Back from Starry Coast

[mrissa]

So last week I spent a week in a beach house in Charleston doing the Starry Coast writers’ workshop with ten strangers. No longer strangers after a week together! I had very little idea what to expect, other than the immediate practicalities, but I went in with a great deal of hope, a bunch of chocolate to share, and a theory that I could deal

Comments

[mrissa]

Some parts of this particular accommodation are really hard to predict. For example, one of the people I love most in the world is physically incapable of watching their personal space in terms of not bumping into people if they are sharing a kitchen. I have talked to them about it. Others have talked to them about it on my behalf. They are trying very hard and very earnestly. It is something they honestly cannot notice themself doing--if you are both getting lunch in the kitchen and you are reaching up for a water glass in the cupboards, they will bump your shoulder just marginally as they move past to get into the fridge. They will not mean to. They will be trying not to with all their conscious mind. But they are physically unable to keep the edges of their physical person that much in mind.

For someone with normal balance, this could be fine, or it could be mildly annoying; if it's someone with normal balance who is coming out of a serious trauma, it could be emotionally triggering, which is its own bad stuff I will not speak to here because it's not mine to speak to. But for someone with basically no functional balance at the moment, preparing lunch in a kitchen with that person is exhausting. Spending a week in a house with that person would have been incredibly difficult. Every time they bump you into the cabinets, it takes a minute to regain function. Every time you're jostled, the world has to realign noticeably.

So some of the accommodation was things like me getting a main floor bedroom/bathroom and getting help on the stairs when we left/were out in public/etc. All sorts of small things. People giving me an arm, getting me water, checking in with how I was doing. But some of it was that I got really lucky in just plain how they handled themselves.

[teadog1425]

Apologies for intruding on the conversation, but I was really struck by what you describe above, as it mirrors something I have found with horses.

Some horses find it veryvery hard to know where their edges are... i.e. they do not have a good sense of where their bodies are in space.

They tend to scrape themselves going through a doorway, because they misjudge where they need to angle themselves to avoid the frame (and then get anxious about these doorways that just bite them out of nowhere).

They tend to bump into people without really registering it (and then get anxious about these people who are suddenly cross with them for no reason that they can see).

They tend to be anxious about loading onto trailers because they cannot judge whether they fit into the enclosed space that they can see.

Often what helps these horses is a Tellington Touch approach of gentle stroking over the surface of their bodies - the gentle touch rewires their brains to pick up signals from their body-edge (i.e. their skin) and rewires the proprioceptive awareness of where their body begins and ends and where it is currently standing in space/within the environment.

Horses that have this difficulty have sometimes developed this lack of sensitivity as a way of compensating for physical discomfort - e.g. they have ongoing low-level discomfort in their feet, so they just remove most of their awareness from their feet, and become really clumsy about where they are - stumbling, tripping, difficulty balancing on uneven surfaces etc - or there is discomfort somewhere else in their body, so they just, on some level, check out of their bodies as a coping mechanism (this can be very obvious (zombie-like horse) or very subtle (clumsy, 'stupid' horse)).

Some of this can also be linked to an emotional confusion about where they begin and end - these horses also tend to be very reactive to the emotions of other horses and people, as though the emotions themselves are contagious in the way that a more grounded, confident horse wouldn't experience - and/or to an emotional distress that causes them to check out of their bodies as not a safe place to be.

I don't know whether this is a useful piece with regards to your experiences above, but certainly in horses, this is not something that the horses are consciously choosing to do, but it does seem to be possible to rewire their awareness of their physical self and their 'edges' to increase that sensitivity. I have no idea whether this works for people as well, but it seems as though it might.

[mrissa]

The problem is that it is a lot to ask of a person who is not living with one. If it was a housemate, a spouse or other life partner, quite possibly this level of rewiring would be a reasonable thing to ask. But for a loved one who lives somewhere else and is not experiencing it as a problem in their life but as an aspect of your disability...you see the issue?

I don't experience the comment as intrusive at all. It's very interesting. I'm just not sure that it works as a solution in this specific case.

[teadog1425]

Yes, I completely agree - I was not at all sure that it worked as a potential solution for this - the parallels just really struck me strongly!

I guess the only other thing is, it would make me wonder whether the person found that they bump into things more generally without consciously realising it - in which case the rewiring might deliver benefits to them in terms of less general bruising, rather than just in terms of your benefit, but I completely see your point and agree about what feels possible under the circumstances.

I had labyrinthitis just over ten years ago now, and though the worst of the balance issues resolved afterwards, I don't have as good balance as I had before - luckily I have a very tolerant horse, who is used to me overbalancing gently into her at various points! It's nothing close to your experience, but my sisters still talk about the 'hilarious' time when I kept falling over (I didn't - it just felt as though the ground was tilting away from me all the time) - I don't think people really understand how disorienting it is until they've been through it - but I also _loved_ your description of the sea dipping above - a really evocative distillation of the experience into words for me. Very powerful! (And emotionally powerful in other senses, because I find it almost impossible to put myself in those circumstances of depending physically on people, and so that bravery on your part and their stability really touched me.)

[mrissa]

I am so glad no one around me finds it hilarious when I fall. I think I would have a hard time feeling warmly towards them if they did.

I am not always great at asking for help and trusting others to give it appropriately, either, so this was indeed really good.

I think one of the things that can contribute to more bumping is upbringing. If you were raised in very small living quarters or with quite a few people, the idea that you would have a bubble of space around you that you would only break deliberately to express affection is one that can be extremely foreign. Whether it's ten children in a farmhouse or four in a city apartment, if there just isn't room, one of the adjustments some people make is to habituate to other people in their personal space very quickly. (Others go the other direction and the bubble around each family member/housemate is inviolable.) And even when they're not in that situation any more, it has defined itself as normal in some very subconscious ways that are difficult to undo. I don't know for sure, it's just a theory, but it seems not an unreasonable one.

[ethelmay]

This sounds frighteningly familiar. My spatial sense definitely varies with my emotional state. You know those jokes about women who can't parallel park when they have their periods? That's me. (I can, actually. But I have to think my way through it very carefully, and talk myself out of feeling guilty that I am like this, and, and, well, sometimes it's easier to park somewhere else.)