A while back, I read MPJ's list of sensory issuesand since she was too tired to tag anyone, I took it upon myself to tag me. I don't really have sensory issues, but it occurred to me that I do have some oddities. Here are a few:
1. I twirl my hair. Constantly. I roll it and twirl it and twist it into knots. There are special areas of my hair that are favourites ~ somehow, softer silkier hair than the rest ~ to manipulate. It is somewhat compulsive and quite feverish when I'm stressed or angry. When I'm happy, relaxed or merely thinking, it's slow lazy twirl. My man tells me he can place my mood by the manner in which I play with my hair. When I was about 12, my rather mean stepmother told me that it was a sign of schizophrenia, which had me terrified; this leads me to number;
2. I am frightened of mental illness, particularly of suffering from mental illness. In the city that I live, there is an abundance of mentally ill 'street urchins'. Our weather is so beautiful it attracts the homeless, who would obviously rather sleep outdoors in a warm climate. Certain areas of town make me nervous because of the mentally ill, and the drugged out. This lack of control makes me feel extremely uncomfortable. Speaking of lack of control;
3. I am a control freak; my chronic anxiety is surely the worst symptom of this. My anxiety attacks take the form of feeling as though I'm going to 'lose it', perhaps start crying or screaming, or maybe light myself on fire and run through the streets, thereby making a 'fool of myself', which would be a fate worse than death. In the past, my control issues would have me obsessing over my home, making sure it was clean enough that you could eat off any surface (including bathroom surfaces) at any given time, if you so chose to do such an odd thing. I had this fear that a neighbour or friend might stop by and see that there was some form of mess in my home and they might feel I was not controlling my environment appropriately. This was no small feat with 3 boys under the age of 4, a large dog and a husband who enjoyed clutter! I've come a long way with that one. (um, I suppose this is a mental illness isn't it??)
4. I need to sleep on a certain kind of pillow. I simply cannot sleep without my viscoelastic pillow. When traveling, we actually take our pillows with. For years, I would wake up with aching ears from laying on my pillow. I would 'fluff' my pillow, turn over and go back to sleep several times a night. It wasn't until I was with my current mate that I finally learned the reason for this, and that all are not created equal in the world of ears. C is a former professional UFC fighter. His ears are fine, but I noticed that some of his friends who also fought, have these messed up 'cauliflower' ears. It turns out that the more cartilage you have, the worse they get damaged by being smashed into all the time. So this is why my ears hurt. I have more cartilage than your average person. My ears are snugged up all tight and taut against my head, solid but for the lobe. If I were to take up 'grappling', they would be ruined. Good thing I'm not interested in that idea.
5. Speaking of sleeping; I cannot abide pilly sheets. My sheets must be washed every 2nd or third day and they must be silky soft, with nary a mark or a wrinkle. I actually used to iron my sheets, but I don't do that anymore; a friend of mine saw me ironing my sheets once and she reacted as though I was rather crazy, so I stopped.
I'm going to stop at 5, because I'm starting to be concerned by how strange I actually seem to be!
