Fumes: An Excuse For Exclusion
When I was a child I continually found reasons to be isolated and excluded. Usually it was a disagreement with someone and my unwillingness to capitulate, apologize or in any form make amends. My pride would stop me.
.
When I wasn't stopped by disagreements I was stopped by illness. Weeks away from school were highly common for me, and on a few occasions I was out more than a month with mononucleosis. (Yes, I had mono four times to the astonishment of my doctors.)
.
When I finally had my health and behavior somewhat in order - at the age of nineteen or so - I began to explore the possibilities of friendship and inclusion just a little. I quickly found myself separated by my over-zealous advertisement of the raw food diet, which was so powerful in my own healing.
.
I no longer seemed to find myself in troublesome company that wanted to watch television, drink or listen to music. I was free from those barriers, but my nutrition-related preaching repeatedly won me disapproval.
.
Paladin, who I married at the age of twenty, helped me through this time in my life. He taught me diplomacy and etiquette as it had never been taught to me before.
.
By twenty-two I was fairly decent at wielding it. By twenty-two I was developing new sensitivities of extreme measure. I had gone from being dramatically impacted by cigarettes and floor glue to being dramatically impacted by virtually any smoke.
.
By the age of twenty-four all cooking fumes sent me running, even though I myself actually consumed cooked foods when I was twenty-three and twenty-four. It was common for me to have potatoes and kale together that had both been pressure-steamed. I would top them with a little sea salt, black pepper and dill seed or carroway.
.
Perhaps some part of me was terribly angry with me for going back to eating 30% to 60% of my diet as cooked food. I still ate a large salad every day, but that wasn't nearly the same. I tried to rationalize and say that potatoes were better for me than nuts, but the subject is still debatable. Both dehydrate me severely. Both become very addictive to me in short order.
.
And yet, is it any coincidence that this cooking-fumes sensitivity cropped up just as all my other barriers between other people and I were falling away? Fumes were a large part of what separated me from Oryx and Hare, who ate cooked food daily, and who still used chemical products on their bodies.
.
Was this separation to maintain my pride in being different? Did this go back to my parents praising me for my uniqueness?
.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2015, I met Hibiscus's parents. That evening his mother stir-fried some vegetables. I stayed upstairs for the entire affair. Hibiscus made sure that the stove-fan vent was blowing outward. I kept my filter on high in my room as well as my humidifier. And yet every time I had to use the bathroom the stench that had wafted up the stairs hit me with stabbing pains in my temples.
.
I opened the bathroom window. I asked Hibiscus via text to open the stairwell window and he did. The cooking finished around seven o'clock in the evening. At midnight the fume in the hallway still caused me dizziness and discomfort in my stomach. Was it going to be like this their entire visit?
.
I heard Hibiscus's voice at times from downstairs. He was talking to them. They were getting time with him that I was not. I felt bitter about it and had nothing to do but stew in my own disappointment and self-recrimination. I gave myself this sensitivity for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but I wish I could uncover it and be done with it. I'm sick of this humiliation. It is shameful to hide like this.
.
I began dictating to my tablet:
.
. . .
.
I am a bit lost as to what to do with myself now. I just finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey. The ending is tragic and unhappy. I'm really pissed off about that.
.
I feel guilty about not being downstairs with Hibiscus's parents. And yet I don't feel guilty because I can't be down there anyway. I had had intended to spend a lot of time with them. But I will not really be able to do so if they are going to need to cook very often. I feel cruddy.
.
I didn't feel cruddy earlier. I felt okay while I was talking to Hibiscus's dad. But then my throat started to hurt towards the end of the conversation. I've taken two probiotics. I also finished off the fermented coconut water. I feel better now physically. I guess that the physical pain was really about the emotional pain that I was not allowing myself to feel earlier.
.
With my humidifier and my air filter and my essential oil blends I almost feel vaguely safe. Despite my precautions, Hibiscus's mother's cooking can be smelled in my room.
.
I hate this level of fear. I wish breathing didn't have to cause me so much anxiety. Teal says (in her video on Allergies) that to be afraid of breathing is to be afraid of living.
.
Sometimes I think I am afraid of living. But if I am afraid, then what does that make everyone else?
.
I'm surprised by my own hallowed feeling. I'm startled by the depth of my own loneliness.
.
I don't resent Hibiscus for wanting to see his parents, but it is hard not to resent myself for my own failings. I feel like I should be better - I should be a more impressive example of a raw foodist.
.
