I am doing alright.

That's good. :)

Probably not cloud, you know how he is. I say one little thing and he goes off on me. He thinks it needs to be "ate up" so he takes over there and then they eat it all. they are freakin pigs

True. Ugh, doesn't sound fun or nice at all! :/ Can I poke him?

well i am off to bake

Cloud, feel free to ping me to get my attention, I actually don't mind getting the PMs telling me where people want my attention, it saves me the trouble of using the advanced search function or flipping through pages of posts in the relevant thread to find responses to anything I've said.

I have had many moments in my life when I get quiet among a group of friends. My friends, as good a they are, wonder why I‘m being quiet and not saying anything and often the reason is that there are soo many two way conversations happening within such close proximity that I find it hard to tune out of the rest and concentrate the most interesting one...

For many of my friends, English is a second language, and if they find someone to talk to in their first most comfortable language which I may or may not have some understanding of...it gets a bit much in terms of mental stimulation too...with there being multiple conversations in different languages that I understand....

I think a coping strategy I've used is to physically remove myself even by a few metres from the close group. Yes, I'd be further away from the others but they can still see that I'm still present...like, next to a door rather than further in a room by a window...

Ling: Alright, I just know I don't like pinging people often because I hate them myself so I find myself not linking to ping others because of that. I'll try to remember.

I'm the one who has to physically remove herself, not even away from the group, but away from whatever it is that is overwhelming me, or else I will get snippity, and cranky and upset, and I will get headaches.
For me, my brain tries to figure out what everyone is saying, even when it's just a jumble of voices all in the same language. It's pure torture, and that's why I don't socialize or go to places that are super loud most of the time.

And when I am home, I hide and try to find a way to re-energize.
Just do whatever you feel is best for you and helps you.

Hello, sweetsparks. How are you today? I am kinda tired myself, but that may just be because I slept a lot.

I'm doing ok, kinda tired too - but about to start writing this paper. I know I know. I need to stop procrastinating.
Did you sleep well at least?

I slept wonderfully. No pain woke me up. It was incredibly nice to have it.

That's awesome and wonderful! Yay! :D

Cloud, from the way you describe how you sense things, I suspect that you are more highly sensitive than I am.

And I can only imagine how hard that must be for you...because, even I can get irritable over something others don't seem to notice. And like you describe, it is not just people talking around me, for me if what I sense is chaotic sounding or annoying noise (eg. the loudness of a grinder or other loud hardware tool) or visually chaotic (eg. those magic 3D optical illusion picture images are hard to look at..or graffiti tags covering other layers of graffiti...)

---------- Post added 05-09-2014 at 09:46 PM ----------

Hello Zira Angel!

Yeah, it is pretty great! I can move around pretty easy today, too. My stretches didn't make me hurt, either. Which is awesome.

Hello, Ling!

Zira...please correct me if I'm wrong, are you the user who said you had fibromyaglia? and forgive me if I spelled that incorrectly too..

Yeah, I've got fibromyalgia. Misspelling is fine, Ling. You just flipped the l and g. Don't worry about it. If you want, you can just say fibro, since that gets the idea across just as well.

Ling: It's possible. I don't know.

For me, I can handle tools and grinders, most of the time. It depends on how on edge I am. Could also be because I have grown up with a dad who's in construction, so I am used to all of that because it's what I Grew up with - I may not necessarily like it, per say, but it doesn't bother me as much as other things. I can handle most visual things alright - I grew up with a lot of art and whatnot. My main issues where it gets me the most is sound - with overly crowded places, and smells. I've got insanely good hearing and smell. Which just about drive me absolutely crazy sometimes. I've been known to actually snap, and partially yell at people I'm with because of how noisy somewhere is and how overly over the top I've gotten, but because no one believed me growing up, I have just learned to go with it, even when I hate wherever we are because of how over stimulating where ever we are is to me.

I avoid parties at all costs, I have cut out anything and everything that could cause my sensitivities to act up (aka alcohol and caffeine), and I do all that I can to avoid loud places whenever I can. I think I'm not struggling as much as I did yesterday because of the party thing I went to last night because I had people who I could sign with so I didn't have to actually talk and I could focus on my signing. I am still on edge today, from last night, but not nearly as bad as it could have been. But it was a struggle last night for awhile there, and even after I met up with my friends, it was still a struggle.

