each other in the hope they will not seriously injure themselves.
According to the NHS, PoTS is an abnormal increase in heart rate that occurs after sitting up or standing. Typical symptoms include dizziness and fainting.
Kimberly was diagnosed with PoTS on January 11 2022 after years of unexpectedly fainting and her stamina decreasing.
“It felt really weird – walking up steps got harder for me too.
“I then gradually started to faint a lot – I would randomly faint, and I never knew why. I hadn’t seen blood or anything like that.”
Kimberly has had several concussions from fainting and falling down stairs and spends her day-to-day life fearing severe injury.
She said: “It’s really hard having to go through my day constantly thinking, ‘Am I gonna faint and crack my head open today?’
“I just really need to be very cognisant of my day-to-day activities.
“I do preventative things like I stay hydrated, I wear my compression socks, I take it slow. But sometimes, you know, the cookie still crumbles.”
But she has recently reignited her love for theatre by posting videos on TikTok.
She began posting on the video app in March 2022 with a ‘Welcome to my life with PoTS’ video, showing the day-to-day struggles of the chronic illness.
Since then, she has posted skits related to PoTS and videos of her singing, and has nearly two million followers.
She said: “TikTok has been so wonderful for me because I’m able to use that as an outlet for my acting and singing.”
Her favourite videos are the ones that show her fainting in public. When Kimberly is about to faint, she often asks her girlfriend to record it to show her doctor and posts it on TikTok to help raise awareness of the reality of PoTS.
She said: “I like the ones where it’s showing me fainting in public because people really want to know how other people handle it.
“I faint almost every time I leave the house.
“The bright fluorescent lighting, the walking, the talking, the crowds, everything like that can trigger me to feel like I’m going to faint.”
Kimberly explained that generally people react kindly to her videos, but not always.
“There are some hate comments, saying I’m faking.
“I don’t need to fall over on camera for views. I know that I have lots of other talents and things that I could offer up, and I don’t mean to sound pompous by saying that.
“I wish this was fake. I really do because my life would be so much easier.”
“I guess I just don’t want to be put into this category of a disabled content creator. Like, that’s all you are. You don’t get to do anything else.
“I want to be able to act and sing, and I want to be able to do my skits and show people who I am.
“I just don’t want to be known as the fainting girl.”
She said: “I can only do so many classes at a time.
“It’s not just the fainting. It’s the brain fog. It’s the lack of sleep. It’s the depression along with it.
“It’s so difficult to deal with every day, you do have to miss normal things.”
After following each other and doing an Instagram live together, the pair began video calling each other every night in June 2022.
They met in person in October, and by Christmas they moved in together.
Kimberly said: “I think that it would be so hard to be in a relationship with somebody, at least for me, who doesn’t understand PoTS.
“Having somebody that understands, and vice versa, just makes all the difference.”