Ever had an “oh crap, it’s real” moment? As a person on the autism spectrum, I have a somewhat fragile biology. Small things can entirely wreck my equilibrium. A sudden siren or fork caught in a blender can cause me immense pain, even driving me to tears.
Fork. Blender. Tears.
That literally happened, by the way. I was eating at a newer, slightly upscale restaurant when a utensil of some kind got caught in an industrial blender back in the kitchen. It made a horrible racket: an excruciating experience spanning several octaves. I would compare it to a chord made entirely of people running their nails down a chalkboard, but that’s far too simplistic. The reality was much, much worse. Everyone at the table (all family: my mom, brother, and sister-in-law) made a face and covered their ears. But only I curled up into my seat and started weeping from the pain.
Moments like that teach you, by stark contrast, that you are very much not like everyone else. I can only hope the family I was with also learned that… but since they’ve never mentioned it and I’ve never asked, I’ve no idea.
The lesson, for anyone caring to observe that incident, was that “yes, sound sensitivity is real.” My brain did not sufficiently tamp down on the extraneous and unpleasant noise of a fork in a blender. Most brains, and the brains of everyone else at the table, did, and so those people were shielded from some of the Sound. Because I was not shielded, I was driven to tears in an instant.
Accidental Food Challenge
There have been other such moments. Once upon a time, I didn’t eat dairy (milk, cheese, ice cream, etc) for a week or so. Then I drank some milk, and within the hour I was weak, shaky, ill, and most of all, angry. For no apparent reason. Everything else in my life was neutral-to-positive. Except the milk. Oh crap, it’s real.
I’d accidentally performed what’s called a food challenge. You remove the questionable food from your diet for a couple weeks, then introduce a small amount and see what happens. If nothing happens, great! The food is probably not an issue. If you get a reaction, though, that’s probably why.
The nice thing about doing this challenge accidentally is that it’s entirely free of confirmation bias. (That’s the tendency to interpret things the way you think they should be, rather than objectively assessing the way things truly are.) I can’t say, for most of my life, I’ve gotten so lucky and been able to say, so confidently, that it was definitely the milk or whatever other cause.
Calmer… aaaand now I have a headache.
The reason I’m writing this post today (besides that I got out of work after 4 hours, which means I had extra time for once!), is because I just had another of those moments.
My doctor knows of a lot of factors that can affect sensitive people like me. One of those is dirty electricity and electro-magnetic fields. It’s not a lot of people, but a certain small percentage of humanity does poorly in big cities and apartment buildings, constantly being pelted with dozens of wifi networks. This can manifest as anxiety, depression, and even poor sleep. The question was, “am I one of those affected people?”
My hope with that question is always “no.” With dairy, it would have been nice to continue eating ice cream and cheese to my heart’s content. But it’s real and makes me depressed and angry, so I’ve found alternatives. So Delicious makes a good coconut based ice cream, and Follow Your Heart makes some very good deli slices that taste and feel like cheese in a jiffy. I particularly like the Smoked Gouda flavor.
There’s a website that sells shielding clothing, meters, and other items. On a whim last year, I bought a plain black baseball cap. I put it on when it arrived, and did feel somewhat calmer. But I wasn’t sure… though in retrospect it maybe speaks volumes that I wear it to work every day now.
Recently, since I’ve been working such long hours without a choice, I’ve devoted some of my extra money to buying extra things. One of those was a shielding hoodie. Today it arrived. I put it on. It’s comfortable, if a bit thin. It was when I put up the hood that I had the “oh crap, it’s real” moment.
Because the moment I did, it was like pressure had been removed from my skull. I felt calmer even as I felt surprise and then anxiety about the realization. In less than a second, I also noticed I had a very mild headache at the back of my head. Oh crap, it’s real.
What Now?
Moments like these pepper my life. There are always new things to try, new ideas to look into. Because my doctor is so on top of the research, I’m aware of a lot more avenues to explore than most people.
Mostly I fall into these “oh crap it’s real” moments by accident. I didn’t really have a clear picture of what would happen when I put on the shielding hoodie. Just that it might be good to try it. I had no idea whether there would be a reaction, let alone such a strong one.
I have the rest of the afternoon to figure out what to do… but I think a nap is probably the first order of business.
The website I got the hoodie from also has shielding bedding and even a cloth faraday cage for all bed sizes… so that might be my next step. I’m clearly not so sensitive that I need to be wearing shielding clothes everywhere- I’m still sleeping 8 hours, managing my depression/anxiety, and being kind to people around me. And yet, it’s clearly a factor, or I wouldn’t have experienced the “ahh, calmer… wait, why do I have a headache?” sensation.
In the meantime, I guess the hoodie is my new best friend for wearing around the house.
realisticautistic 