I also feel like I need to prove that I am the right sort of person for Hibiscus. But how can I do that when I can't even show my face? How do they perceive my absence? Is it even noticeable to them? I don't know. I don't know their expectations. I don't know what experiences they've had with Hibiscus's past partners.
.
I hadn't realized how lost I would feel. It's like I already forgot what it felt like when Hibiscus's friends visited. This immediate sense of being cut off. I'm not just cut off from him, it's like I also I'm cut off from myself. It's like the closest thing I can do to finding my equilibrium is to hide. I have to wonder if somehow I've decided subconsciously to have a sensitivity to chemicals and to cooking fumes because I needed further justification to isolate myself.
.
And if my subconscious needs justification in order to isolate me . . . Then that implies that I am actually seeking isolation. But how does that fit in with fear of being alone as my core negative imprint?
.
In this moment I actually do miss Paladin . . . Which is ironic and useless because, of course, this same situation has happened with him so many times. He'll be entertaining and I will be alone. We'll both remark how it's so ironic: I would much rather be with people and yet can't, and he would much rather be alone but feels obligated to talk to people when I must isolate myself to protect myself.
.
And does that mean that my sensitivities are there to help me get in touch with something inside myself that I have repressed? Perhaps they are there to help Paladin get in touch with the parts of himself that he has repressed, the part of him that want to engage in conversation and connection.
.
My safety suddenly feels much more fragile. I wonder if perhaps in the future I should actually arrange to be elsewhere and when they visit. I hate to be in the way of other people living their daily lives because of my sensitivity. I feel guilty enough that I am not with them right now. I don't feel like I can confront anyone about how to make it easier or better for me. I wonder if I will never get over the sensitivity if I will never learn to actually talk to people about it.
.
If the first step to achieving change is acceptance, then how do I accept it? It seems, once again, like surrounding myself with people who don't cook is the most rational solution. And yet I was perfectly content so recently like earlier today and like yesterday. Was I paired up with Hibiscus, in part, to finally have a strong enough motivation to overcome this sensitivity to smoke?
.
How is it that my emotions on this subject can be so strong, and yet so forgettable? How is it that I forget, time and time again, how much this really affects me? Its like I am willfully forgetting. How else can I explain it?
.
. . .
.
I started trying to sleep around eight-thirty since I couldn't leave my room and since using my computer after dark severely strained my eyes. I'd already finished the book I had been reading, and its ending didn't make me feel inclined to start reading anything else.
.
I tried to sleep, but every opening and clothing of the bathroom door woke me. Occasionally I'd hear Hibiscus's voice for a moment and it would wake me.
.
At nine-forty-five Hibiscus joined me in my room.
.
"I told my parents I was turning in for the night," he said. "I didn't tell them what I was turning into."
.
I smiled and welcomed him into my bed.
.
.
Friday morning I was again in a position where all I wanted was sleep to escape my inner turmoil. I slept for half an hour and woke to sound of Hibiscus mother's laughter. Hibiscus was speaking with her. I wanted his lunch break for myself. I found my envy, jealousy and resentment in a flash, like I'd pulled them from a pocket suddenly.
.
Hibiscus still hadn't answered my text from an hour ago: "I notice that I'm literally hiding at this point. I also notice my continued inclination to let you alone to do your work." He's not working now. And yet, what was the point? I could go down there, but I wouldn't be able to have him to myself. I felt desolate.
.
I found out that I was wrong a little while later. Hibiscus had been doing work related to Silverstag Eco Hamlet's infrastructure issues and it was a neighbor who I'd heard talking with Hibiscus's parents. Hibiscus wasn't ignoring me - he was just torn in too many directions at once. My anger fizzled and died.
.
"My parents are talking about simply leaving," Hibiscus said.
.
"Oh? Because of me?" My sensitivity to fumes is driving them away. Parts of me cheered in celebration, other parts hid in fear, some felt angry, others felt resentful. Overall I felt ashamed, like I was somehow doing it on purpose. Subconsciously I am doing this on purpose, aren't I?
.
"Yes."
.
"That makes me feel really guilty. I'm sorry."
.
"I know. I don't blame you. I tried to tell them that this isn't any different than how you lived at your parents' house. They said that this is not your parents' house, it's your house, and you shouldn't be confined to your room."
.
I smiled. They care about me. Just like Hibiscus cared about me and took me into the safe-haven of his home to protect me from the grilling fumes in August. Now his parents would be willing to leave to spare me their fumes. It felt so good. It felt like feeling loved.
.
