I am nowhere on the autism spectrum, as far as I know, but it has occurred to me lately that I have had a number of odd sensory experiences.

Like the one I have told you about once before, where one of the fluorescent lights in my elementary school classroom was flickering randomly and for some weird reason this caused a bizarre pressure to build up in my head that froze me in place like I was under a spell so all I could do was stare as some uncanny force filled my mind.

Luckily, the teacher (a substitute) noticed my plight and turned that row of lights off and I blinked a whole bunch of times and sort of came back to myself like I had been astral projecting and just came back to my body.

I must admit, I am scientifically curious as to what would have happened had she not intervened. The most likely result would have been a seizure of some sort and a quick trip to the hospital, which was only half a block away.

But who knows. Maybe it would unlocked my hidden superpowers, and she was actually working for villains of the future whom I had defeated who wanted to keep me from ever unlocking the mightiness inside me!

Probably not. But it’s fun to think about.

And then there was another day when a fan in an air conditioner was emitting a very high pitched squeaking sound as it rotated and apparently I was the only one could hear it and it too sort of filled my mind, but without the dire hypnosis this time.

It made it very hard to concentrate on anything, though.

Luckily, it was an air conditioner hanging out of someone’s office window downtown, so I could just get away from it and calm down.

But squeaking speaking of high pitched noises, I’ve always been sensitive to them. Certain high frequencies have the “nails on the chalkboard” effect on my nerves and so I involuntarily end up hating any source of them.

Like certain singers or musical instruments. Or songs.

I can only assume that my nerve jangling response covers a wider band of frequencies than most people’s because things bother me that don’t bother anyone else.

That squeaky air conditioner is just one example.

Then there’s the things everyone but me seems to like to eat and I can’t stand them.

Like blueberries. They taste like used coffee grounds to me. Dunno why.

Or how certain barbeque sauces taste like ashes to me. I guess my palate is not fooled by whatever fake “smoky” flavour these sauces contain.

Or ham. God, how ham nauseates me. Something about that combination of sweetness and meatness utterly turns my stomach.

I don’t even like the smell of it. Gack.

But the main issue between me and my senses is my lack of using them. I was just talking about this with my therapist today. How I have been so powerfully withdrawn into myself that I have been scarcely aware of my environment even when it’s new and how have lived in this sort of nest in my mind where it’s just me and the magnificent toy that is my amazing brain.

So I don’t experience the world of the senses very much. I spend most of my time in this same little room of mine and absorbed into the world of my computer and the Internet, and so I get very little sensory stimulus at all.

And, sadly, that’s how I like it. Sensory stimulation always activates my anxiety, especially outdoors, and makes me long to be inside someplace safe again.

I’m trying hard to unlearn this awful way of thinking so I can open my mind to the idea that there are good thing out there in the world, things that are well worth the cost of going to get them, and so I am free to go out and play with the other kids.

And this time, they may even like me.

More after the break.

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The eventual pasta

I’m finally getting around to eating the pasta from last Saturday night.

Don’t worry, it’s been in the fridge since then. I meant to eat it last night but I forgot until I was already nuking myself some chicken strips.

These days, the two most magical words in the freezer aisle are “fully cooked”.

Fantastic. That means that all I have to do is nuke them till they have thawed out and heated up, and that usually only takes 2 minutes.

And that means I don’t have to stand up for long in the kitchen.

Which is good, because I can’t.

I eventually figured out that I don’t have a choice but to eat the stuff and take my chances on pasta Alfredo that sat out in front of the building for a couple of hours because the alternative was to throw it out and I could not bring myself to do that.

Might seem like insufficient reason to risk food poisoning, but here we are anyhow.

Heating the pasta up was a pain. Had to dump it out of its metal container on to a plate, heat it up in the microwave, then ladle it back into the thing and put the thing back into the pizza box it all arrived in.

That was the only way in Hell I’d be able to carry my food from the kitchen to the bedroom and my seat in front of Mister Computer.

Needing to use a walker means never being able to actually carry anything because you need at least one and often two hands on the walker to get anywhere.

This time, I was able to balance the pizza box on the walker and then keep it balanced there with one hand while I awkwardly walkered back here.

Such is the life of a gimp like me.

It’s a good thing I’m cute.

Really helps to take the edge off.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.