Mental Stuff
Jul. 25th, 2014 12:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ceebeegeeSometimes I think I'm getting more...headcase-y as I get older. I have a few mental quirks--one of them is that I have a horribly high gag reflex and it's often triggered by other people's...well...bodily functions. Example, I CANNOT be around other people when they get sick or I will gag myself and have been known to sympathy-vomit. Basically, The Revenge of Lard-Ass Hogan (from Stephen King's The Body which was made into the movie Stand By Me) is definitely within the realm of possibility for me! But really, any kind of bodily fluids coming from someone else will do it--as much as I love kids, if they don't blow their nose I really, really struggle. In fact just thinking about this now is making me heave. Don't even get me started on bodily fluids from the other end. And it's not just humans, it's cats and dogs--I have literally vomited cleaning out the cat box. One time I woke up and Tatia'd had an accident--everything came up and I kept wanting to get sick again for the next two days. That was bad.
But it wasn't always this intense. Not sure what's going on, maybe I've just had more time to think about it. I have always had a very hard time swallowing pills--I just COULD NOT as a kid. I dreaded having to take any kind of medication in pill form and one time I got in trouble for hiding my vitamins behind the trash can instead of taking them. (And I remember when I was 6 I was on some kind of week-long medication regimen and one morning the pill went down--I literally jumped for joy, I was so happy.) Most of the time I'd just chew them up--you can imagine how great that tasted. And then in 8th grade I remember trying a new trick--I just shoved the pill as far back as I could and gulped a ton of water and voila! Now I could swallow pills, yay! Still didn't help with the bodily fluid revulsion though. I have an elaborate coping system though--I look away and either take ginger (not ginger pills, just straight ginger spice) or I can think of ginger and that helps. Thinking of lemons also helps. But I have to get the picture out of my head.
Anyway so I have another weird anxiety thing--I really, really do not like talking to certain kinds of strange people on the phone. I'm fine calling someone up in, say, customer service or making a reservation or whatever, because those people's jobs are to speak with strangers. But when I have to call someone who's not expecting a phone call and try to explain who I am, why I'm calling--ugh, I just want to die, I can't explain it. I'm fine with email or texting but the dynamics of a phone conversation with a stranger literally makes my heart race. My dad is the same way, maybe it's genetic!
But it wasn't always this intense. Not sure what's going on, maybe I've just had more time to think about it. I have always had a very hard time swallowing pills--I just COULD NOT as a kid. I dreaded having to take any kind of medication in pill form and one time I got in trouble for hiding my vitamins behind the trash can instead of taking them. (And I remember when I was 6 I was on some kind of week-long medication regimen and one morning the pill went down--I literally jumped for joy, I was so happy.) Most of the time I'd just chew them up--you can imagine how great that tasted. And then in 8th grade I remember trying a new trick--I just shoved the pill as far back as I could and gulped a ton of water and voila! Now I could swallow pills, yay! Still didn't help with the bodily fluid revulsion though. I have an elaborate coping system though--I look away and either take ginger (not ginger pills, just straight ginger spice) or I can think of ginger and that helps. Thinking of lemons also helps. But I have to get the picture out of my head.
Anyway so I have another weird anxiety thing--I really, really do not like talking to certain kinds of strange people on the phone. I'm fine calling someone up in, say, customer service or making a reservation or whatever, because those people's jobs are to speak with strangers. But when I have to call someone who's not expecting a phone call and try to explain who I am, why I'm calling--ugh, I just want to die, I can't explain it. I'm fine with email or texting but the dynamics of a phone conversation with a stranger literally makes my heart race. My dad is the same way, maybe it's genetic!