I remembered how, as a child, I was incredibly hurt by my father smoking cigarettes. It seemed like evidence that he didn't love me. How could he possibly smoke around me, hurt me like that, and actually love me?
.
And perhaps that just expanded a step further. If Paladin loved me then he would be a raw foodist. He wouldn't cook his food. If mom loved me then she would at least have the decency to air out after burning her food, or set an alarm clock. If anyone really loved anyone, they would take care of themselves and stop polluting their bodies, their air, their land, their water and their relationships.
.
Could everything be reduced down to whether or not one felt loved as a result?
.
.
In 2010, while my father and I were on a road trip, I saw Paladin in person for the second time. The first time I flew from Snowland to Sunnyland for three weeks, starting with January 23rd 2010. The second visit was also for three weeks, and it was in March. This time I was accompanied by my dad who slept on an air-mattress in Paladin's apartment living room.
.
One day, while Paladin was at work my dad asked me, "So do you still love him now that you know he farts?"
.
I frowned, baffled. "Everyone farts," I replied. I thought of Porcupine who'd lived with us for over two years, of Dragon who'd lived with us for well over a year and Wolf who'd lived with us for nine months. Why would normally bodily functions put me off?
.
Perhaps what he meant to ask was, "Now that you know he isn't a mythical being on the other side of the country, perhaps you've come to your senses, yes?"
.
Later I asked my dad, "So what do you think of him?"
.
"I think you and he have the same weaknesses," he said. Once again I was baffled. But this one made a lot of sense to me later, especially as the years went forward.
.
There were the physical things, like us both being sensitive to cold and textures against our skin. There were his allergies to fruits that went away when he combined eating organic with a primarily raw food diet. There were my sensitivities that went away much the same way.
.
But there were similar emotional weaknesses that were hard to spot at first. The quickness to blame ourselves, to feel guilty, to repeatedly shame ourselves. The way I'd feel bad about making him feel bad, and then he'd feel bad that feeling bad was making me feel bad. The way we could both slump into depression and lose interest in virtually everything.
.
When I'd met him I only saw him as stable, reliable, honest, hard-working, kind, accepting and unconditionally loving. Six years later I saw him as fragile, self-sacrificing, guilt-inducing, kind to me (mean to himself), accepting of me (rejecting to himself) and loving (probably conditional on how much I'd loved him).
.
How would I view Hibiscus in six years when I knew all of his failings like the back of my hand?
.
When I wasn't stopped by disagreements I was stopped by illness. Weeks away from school were highly common for me, and on a few occasions I was out more than a month with mononucleosis. (Yes, I had mono four times to the astonishment of my doctors.)
.
When I finally had my health and behavior somewhat in order - at the age of nineteen or so - I began to explore the possibilities of friendship and inclusion just a little. I quickly found myself separated by my over-zealous advertisement of the raw food diet, which was so powerful in my own healing.
.
I no longer seemed to find myself in troublesome company that wanted to watch television, drink or listen to music. I was free from those barriers, but my nutrition-related preaching repeatedly won me disapproval.
.
Paladin, who I married at the age of twenty, helped me through this time in my life. He taught me diplomacy and etiquette as it had never been taught to me before.
.
By twenty-two I was fairly decent at wielding it. By twenty-two I was developing new sensitivities of extreme measure. I had gone from being dramatically impacted by cigarettes and floor glue to being dramatically impacted by virtually any smoke.
.
By the age of twenty-four all cooking fumes sent me running, even though I myself actually consumed cooked foods when I was twenty-three and twenty-four. It was common for me to have potatoes and kale together that had both been pressure-steamed. I would top them with a little sea salt, black pepper and dill seed or carroway.
.
Perhaps some part of me was terribly angry with me for going back to eating 30% to 60% of my diet as cooked food. I still ate a large salad every day, but that wasn't nearly the same. I tried to rationalize and say that potatoes were better for me than nuts, but the subject is still debatable. Both dehydrate me severely. Both become very addictive to me in short order.
.
And yet, is it any coincidence that this cooking-fumes sensitivity cropped up just as all my other barriers between other people and I were falling away? Fumes were a large part of what separated me from Oryx and Hare, who ate cooked food daily, and who still used chemical products on their bodies.
.
Was this separation to maintain my pride in being different? Did this go back to my parents praising me for my uniqueness?
.
Thursday, October 22nd, 2015, I met Hibiscus's parents. That evening his mother stir-fried some vegetables. I stayed upstairs for the entire affair. Hibiscus made sure that the stove-fan vent was blowing outward. I kept my filter on high in my room as well as my humidifier. And yet every time I had to use the bathroom the stench that had wafted up the stairs hit me with stabbing pains in my temples.
