Sunday, March 29, 2009
I'm Not Fucking Crazy After All
This will definitely be a different kind of post.
Do you have any idea what it is like to go through life wondering if maybe you’re crazy? Why do I not act normally? Who do certain things bother me so. much. and those same things have NO affect on others? Some of these things bother me so much they actually annoy me or even make me angry. It’s an overwhelming annoyance and since I don’t know how to stop it, it makes me mad. For the longest time, I thought I had maybe some sort of anger management issues or maybe I was a control freak or maybe I was just fucking nuts. Maybe I’m not normal. Maybe I’m a fucking lunatic and it hasn’t fully come out yet but one day, I’ll no longer be able to hide it from everyone.
Most of the time, I disagree with all these diagnosis given to children these days. I tend to think they are band aids for either a physical medical issue or for piss poor parenting. Some times, though, these discoveries do a lot of good for the kids who find out what’s wrong with them.
Most of these discoveries were not around when I was a kid. Top that off with parents who refused to treat me as anything but normal, thanks to a psychologist who insisted that was the way to treat me after the way my life started out; “Just treat her as you would any other child.” I think they took that to heart and while they did put me in counseling to over come some of the issues I had from that horrible early start, they simply didn’t know enough and frankly, wanted to blame every last thing on me being a gigantic pain in the ass.
Which, I kind of was at times.
But there were some things that I would get in serious trouble over that I could not explain. I could not tell you why my mother’s voice would physically cause me pain. To this day, most female newscasters and some commercials make me crazy. It’s the way they are talking, there’s something about the way they are talking that makes me want to fucking scream and rip my eardrums out. And this whole time, I’ve been thinking, “I’m insane. That has to be it. It’s ridiculous that I can’t stand to listen to a fucking cat food commercial by some female voice over without scrambling for my remote control to MUTE HER MY GOD SHUT UP!!!!!! or, if I have no access to the remote, (say in a public waiting room), get out of the room as fast as possible and try not to scream.”
I’m not exaggerating in the slightest here, kids.
Without getting in to TOO much detail about what I do on my time off, I now have an answer. At long last. I HAVE an answer. And you know what? To finally find out that not only am I NOT batshit fucking crazy, I’m actually in company with at least 25% of Americans, is such a relief I broke down and cried when given the results.
Anyone who knows me well knows that some noises drive me over the edge. Noises that do not bother others or maybe only slightly irritate them after awhile make me suffer. Physically suffer.
They also know that I am EXTREMELY aware of my environment and even the slightest changes. I am very aware if something is moved or is not where it usually is placed. And it’s not that I go looking for those things, I’m JUST. AWARE. THAT MUCH. And when those things are not where they usually are, I can get overwhelmed. I absolutely cannot concentrate if something is out of place. Not just my house, anywhere. Like, grocery stores. People put items back on shelves they don’t belong on, I see that and I can forget everything I was doing, going to do, all of it and can only think about that item being out of place. Like, I don’t necessarily want to put it back, it just destroys my line of thinking. I don’t know how to explain this for anyone to understand. Most people think that means I am OCD. I don’t think I’m OCD. I like to be clean and I like things orderly, of course, but I’m not going to go around fixing all the grocery shelves. I don’t have that problem. It just...sigh, I don’t know how to put in words what it does to my brain.
I’ve been accused of being a control freak. I’ve been accused of being OCD. I’ve been accused of being too angry. I’ve been accused of being quirky. I’ve been accused of being weird. I’ve been accused of being introverted, shy. I’ve been accused of being completely and totally unsociable. I’ve been accused of many things and one of the reasons I lost my last job, at the cruise line, is because no one understood, not even I UNDERSTOOD, why I would react certain ways to certain situations.
I have also been accused of being “way too sensitive”.
Guess what. Those who said that weren’t too far off the mark.
Lights can really bother me. Many sounds can really bother me. Loud noises drive me crazy. I startle so easily it startles the people who tried to startle me in the first place as a joke. I don’t like to be touched. ESPECIALLY when it’s done lightly. And I am very sensitive to something, anything, touching me. I am extremely sensitive to pain-I’ve been called a baby over something as simple as a splinter.