Zira: That's awesome! :) What are you planning to do today? :)

Zira, you're right...not a bad spelling attempt for someone who wasn't sure...thanks for the fibro abbreviation though...

I've heard of it, someone i once met many years ago had it, said it was very painful physically...could you tell me more about it? in terms of what body parts tend to hurt and how?

Cloud, I'm ok with going to parties, provided it's safe and I know most of the people going and alcohol consumption is kept to minimal so no drunk people...

I avoid alcohol and caffeine too...in a society where it's socially acceptable to consume both when hanging out with friends for a drink, I would always get an alcohol-free or lemon lime bitters....chai latte or hot chocolate alternative..

Cloud: I'm planning on either cleaning my room, or maybe talking one of the dogs on a walk. SOmething that isn't too high impact.

Ling: If you want me to, I certainly can!

Most of the time, it is just my joints. Like, all my joints, even the ones in my toes in fingers. I'm especially sensitive to my shoulders being touched, so I try to not let anyone touch there. That's hard, since strangers touch someone shoulder to get their attention. I'd honestly prefer a touch to the arm, but that's considered more intimate for some reason.

But on harder days, my back aches. Like all up and down the spine. The joints feel like more pain, a little like someone is poking directly between the bones with a needle. For me, anyway.

On the bad days, it is more like someone is slowly slicing away at the skin and muscles, trying to tear me apart, little by little, but there is no way to get down into the bones, even if the bones hurt.

On days so bad I don't even bother to get out of bed, I feel like my bones are on fire without the heat, and when that happens, I just take more pain meds, and attempt to force myself to sleep all day. There is no fixing a bad day. All a bad day does is make it harder to recover to get a good day.

I can make a hard day turn into a good day if I do stretches, but that's not always the case. SOmetimes stretches make it worse. The only 'proven' way to help 'fix' fibromyalgia is by light exercise. Pretty much anything else just cushions it so I can do things even on bad days.

That's the difference between you and me, I can not even get myself to go to parties as parties equal noise and me being the one who is HIGHLY uncomfortable... and I absolutely HATE drunk people, because I do not DRINK at all. I'm 26 this year and I've never once gotten drunk, and I avoid drunk people and alcohol like the plague, as drunk people push me to drink... which I HATE!
I do not party, I do not drink, and people ask me "well then why are you even bothering with college if you aren't going out and having fun?" OH, yes, I'm still in college because I'm the loser who takes twice as long as everyone else her age to even get one degree that should only take her four years... -.-

I have to be even careful with teas because of the caffeine.

Zira: Sounds like a good idea to not push yourself too much. I should probably get started on my paper soon. Either that or do some packing as I'm trying to pack a little bit at a time over the next week so I'm not stressing the last day to get it all done.

Yeah, pushing myself is something I'm not planning. Really, pushing myself too hard has a really good chance of changing this from a good day into a hard day. Something I have absolutely no interest in having at all. I'm looking forward to feeling nice and being happy! It is kind of novel, and it is nice.

*wanders into the thread yawning*

Zira: That makes total sense - I know how that is. I mean for me it's different, but pushing yourself only makes things harder on yourself.

Cloud, See..I didn't like the students that think college life is all about getting drunk and partying...it's not supposed to be...people can and they do do those things whether or not they're a college student...

being a student means you're at a school/college to get an education and knowledge to get a qualification that'll hopefully lead to more opportunities in life for paid work or otherwise...

And I remember telling you that I took more than twice as long as the full time students to get my degree too... you're certainly not alone.


Zira, it's good to try to keep improving your health and doing as much as you can....be careful not to push yourself too hard though...you don't want to injure yourself or get into that unbearable type pain


Hi Kirin! Do you need to go rest?

Well apparently people think that not even getting out and socializing is wrong because I'm doing something wrong clearly...

I'm just feeling like it's not even worth it. I don't even know what I Want to do with this degree anyways... -.- I'm so just over school. Because all it does is stress me out way worse than anything else... -.-

I'm just so over school. I honestly don't even think I can survive my last year, and I am struggling to get myself to even do what I need to do to finish this term up... I don't want to write my last three papers - one due today, one due monday, and my term paper due next Friday - because I'm just so OVER school...

Hello, Kirin!

Cloud, yeah. Pushing too hard only makes a day worse. Something a lot of healthy people don't understand unless they're around unhealthy people a lot. And explaining the spoon theory doesn't help unless they want to know.