.
I opened the bathroom window. I asked Hibiscus via text to open the stairwell window and he did. The cooking finished around seven o'clock in the evening. At midnight the fume in the hallway still caused me dizziness and discomfort in my stomach. Was it going to be like this their entire visit?
.
I heard Hibiscus's voice at times from downstairs. He was talking to them. They were getting time with him that I was not. I felt bitter about it and had nothing to do but stew in my own disappointment and self-recrimination. I gave myself this sensitivity for a reason. I don't know what that reason is, but I wish I could uncover it and be done with it. I'm sick of this humiliation. It is shameful to hide like this.
.
I began dictating to my tablet:
.
. . .
.
I am a bit lost as to what to do with myself now. I just finished reading Fifty Shades of Grey. The ending is tragic and unhappy. I'm really pissed off about that.
.
I feel guilty about not being downstairs with Hibiscus's parents. And yet I don't feel guilty because I can't be down there anyway. I had had intended to spend a lot of time with them. But I will not really be able to do so if they are going to need to cook very often. I feel cruddy.
.
I didn't feel cruddy earlier. I felt okay while I was talking to Hibiscus's dad. But then my throat started to hurt towards the end of the conversation. I've taken two probiotics. I also finished off the fermented coconut water. I feel better now physically. I guess that the physical pain was really about the emotional pain that I was not allowing myself to feel earlier.
.
With my humidifier and my air filter and my essential oil blends I almost feel vaguely safe. Despite my precautions, Hibiscus's mother's cooking can be smelled in my room.
.
I hate this level of fear. I wish breathing didn't have to cause me so much anxiety. Teal says (in her video on Allergies) that to be afraid of breathing is to be afraid of living.
.
Sometimes I think I am afraid of living. But if I am afraid, then what does that make everyone else?
.
I'm surprised by my own hallowed feeling. I'm startled by the depth of my own loneliness.
.
I don't resent Hibiscus for wanting to see his parents, but it is hard not to resent myself for my own failings. I feel like I should be better - I should be a more impressive example of a raw foodist.
.
I also feel like I need to prove that I am the right sort of person for Hibiscus. But how can I do that when I can't even show my face? How do they perceive my absence? Is it even noticeable to them? I don't know. I don't know their expectations. I don't know what experiences they've had with Hibiscus's past partners.
.
I hadn't realized how lost I would feel. It's like I already forgot what it felt like when Hibiscus's friends visited. This immediate sense of being cut off. I'm not just cut off from him, it's like I also I'm cut off from myself. It's like the closest thing I can do to finding my equilibrium is to hide. I have to wonder if somehow I've decided subconsciously to have a sensitivity to chemicals and to cooking fumes because I needed further justification to isolate myself.
.
And if my subconscious needs justification in order to isolate me . . . Then that implies that I am actually seeking isolation. But how does that fit in with fear of being alone as my core negative imprint?
.
In this moment I actually do miss Paladin . . . Which is ironic and useless because, of course, this same situation has happened with him so many times. He'll be entertaining and I will be alone. We'll both remark how it's so ironic: I would much rather be with people and yet can't, and he would much rather be alone but feels obligated to talk to people when I must isolate myself to protect myself.
.
And does that mean that my sensitivities are there to help me get in touch with something inside myself that I have repressed? Perhaps they are there to help Paladin get in touch with the parts of himself that he has repressed, the part of him that want to engage in conversation and connection.
.
My safety suddenly feels much more fragile. I wonder if perhaps in the future I should actually arrange to be elsewhere and when they visit. I hate to be in the way of other people living their daily lives because of my sensitivity. I feel guilty enough that I am not with them right now. I don't feel like I can confront anyone about how to make it easier or better for me. I wonder if I will never get over the sensitivity if I will never learn to actually talk to people about it.
.
If the first step to achieving change is acceptance, then how do I accept it? It seems, once again, like surrounding myself with people who don't cook is the most rational solution. And yet I was perfectly content so recently like earlier today and like yesterday. Was I paired up with Hibiscus, in part, to finally have a strong enough motivation to overcome this sensitivity to smoke?
.
How is it that my emotions on this subject can be so strong, and yet so forgettable? How is it that I forget, time and time again, how much this really affects me? Its like I am willfully forgetting. How else can I explain it?
.
. . .
.
I started trying to sleep around eight-thirty since I couldn't leave my room and since using my computer after dark severely strained my eyes. I'd already finished the book I had been reading, and its ending didn't make me feel inclined to start reading anything else.
