Note: If you don't want to read a rant about medical problems, then just do yourself a favor and skip this entry. But I need to vent and since this is my journal, that's where said venting goes.
I live in a world that's always too bright and too loud. I live in a world that's too full of artificial chemicals, food additives and sweetners. I live in a world saturated with perfumes, scents, and dyes. And all of it hurts me.
It's no secret I suffer from migraines. I have since I was about 15 or so. (That puts it at going on about 12 years now.) Migraines aren't just "bad headaches" and fuck you to all the people who think a tylenol fixes the problem. Migraines are a neurological condition in the same family as epilepsy. My brain is literally wired differently from non-migraneurs. I have literal and physical hyper sensitivities within my brain to things which the "normal" person wouldn't even notice. I suffer pain in circumstances where other people can't comprehend. The problem with migraines is multi-layered. They get worse each time you get one. And your very, very limited tolerence to your triggers and sensitivies don't get better, they get worse. I can't "build up" an immunity to my light intolerence; in fact, it will only continue to get worse and worse the more I'm exposed to it.
I live in a world overflowing with flickering fluorescent lights that drive like a jackhammer into my skull. I feel the pulses as they beat over and over into my eyes. The glare and retina-burn I experience in stores in mere moments of being under their horrid, industrial lighting, causing my eyes to alternately dry out or water. And, sometimes, bringing about the immediate onset of a migraine.
I live in a world where the sun hurts me. Both my eyes and my skin. Where my UV sensitivity is such that with anti-glare sunglasses and polarized lenses, I still am developing cataracts in my 20's and am facing continued degredation of my eye sight. Where I actually develop rashes within minutes if I mistakenly used any products with perfumes or dyes in them. And that's before I burn lobster red. There is no tan for me; there's 2nd degree burns (which I've had in as little as 20 minutes outside without sunscreen) where your skin breaks open and bleeds, and there's pale, pale, white. No middle ground. No room for error. I slather my skin in sunscreen. I avoid the burn, but the chemicals and scents and related within even the most "sensitive skin" sunscreen itself cause me to rash. I simply can't win when it comes to going outdoors. Either way, I'll rash or burn.
I live in a world that's too loud. That's painful to sit within. Where there is never enough silence. A world in which I can hear conversations outside, a story down and out into the parking lot, across the way, in other buildings, within other apartments, in people's cars - all of which grates at me and prevents me from obtaining sleep. The sound of my own pc fan is enough to trouble my slumber if I don't first turn it off before heading to bed. (And even then, I hear the noise of the router's high pitched squeal that I have to ignore to keep the internet up for my Love's pc.) I can hear a cough, or a phone ring, or a tv in other rooms. I can't not hear it and it pushes me to a point of insanity; where I want to utterly destroy the source of the sound for the hell it puts me through. (I gleefully envision tearing them to shreds or pounding them into bloody pulp in my frenzied desperation for quiet.) To give to them the pain their rude disruptions cause me and to make them suffer as I do.
I live in a world saturated with chemicals - artificial everything. All of which I'm hyper sensitive to and all of which means I must read labels on my food and my detergents and my shampoos. Switch out my free-of-dye-and-perfume laundry detergent for one that's "Fresh Scent" and watch me break out in a rash. (Double-fold if I go in the sun while wearing clothes washed in said soaps.) Slip me a diet beverage loaded with Aspartame (nutra-sweet), or sucralose (splenda) or saccharin and watch it poison me. Such things are toxic to me and more and more I find myself on the outside looking in at products I can no longer consume, or new products made only with said toxic chemicals. Seven-Up has a new soda which literally does not come in a regular sugar forumla. And it's not the exception these days; it sadly becomes the norm. It used to be that one could obtain - if one wanted - a sugar-free alternative. But more and more it's not even an option. I can buy no gums, or breath mints or such these days as all contain these horrid artificial sweeteners. They trick you and list them under a hundred different names - all of which are hellish for me. And if the sweeteners aren't bad enough, there's "flavor enhancers" such as Monosodium Glutamate (MSG) which are not only known to be harmful to migraineurs, but have toxicity effects in the general public are found in just about every snack item, packaged side dish (such as flavored rices), quick-make meals (hamburger helpers, etc.), spices and bullion cubes and anything generally containing a "cheese" flavor. It's everywhere and if you think the labeling on sweeteners are bad, it's worse with MSG.
I'm hyper light sensitive; I'm hyper noise sensitive; I'm chemically sensitive; I'm food-additive sensitive; I'm sensitive to perfumes and dyes; I'm UV sensitive and my body rejects artificial items in all shapes, sizes and flavors. I'm living in a world that's toxic to me. One that causes me real and physical pain on a daily basis. One which "normal" people can't comphrend and can't understand how I could let such "little things" bother me. (As if I had a choice in my reaction; it's physical and it happens whether or not I know I've consumed or used something to which I'm allergic.) I can't tell you how many times I've eaten something or I've been out and around something which I didn't know was artificial or contained additives and suffered for it. Only later realizing it's yet another thing I must avoid. My world grows more and more narrow and I'm forced to be on the outside of it all and miss out on so much. Things are so fake now - nothing which naturally occurs - and my body rejects more and more of it each passing year. I worry where it will take me all and what I'll do when the more natural options simply aren't there anymore. Sometimes I catch a small break - Frito-Lay makes no-msg Cheetos and Doritos (at the moment at least) which have allowed me to eat them for the first time in a dozen years - but, sadly, with the trend pushing this faux health consciousness, things only degrade. (Something made in a lab is NOT, say it with me now, NOT better for you then something which grows naturally from the ground. We all learned the dangers of margarine - 100% artificial and full of trans-fatty acids - compared to butter - 100% natural - after years of being told how horrid butter was for us. Who knew?
This move into the man-made; this seeming need to consume additive-ladden foods; to live and work in over-lighted buildings; to suffer through noise-polution and deal with chemical toxicity in our daily lives - it kills me. I am battered and bruised by it daily and it feels a silent sentence; no one sees it, no one understands it, and no one accepts the seriousness of it. Those who have hyper sensitivities or chemical sensitivities are thought to be mentally lacking at worst or hypochondriacs at best.
I live in a world that's too bright, too loud, too chemically saturated and it hurts me. And I don't know how to keep enduring it, nor what I'll do a handful of years now where it crosses the point of tolerence. Already it's too much, and it continues to grow. What's left for me when the world becomes too painful for me to endure? What's left then?
I'm just so tired, and worn, and battered from it all.
~ castles of sand by Memory and Dream
at 10/10/2004 02:00:27 AM ~
~
