LilRomanianGurl7,

Sorry for having to write you at two different times.

How to describe short circuit? It is like someone dropped all of my senses in a cooking pot let it boil so they are hopping all over the place and then dropped them back in my body but did it without telling me. When one sense is disturbed then they all react and they are intense. Light makes my ears ring, ears ringing makes my skin crawl, skin crawl makes me dizzy, being dizzy makes me confused, confusion makes it hard to talk, not being able to talk makes me agitated, and then I am painfully aware of any and everything around me. Scents, sounds, textures, sights and I can't figure out how to ask for help because there isn't one thing that I can say that will help me and the last thing I want is someone to touch me. Hearing and feeling my own voice adds to the chaos and can be painful sometimes. The only thing that I can control is my voice. Sometimes I can and sometimes I can't.

When I am not short circuiting I am dealing only with one or two senses which are usually sight and sound. Most of the time something triggers a high reaction in one of these and the rest of my senses react. Last week I saw corrosion on my sink and seeing the smooth shine metal next to this little place was awful AND i made the mistake of touching it. Too embarrassed to say my whole reaction but I am glad I was home - not a pretty sight! I hadn't had a melt down like that in a long time. Still recovering.

I have to do something to overpower the experience I am having. Almost like shocking one sense to be the one to reset the rest. It is the only way to get some handle on reality. I have recently allowed myself to have a deep chest moan in public and that helps me calm down enough to get done what I need to get done. Feels sorta weird because people look at me but it is a lot better for them to see that than the meltdown I had last week. Even my husband was at a loss of how to help me and he saw the whole thing.

I hope that makes sense. I haven't ever typed out what that feels like. There are times I won't talk about what I saw because I start to get the sensation again. I could at least type it and not say it ... I had to tell the dr doing the testing the week it happened and got all worked up trying to talk about it without telling her.

Now that I am thinking about it ... it was two weeks ago .... grrrr ... that is what i mean by the episodes are lasting longer ... normally I would be a lot better by now ... I am actually looking forward to working with the OT if she can help me. All of my coping tools are not working they way they used to.

TK