I generally have very little problem laying out for you all those things that other people keep quiet about, like the depth of poverty, or my history of abortion. I’m not ashamed of those things. They happen. Ditto on domestic violence, etc.

But there is a part of me that I hide. It’s the hurty part, the sick part. That I am still a bit ashamed of, though why is silly. I don’t like to be considered weak, and the hurty part is a serious weakness to me. But……

In the last few days I’ve had a couple of “freak outs”. Freak outs happen when I’ve been over stimulated. Too much light, sound, strongs smells, touch, whatever, can send me into a kind of ragey place. Like the hulk. I jokingly refer to it as my adult onset autism. The other day, i got bit by a flea (and I am allergic to fleas, in a matter of seconds I was covered in ugly purple welts) and ran around like screaming a wee bit until I could drown myself in a bathtub. I keep my bedroom dark and cool. I don’t have a tv in here. It’s my safe place to hide out when there is too much world in the world. But the new cat has sprayed into the air vent and the whole room smells like boy cat, which gives me a migraine. And the temp rose and it got hot. And there is a giant yellow sulfur light outside my bedroom window that even with the blinds closed manages to keep me from sleeping, everytime I roll over its glare wakes me up. And I’m itchy because along with the fleas we got mosquitos. And I’ve always been a bit of the princess and the pea about my bed. Any lump in the sheet or crease in the pillow will bother me.

So trying to sleep went something like this. Try to get comfy, but my damn t-shirt has a seem that is in the wrong place and my pillows won’t fluff in the right way. Get the pillow fixed and now the fucking light is in my eyes and damn that frigging cat, my head hurts. Put pillow over head to shield from both light and smell. Try to scratch itchy bites without moving much. Fall asleep for about a minute, but head is too hot from being covered by pillow. Throw pillow off, blinded by light and cat smell. Turn over. Repeat entire process. Repeat entire process. Repeat entire process.

By 11am I was freaking the fuck out. This is like 3 or 4 days of not having a safe place to be or sleep. It was not pretty. I begged the Kid to “please, for god’s sake I’ve been asking you for days to do something about the cat smell, it’s killing me, my head arghhhhhhhh” There may have been tears at that point. Then there was valium. Sweet sweet valium. Thank gawd for the shrink who prescribed them , even if what is left of my prescription in now past its use by date. And then a very long nap.

It still smells, though now it smells like fabreeze and cat, which I don’t think is much better and my head still hurts. I draped a sheet over the offending window. I’m going back to sleeping au naturel, sorry family if you accidently see some boobage upon entering my room, but that’s one less layer of fabric to fight with. We’ll see how it goes.

A few years ago I would have just been angry and not known why. I’m sure there would have been some way that I would justify it. Angry is not weak. But being “overly sensitive” in the most literal of ways is.

This is part of why I just disappear sometimes. The light of the compy can be too much. I don’t like to admit that I can be thwarted by something as small as a bad light or an insect bite or the nasty smell of food stored in plastic containers*, when I’ve been hiking through jungles and climbed pyramids and been the bystander who jumps between bullies and their victims. I hate it because it makes me kinda high maint, and that is sooooo not the kind of person I ever wanted to be. So now you all know, if you ever want to bring me down, offer me a plastic glass of tap water in a brightly lit room full of insects. I could take waterboarding, but the florescent lights at interrogation would break me.

*Seriously, I can’t drink out of most plastic cups because they stink. I am a bit of a super-nose, which is good for cooking but means that I can smell other peoples earwax if the are close enough, and artificial orange flavors/scents like orange bubble gum send me over the edge into dizzy headache near seizure land. I hate it. In the middle of today’s freakout the kid brought me an icepack to help with the headache and I couldn’t use it because “ugh it smells like fridge” fridge meaning the pico de gallo I made a month ago.