Stimulation on mum's loo 10 May 2014
When you’re an introvert with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, doing it in the dark is total bliss.
I don’t visit my mother’s place often. Maybe once in six months. It’s so infrequent that I always forget the one special thing about it. But I’m writing this down here so that it’s locked in my mind forever. My mother and her lovely husband live in a modest house in the outer suburbs. And it has this poky little toilet. The room just has a loo; no sink, nothing else. Now, I know not many of you enjoy total darkness, but I do. And when I say total darkness, it’s pretty close to the mark. After a whole five minutes in there with no light on, my eyes adjust to the point where I can just make out a corner of two walls. You see, I have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. I’m constantly interrogating the universe for symmetries, patterns and oddities – making meaning out of visual forms that really have no meaning. It’s like having a brain on constant overdrive. I also have a tendency to introversion. Often the world gets too much to tolerate, and I need to reduce my sensory stimulation. So when I need to relieve myself at my mother’s house – in more ways than one I must say – her toilet is my best friend. The pitch black anti-light falls on my eyeballs so softly. No matter how much my compulsive thoughts try to leap to the occasion, there simply is nothing for them to leap to. There are no forms in perfect darkness. My eyes dart about, but my brain stays in neutral. It’s so soothing as to be almost divine. After I’ve done my business, I like to put the lid down and just sit there for a while. Nothing is without a price, though. My mother, in all her motherly concern, is convinced that I’ve got some sort of stomach problem. “Why are you in there so long? What’s wrong with you? Every time you come here, you stay in there for hours.” After my little retreat into darkness, it’s back to the bombardment of the senses. |
Still too much stimulation
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