That’s because, I have sensory processing disorder.
Some of you who know me will see some of the following here and think, “Yep, that is Serenity, definitely!”
*Bothered by clothes: tags, seams, belts, turtlenecks, etc.
*Bothered by “light touch” (I’ve been known to haul off and slap people for doing that before I even know what I’m doing. It’s almost like fight or flight and in this case, it’s fight, get it off, STOP THAT now!)
*Excessively ticklish (Dudes, if you even THINK about touching my feet? I will fucking cut you. I am insanely ticklish and people think it’s hilarious to tickle me. Of course the reaction is to laugh but that is NOT because I’m enjoying it. It just happens. Getting tickled is actually a painful experience for me.)
*Distressed by others touching you. (Oh, you have no idea. I’ve been accused, in relationships, of being cold and unaffectionate.)
*Constantly fidgeting with something.
*Often touching or twisting your own hair. (Here is one that screams “Serenity” for those of you who have met me in real life. ALL OF MY LIFE I have done this and ALL OF MY LIFE people have to make a fucking production out of it. To be honest with you, it’s something I do without realizing I’m doing it. Frankly I think it’s some sort of calming mechanism for me.)
*Very sensitive to pain, more so than others. (How many times have I mentioned how I hate getting shots or have blood taken? And I’m always told, “It doesn’t hurt!” Yes, mother fuckers, it DOES fucking hurt! Even that little pin prick to get a few drops of blood? I react as if I just had my arm severed. And HO HO HO, everyone thinks it’s so damn funny.)
*Avoid touching anything messy and if you do, you have to wash your hands. (Here is where I’ve been accused of being OCD. Look, I SWEAR to you, I can FEEL the mess on my hands even if you can’t see it. THAT is why I wash my hands all the time, (plus to keep people’s sick germs off of me) because I actually can feel it.)
*Hate to go barefoot. (Well, that’s because my feet are so gottdamned sensitive I cannot walk outside without shoes.)
*Avoid rides that go upside down and/or backwards. (Ok, I LOVE roller coasters. LOVE. THEM! But! I cannot go on rides that spin. I did one time. Once. And for the rest of the day and night, while in bed trying to sleep, I felt like I was still spinning and had to actually sit up the entire night.)
*Foods with mixed textures is difficult. (Lord Almighty how many times have people given me shit for separating my food on my plate. I seriously can only handle one taste and texture at a time. Seriously. This is another reason I could never be a great chef.)
*Like crunchy foods (More than you can imagine. Frankly, I don’t eat chips for the flavor, really. I eat them because I enjoy the ever loving crap out of the texture and I love the noise. Love it, love it, love it.)
*Shake leg a lot when sitting. (ALL the time.)
*Smokes (Ahem.)
*Endless supply of candles and air fresheners. (Come to my house, you’ll get that answer right away.)
*Smell everything (I do this and I get a LOT of weird looks when I do.)
*Avoid crowds; run errands when there are less people (Yes. For two reasons. One reason is the same as everyone else. You can get shit done faster. But the main reason is because too many people in one place makes me anxious. I sweat a lot when there are a lot of people around. I fumble and drop shit and break shit. I trip, I run in to shit, I can’t focus on my task at hand. I feel my heart rate go up at the idea that I have to go do something when I know there will be people around. Because I have Mondays off, I try to do my shopping then, when everyone is at work. I’m far, FAR less anxious about it then. When I first started driving airboats, my hands shook so bad I could barely rip people’s tickets. They all noticed. It’s embarrassing. My anxiety level was at an all time high because all of these people were looking at me which made it worse. I’ve gotten better about it but there are two reasons: 1) I sit behind them while driving so I feel more secure. Sure, they can turn around and look at me and when they do that I feel myself getting anxious again but it’s WAY better than having to sit in front of them. 2) I wear my sunglasses almost non stop. That way I don’t have to make eye contact. Sometimes, if it’s cloudy, I’ll have to have my sunglasses off to see along the channel and when I make eye contact with someone, I start fumbling over my words, start spewing shit out of my mouth that doesn’t even make sense to me, ramble, ramble, ramble and in my head, the entire time I’m screaming, “TURN AROUND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TURN AROUND!")
