Tuesday 27 November 2018

post written 23/06/2013

Right, time for part two of my epic post on physical sensitivity and all the things that are tangled up in that web. I’ll try and keep things… um… making sense and on track and stuff. {And by the way, I have no idea why this paragraph has gone all "reverse indent" on me, or how to fix it!}
Pain: 
I have fibromyalgia – which I sometimes call hypochondriac syndrome. Basically, FMS (short for Fibromyalgia Syndrome) is something, like Aspergers, that you are born with. It’s Chronic Pain Syndrome – something to do with connective fibres and soft tissues, basically. Kind of a form of arthritis I guess, but not quite. I have found out, since I started looking into Aspergers and the online communities around, that quite frequently females with Aspergers also have FMS. I would say it’s a co-morbid possibility but… I have really lapsed on my AS research of late. It was an obsession at the start, back when The Aspie Bestie was diagnosed and I discovered Aspergers and the possibility I might have it, but then it… {I haven’t the words to put here, which is an unusual thing for me, especially when I’m writing. I just sort of stopped being so fanatically into Aspergers, after reading Aspergirls by Rudy Simone the first time. Also in late March I met a girl who described herself as ‘mildly’ aspergers, which made me thing “If she’s mild, I probably won’t even be a speck on the spectrum” and I went off it more, although I still wanted a diagnosis to be sure.}

Anyway, FMS is all about pain. So I have a lot of things that I always just attributed to that. Every so often I would have what I called “a bad fibro day” and on those days even the hairs on my arms moving (in the breeze, or being moved by clothes or people touching them, I don’t have sentient arm hairs) would cause enough pain that I didn’t want to function. I would have to get up in the night and shave my legs, and compulsively moisturise my entire body, because my leg hairs were irritating, and I could feel my skin dehydrating and it hurt. Not every night, just sometimes. Take now, for example. I can feel the cold seeping into my bones, my hips/pelvis near the base of my spine, and into the sides of my breast area. The cold is sharp and insidious and biting. The pressure on this bone/joint area – just from the weight of me sitting down – makes it worse. It’s getting so that all I can think of is this pain. If I didn’t have to be at work, for the money, I wouldn’t be sitting at all. I actually have a lot of days where I can’t sit for long periods of time, due to the FMS, and most of the time at home is spent in bed. Hoppy called me lazy but if you were in pain most of the time, wouldn’t you want to be lying down a lot?
Now, knowing what I know, I’m more inclined to attribute those days to Aspie Hypersensitivity. Or some of them at least.
Hypersensitivity to external stimuli would be a very reasonable explanation for the pain or discomfort I feel most of the time. Lights and smells and sounds can all cause irritation that is translated into a headache that won’t go away. When my sense of touch {for lack of a better thing to call it} is being hypersensitive, that will be the cause of the days where clothes irritate me and I can feel each individual hair being ruffled or my dry skin feels too tight, too dry to the point of pain.



Sometimes, Being Different Really Pays Off

This may be a metaphor, with deeper meanings, but the base view of it is simple.

(I'm fascinated that I found this draft blog post, written in September 2014. I don't know where I was going with it, but I'm posting it now)

as an FYI - maybe I'll start blogging again

Why My Anxiety is just as valid as yours


I have anxiety attacks as well as stress attacks that make me lose my voice.
My fight-or-flight instinct is so strong that it nearly knocks me unconscious. Literally.
But my fight-or-flight instinct errs on the side of "fight”
My body prepares itself for every small potential disagreement as if it was an end of the earth argument.
My body and mind both tell me that this is a fight for my life, a fight for survival, that I might die if I don’t defend myself to the best of my ability.
And so, my body amps itself up for a fight.

In an anxiety attack, I will be (metaphorically) armed to the teeth and ready to defend myself to the death. My heart will be pounding so hard, blood rushing through my ears, that I can’t hear what I’m saying, let alone what you’re saying. I will be dizzy, I will have trouble standing upright, my arms will feel weightless or incredibly heavy. I will have to fold my arms or put my hands on my hips.
If I can’t hear what I’m saying, I might have to repeat myself – multiple times. Or I might start talking louder. Often, I don’t realise I’m doing this.
I become tongue tied, and the words in my head can’t make it out. The frustration for this causes me to curse and swear, because it’s like being trapped in your own head. I’m a genius but when I’m having an anxiety attach you wouldn’t know it.
If the anxiety attack is bad, and I start fidgeting my hands, this is because I actually feel like I need to rip my fingers off. Do you understand how it feels, to have your body tell you that to stop this anxiety attack and to make yourself be better understood you have to rip your own fingers off? If it’s mild I might want to rip my hair out, or bang my head against a wall. But if it’s bad, I want to rip my fingers off.

Do any of the things described sound like I’m physically attacking the other person? Because nowhere in the summary of events is any attack going to happen on anyone who isn’t me.
But people take yelling as intimidation – it’s because I’m effectively deaf.
But people take stance as a “power pose” – it’s because I’m propping myself up.

Why am I mentioning all this? Because I’m sick to death of people writing me off. You have anxiety attacks? So do I. Mine are bad, and they are real. They are no less valid because they’re different from yours.

Stop being a narcissist, stop using your power plays and your little threats. Stop assuming that you’re better than me because your anxiety attacks make you a victim while mine make me a weaponised attacker – because mine still make me a victim and you are still attacking me.