Do Your Senses Sometimes Put You In Hell?

I’m a  positive outlook person.  I try to see the good in people as well as the humor and silver lining in situations.  But I am not invincible, as much as I try to tell myself I am.  There are a few things that can stop me in my tracks.

Certain smells can be like a switch that turns a good day into a nightmare.  I’ve taught myself tricks to minimize their effect,  but sometimes it only takes that first whiff to send me to my knees.

It used to be just the smell of cigarette smoke.  I have always hated smoking and being around second hand smoke.  And I do not use the “h” word lightly.  Maybe it’s PTSD from being around it as a kid back when my parents smoked.  (Thank you for quitting mom and dad!) Maybe it’s the way you can’t escape it once it’s anywhere near you since it somehow creeps into the molecules of your hair and clothes to follow you. 

Maybe it’s that just walking by someone smoking outside a door ends up with you breathing it in,  even when you try your best to hold your breath.  Don’t even get me started on people going just outside the door of a restaurant to smoke, as if it’s not torture to have to walk through their death cloud to enter.  Or people who light up at an outdoor table of a restaurant,  rationalizing that since it’s outside, it’s somehow ok.

Then my smell reaction  expanded to the smell of gasoline.  If you drive,  it’s hard to escape having to put gas into your vehicle.  As the number of full-service stations dwindle, at least here in the Northeast, I’ve had to get creative.  It started by using paper towels to hold onto the nozzle and then progressed to those clear medical gloves.  Whatever it took to at least not have the smell on my hands the rest of the day, since it really never seems to wash off.

As time went on I noticed always having a headache around the Easter holiday at the hospital where I worked.   I eventually made a connection to the Lily plants visitors would bring to patients’ rooms.  There would be no escaping it if you had to do a  session right in their room.  I recommended the hospital begin a policy of being considerate to others’ sensitivities to smell by not bringing in highly scented flowers, but had no support.

At the same hospital,  I would get dizzying head pain in any rooms where a female patient had put on perfume, even if it was put on hours before.  For some reason,  men’s cologne didn’t seem to bother me as much.  I’m not quite sure why,  except that it must be an ingredient found more in one.

I came up with tricks like scheduling those patients early in the morning, before they had time to get washed up and then shower themselves in scent.  It helped.  But then even a quick hug of someone who was wearing it put me out of commission the rest of the day.

I used to be a big hugger,  but less so now because you usually don’t know the level of perfume until you’re in too deep to pull back.  Hey, it’s survival of the fittest.

Interestingly,  I read Japanese researchers discovered that “Multiple Chemical Sensitivity” is actually a thing.  It is a physiologic response to even low levels of chemicals in the environment.  In MCS,  the response to these toxins tends to be neurological symptoms,  as opposed to an allergic response.  It was likened to a chronic poisoning in which the body has difficulty with detoxification.  Specifically, they pointed out petroleum based products as the biggest culprits,  such as gasoline, pesticides, and synthetic fragrances.  That’s right – perfume and gasoline have similar ingredients…..  crazy, right?!

Other senses have betrayed me as well. 

My vision no longer takes kindly to bright or flashing lights.  Going into a store once with stark bright overhead lights, as well as reflectively white walls and floor,  soon made my entire head feel like someone was squeezing it in a vice.  Driving near the flashing lights of a snow plow or police cruiser have made my head feel as if it would actually explode.

There was even a time,  in a doctor’s appointment,  that I felt so dizzy I could have vomited just looking at his shirt.  It was a fine shirt.  Red and white thin stripes.  I don’t understand why it happened,  I just know that it did.

Even technology seems to find a way into my eyes to spear me from within.  On a laptop,  it’s the up and down scrolling.  On a tablet or smartphone,  it’s the swiping side to side.  Somehow that movement makes me feel like I’m sea-sick on a boat,  lost at sea with no land in sight. 

Loud sounds have also joined the ranks of the sometimes painful.  There is a narrow window of volume comfort watching television these days.  I’ll find myself asking my husband to “turn it up”  because it’s muffled and hard to make out what people are saying.  After just a couple clicks upward,  I’m jumping in pleading  “not so much!  It’s so loud!”. 

Even touch, as far as the feeling of the wind in my right ear,  has become an adversary.  I love the feeling of a nice breeze.  Just not there anymore. 

And taste….  You have always been my favorite.  It probably isn’t the taste, so much as the food or drink itself,  that results at times in head splitting noggin aches.  Maybe a preservative or a sweetener? 

I never want to be seen as high maintenance, so I try to adjust myself and my environment on the down low to appear more easy going.  There are little tweaks I make all day long to maintain myself in that narrow window of homeostasis.

Bright sun shining through the house window?  Sit so that my right eye does not face it.  Wind coming through the car window?  No problem, just roll up the right one to keep it out of that ear.  A person I know who usually wears perfume walking toward me in grocery store?  Navigate aisles to achieve only an across the building smile and wave. 

I wonder if other people deal with weird sensory idiosyncrasies too.  Is it an aging thing?  Is it allergies or this multiple chemical sensitivity?  Is it migraines? 

Or maybe I’m more high maintenance than I think I am……  But as long as I’m the only one scrambling to maintain me,  I think hopefully that’s ok, right?