.
I tried to sleep, but every opening and clothing of the bathroom door woke me. Occasionally I'd hear Hibiscus's voice for a moment and it would wake me.
.
At nine-forty-five Hibiscus joined me in my room.
.
"I told my parents I was turning in for the night," he said. "I didn't tell them what I was turning into."
.
I smiled and welcomed him into my bed.
.
.
Friday morning I was again in a position where all I wanted was sleep to escape my inner turmoil. I slept for half an hour and woke to sound of Hibiscus mother's laughter. Hibiscus was speaking with her. I wanted his lunch break for myself. I found my envy, jealousy and resentment in a flash, like I'd pulled them from a pocket suddenly.
.
Hibiscus still hadn't answered my text from an hour ago: "I notice that I'm literally hiding at this point. I also notice my continued inclination to let you alone to do your work." He's not working now. And yet, what was the point? I could go down there, but I wouldn't be able to have him to myself. I felt desolate.
.
I found out that I was wrong a little while later. Hibiscus had been doing work related to Silverstag Eco Hamlet's infrastructure issues and it was a neighbor who I'd heard talking with Hibiscus's parents. Hibiscus wasn't ignoring me - he was just torn in too many directions at once. My anger fizzled and died.
.
"My parents are talking about simply leaving," Hibiscus said.
.
"Oh? Because of me?" My sensitivity to fumes is driving them away. Parts of me cheered in celebration, other parts hid in fear, some felt angry, others felt resentful. Overall I felt ashamed, like I was somehow doing it on purpose. Subconsciously I am doing this on purpose, aren't I?
.
"Yes."
.
"That makes me feel really guilty. I'm sorry."
.
"I know. I don't blame you. I tried to tell them that this isn't any different than how you lived at your parents' house. They said that this is not your parents' house, it's your house, and you shouldn't be confined to your room."
.
I smiled. They care about me. Just like Hibiscus cared about me and took me into the safe-haven of his home to protect me from the grilling fumes in August. Now his parents would be willing to leave to spare me their fumes. It felt so good. It felt like feeling loved.
.
I remembered how, as a child, I was incredibly hurt by my father smoking cigarettes. It seemed like evidence that he didn't love me. How could he possibly smoke around me, hurt me like that, and actually love me?
.
And perhaps that just expanded a step further. If Paladin loved me then he would be a raw foodist. He wouldn't cook his food. If mom loved me then she would at least have the decency to air out after burning her food, or set an alarm clock. If anyone really loved anyone, they would take care of themselves and stop polluting their bodies, their air, their land, their water and their relationships.
.
Could everything be reduced down to whether or not one felt loved as a result?
.
.
In 2010, while my father and I were on a road trip, I saw Paladin in person for the second time. The first time I flew from Snowland to Sunnyland for three weeks, starting with January 23rd 2010. The second visit was also for three weeks, and it was in March. This time I was accompanied by my dad who slept on an air-mattress in Paladin's apartment living room.
.
One day, while Paladin was at work my dad asked me, "So do you still love him now that you know he farts?"
.
I frowned, baffled. "Everyone farts," I replied. I thought of Porcupine who'd lived with us for over two years, of Dragon who'd lived with us for well over a year and Wolf who'd lived with us for nine months. Why would normally bodily functions put me off?
.
Perhaps what he meant to ask was, "Now that you know he isn't a mythical being on the other side of the country, perhaps you've come to your senses, yes?"
.
Later I asked my dad, "So what do you think of him?"
.
"I think you and he have the same weaknesses," he said. Once again I was baffled. But this one made a lot of sense to me later, especially as the years went forward.
.
There were the physical things, like us both being sensitive to cold and textures against our skin. There were his allergies to fruits that went away when he combined eating organic with a primarily raw food diet. There were my sensitivities that went away much the same way.
.
But there were similar emotional weaknesses that were hard to spot at first. The quickness to blame ourselves, to feel guilty, to repeatedly shame ourselves. The way I'd feel bad about making him feel bad, and then he'd feel bad that feeling bad was making me feel bad. The way we could both slump into depression and lose interest in virtually everything.
.
When I'd met him I only saw him as stable, reliable, honest, hard-working, kind, accepting and unconditionally loving. Six years later I saw him as fragile, self-sacrificing, guilt-inducing, kind to me (mean to himself), accepting of me (rejecting to himself) and loving (probably conditional on how much I'd loved him).
.
How would I view Hibiscus in six years when I knew all of his failings like the back of my hand?