*Cannot go to public events because of the noise (So many people get on my ass because I “never go anywhere”. They don’t fucking understand. Again, there are two reasons I don’t “go anywhere”. One, I’m trying to save money. Two, the first one is an excuse for me to get out of having to deal with crowds, the fucking noise, being touched-bumped, run into, whathave you and people just LOVE to fucking run me over as if I don’t exist, sometimes the lights bother me....it’s not always fun for me to “go out”. It doesn’t mean that I WON’T go out but it’s not necessarily a good time for me.)
Anyway, these are just some examples of what life is like for those of us who are hypersensitivity. I’ve gone through my entire life not knowing what in God’s name is wrong with me. Why is it that when watching a movie, if there is a bright light IN the movie, I squint because it hurts my eyes? Why can’t I watch a television program being narrated by a female? Seriously! I love to watch ID. But sometimes, the narrator is female and it takes only two seconds before I have to change that channel, as fast as possible and I actually do have to rub my ears because it HURTS my ears! What the hell! And it’s not just females. Some male voices make me want to lose my shit. Shut up! God SHUT UP! Please! Do you realize that every time you open your mouth my head wants to explode? It doesn’t really have much to do with the person, it’s the sound of their voice. Why do sirens cause the reaction they do in me? Popping balloons? Ask any former employee just how I am around popping balloons. “It’s just for a second!” “It’s not that loud!” Yes, assholes, it IS that loud and painful to me and it doesn’t just last a second for me. Why do I spaz out when someone touches my arm in an affectionate way, such as to say, “thank you”? And then I can FEEL where they touched. Until I wash it, I can feel it.
I have made a lot of excuses for my reactions over the years because I had no idea why I reacted the way I did. I tried to put as much logic in to my life as I could when sometimes, there was no logic for any of it. But now, finally, I have answers.
That’s just the first step. Eventually I have to work on this issue. So far I’ve been able to get by in life with people thinking I’m pretty decent overall but there’s some things that are weird about her. Or, she’s cool as hell but she can lose her shit in a moment’s notice. And I’ll probably get that for the rest of my life but at least now I KNOW what the hell is going on. It’s not because I’m crazy. And, for the most part, I hide my reaction. I’m not always very good at it and in some cases, I just can’t fucking take it, it’s that painful to me, that I cannot hide it at all. But, I try. Inside though? People have no clue what is going on inside.
There is a lot of therapy that can be done but frankly, I don’t have that kind of money so this will be a long, slow process and right now I’m in the middle of deciding if I even want to TRY to fix it. Doesn’t that mean I’ll be subjected to some of the very shit I can’t stand? Why would I willingly put myself through that? Just let me go to work, suffer for the 8-9 hours and then I’ll go home. Leave me alone.
That’s my motto, really: Leave. Me. Alone.
I can turn on my a/c or fan on high and block out almost all noises. I am in charge of the remote control and have gotten really quick about muting it when commercials come on, JUST in case. I don’t listen to local news and some of the national news I watch, it’s only certain anchors with voices I can stand. (Why the FUCK do those women have to clip their Ts and Ds? God! NOK IT OFF! It’s fucking irritating!) I can control the lights, the sights, sounds and smells at my house. When people ask me why I don’t go anywhere on vacation, they have NO idea that just staying home, indoors, away from all of that shit out there IS a vacation to me.
But anyway, NOW I finally have an answer for people. And when I go to a different job and a different city and get to know different people, I can finally clue them in, early on, that I have this so that they can hopefully learn to understand it as I am. I really think if I and anyone else I had known in my life knew this? My life would have turned out significantly different.
Yah, it really does affect my life that much. You really have no idea.
