This is exactly WHY I can’t take showers. I take baths. Rain is easier for me now… good thing where I live. But showers?.. Too painful, too loud, too uneven, too much… much too much.
A bath is much easier to gently ease into. It’s not loud and it’s not water hitting me.
I have tried to use this story to explain things and hardly anyone I know reads Poe. My parents are both teachers and they have read it. My sis and I are book worms so she has read it. But very few others and I think it portrays the symptoms very well.
Poe is my guy.
I will still have a few spikes were I’m sensitive to light. When I was in one of my relapses, everything was too loud, the hum of the lights… the fridge sounded like a lawn mower getting started in the room. Everything was too bright, everything was too much. I sat in a dark closet a lot just because it was dark, quiet, and I could re-set. I still head for a closet during a panic attack. Everything starts getting loud, bright, big…
Touch is still a very tricky game for me. If someone puts their hand on me for a few moments and then walks away… I can still feel exactly where their hand was for about an hour. There are times were I can solidly feel my kid sister’s hand in mine, only to See that she let go 10 minutes previous.
It sort of freaks out my brain when I can “feel” her hand in mine, yet she’s walking away. I always panic a bit there. “How can you be over there and holding my hand at the same time?”
I have learned how to not freak out when that happens. The plus side… Her hugs stay with me for over an hour. It gets confusing for me.
If someone takes my hands and let’s go… My brain feels a set of hands. But then if the same person put their hands on my arms… now my brain feels four solid hands.
If that same person puts their hands on my shoulders… now my brain feels six solid hands. The person has 6 hands… then it takes some work for me to concentrate and let it ride. I don’t get massages it’s far too much… it’s not relaxing. It’s freaking me out that I feel 100 hands on me.