Stories from The Moon / Cuentos de la Luna

Disclaimer: This sensory overload experience I will be describing is personal; not all sensory overload episodes are alike. I want to share my experience in hopes that those of us who suffer from them and people who want to help will understand how to help someone get through one of these episodes. 

The last sensory overload episode I experienced happened this month. My birthday is in the second week of October, and I am always very excited about it. I’ve learned to pace my overly excited emotions into what I call “Birthday Week.” This way, I don’t have one massive peak of excitement, but rather, I get seven days to celebrate with friends in short periods. I don’t enjoy sitting at a table with a big group of people, even if these people were to be my closest friends. The same goes for walking into a room full of people, even if I were happy to see them. 

In the end, seeing two or three friends at a time is much more manageable for a specific amount of time. My multiple birthday celebration invitations come with an allotted time. Something like, “Brunch at my place from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.” I’m grateful my friends understand that I can’t be in a group setting for a long time. Even though I followed my usual weekly plan this year, something went wrong. 

I met up with friends on Monday and every day until my birthday on Thursday. I felt fine. I was happy and excited but not I-can’t-sleep-because-I’m-that-excited. On Saturday, I put some sweet potatoes in the oven for dinner. I was nibbling on a piece of bread at the dining table, waiting for them to be ready. My partner was playing video games on his computer. Then I felt it. Do you know that feeling when you want to cough but are in a quiet room and force yourself not to cough? Or, when you want to sneeze and for what feels like four seconds, you think you can control whether you will sneeze or not? It’s like that. 

My body wanted to turn my torso slowly from right to left, right to left. I thought that if I allowed my body to move very slowly, that would be it. It would leave me alone to enjoy my dinner. I moved my torso sideways slowly. I felt my mind become very still, like fog. My thoughts become simple. My brain cooks my thoughts like a raw egg into a hard-boiled egg. Blank. Hard. Keep moving. My partner removed his headset and gave me an are you okay? look. I told him I was fine and that I was going to the hallway to play with my Fluff for a bit. 

Backstory on the Fluff: one lucky day, this white fluff came through the dining room window. It looks like a snowflake. It’s possibly some part of a flower. I caught it between my hands and released it in the air. It swam gently in the air and came back to me. I released it and caught it over and over for half an hour. I keep it in a glass jar behind the couch for moments when I need to calm down. I think the constant up-and-down movement and predictability rocks my brain into calmness. It is probably what the ocean does to some people or lullabies do to some babies. I’m in the hallway playing with my Fluff when it kicks in. 

I’m aware that I’m standing on my tip-toes. I can feel the back of my left hand rubbing my mouth from right to left, right to left. I can hear myself humming something. All I can see is the Fluff. Every little one of its limbs against the ceiling light. Every little turn it makes as it falls onto my right palm. Time is lost. I feel my partner’s arms around me. He holds my left hand away from my mouth. On my tiptoes, I keep catching and releasing my Fluff. He asks me where my weighted blanket is. I tell him that it’s in the basement. I said to him that the Fluff isn’t working. My brain is still hard-boiled. I can hold a conversation, but it also feels like I’m the only one in the apartment. It’s a weird feeling because I’m aware of my movements, what is being said to me, and the words I speak, but it’s as if I’m underwater. I’m slower, more panicky, exhausted. 

My partner leads me to the couch. I tell my dog that I’ll just take a short nap. I try to make my voice sound reassuring, but I know that my voice is monotonous in these instances, with no sign of emotion. I lie down, and my body begins to rock back and forth. My psychologist has explained to us that this is nothing like having convulsions. But it’s still scary to watch, I’m sure. What works for me is the following:

• Tightness. My partner hugs me tightly—gently and with care but also with a bear-hug strength. He pays special attention to the area around my head, ensuring I don’t hit it when my head moves. 
• A weighted blanket. My blanket is on the heavier side—it weighs 9 kilos. I like my blanket up to my neck. It makes me feel safe. Feeling this added weight on my body makes me feel like I’m “still here,” like even when my brain feels heavy, my body is still here.
• My dog, Kai, lays down on top of me when these episodes happen. In the beginning stage of my body rocking back and forth, Kai lays right next to me or on top of me, on my side or my shoulder. Once the rocking has subdued, I lie on my back, and he alternates between lying on my stomach and my chest. 
• Strong scents. Mint and Eucalyptus work well for me. My partner plugs in an essential oil diffuser with a heavy dose of either of these oils. 
• Warm shower with these oils in the background. I say warm, but it’s more hot than warm. However, for some others, a cold shower may work better. I fear water, so the cold water makes me anxious. 
•  Sleep is the final stage for me. Once my body has let out all the movement, I feel like I just ran a marathon. I fall asleep, and at some point, I remove the weighted blanket. 
• Water. When wake up, I’m very thirsty. Again, it feels like I’m recovering from a marathon. 

This sensory overload episode was relatively short. It was about two hours long, from nibbling on the bread to waking up. My nap was longer than thirty minutes. The shower took at least ten minutes. Playing with my Fluff and being on the couch took over an hour. What I wish people who haven’t experienced sensory overload knew is that, to me, it’s an embarrassing experience. When these episodes happen, I am at my most vulnerable. This time, I felt embarrassed because it felt like I’d ruined our dinner. 

It felt like thirty-two-year-old me couldn’t take care of herself. When my partner helped me lie on the couch, I began to cry, and like I’ve told him before, these are not sad tears or tears that I want to cry. They just happen. I was also embarrassed because my mouth made noises I didn’t want to make, and I couldn’t stop them. When I told my dog, “I’m taking a short nap,” my brain got caught up in the word short. 

Instead of having dinner on a Saturday night with my boyfriend, this happened: My body rocked back and forth on the couch; I told my boyfriend I was sorry for ruining dinner. He told me that I hadn’t ruined anything while bear-hugging me. All this while, I cried pretty badly even though I wasn’t upset or sad; my dog added his whole 4 kilos to my weighted blanket, my brain making me stammer the sh sound in the word short, over and over. Sh. Sh. Back and forth. Sh. Sh. Back and forth. Heavy brain. Heavy body. I fell asleep. 

I think it’s important to keep calm. To understand that this episode will end. That our loved one, our friend, and ourselves will be fine. Speaking to my psychologist two days later, I told her how frustrated I felt because “I should have seen it coming.” I should have known better than to pack every day with something that excites me. Plus, I’m celebrating my dog’s birthday on Sunday. It was a big deal to me, and even though it felt like I was fine, I needed to be more careful with my brain. There are a lot of small things that make me feel very excited and happy that would probably not have the same effect on other people, and the thing is, my brain gets saturated, and then it boils. 

List of things that made me too excited during my Birthday Week: