1582 Dinner Bell Ding

by

This guy.

One of the things my allergies have always done is negate my ability to feel sleepy. I don’t know how exactly to explain it, but there’s this feeling I get behind my eyes that makes me awake. When my allergies are bad it never goes away. I lay down when I think I should and go to sleep because I think I should, not because my body tells me. It’s only gotten worse since I’ve had my c-pap. Ironically I can hardly sleep without the damn thing now because of the apnea which has gotten much worse since using it. I choke awake almost every time I fall asleep on accident without it. A lot of the time when I wake up now I’m instantly awake without feeling like I’ve slept. I’m just awake and functioning but things aren’t lined up right. I’m often dizzy; to the point of stumbling when it’s at its worst. I can feel whatever it is that my allergies do to me in my ears making things not right. Ear drops don’t help. Sometimes if I pressurize them it will shift back to normal, but not always. I can sometimes get a little relief with eye drops, but it’s very limited in how long it works. Sometimes I use them just before trying to sleep and it shifts me briefly into a more natural feeling sleep at the start. It’s hit or miss depending on other factors.
Some over the counter medicines have some positive effects on the allergies. Benadryl, for example, mimics what I understand to be natural sleepiness. If I haven’t taken it for a while it can knock me out to the point of not being able to function. Most over the counter stuff does that, but it makes my blood pressure medicine less effective, so I’m not supposed to use it. The problem with the nasal stuff… Flonase I think it’s called is that it makes that unable to feel sleepy feeling that allergies give me way worse than normal. It takes away some of the other problems, but the not being able to sleep thing compounds day after day until I start to get dissociative. I think that’s what it’s called. It’s like a depression where you don’t feel emotions sort of. At least that’s what it’s like for me. It’s like watching a movie about your life that you’re sort of not part of anymore. It get that with just the allergies, but the Flonase kicks it up to danger levels. So I stopped using it. I’ve basically just been living with the natural effect of allergies this whole year. I’ve tried a whole range of things but the effectiveness is almost always offset by some side effect that negates any good things do.
The only really useful thing I’ve started is a saline nasal rinse. It doesn’t do much for long as far as the allergies go, but I’ve stopped having the crippling headaches I was getting more and more frequently. I’ve had a couple compared to I don’t know how many from before. I didn’t think it would do anything at all when the doctor told me to try it, but as fake as it seems I can’t argue with the results. It makes my sinuses drain more than they do naturally. They are abnormally small for a man my size, so they’ve been a problem my whole life. Since I was little I would have horrifying headaches that lasted all day. Now they are rare.
Anyway that’s all as may be. I’m just going to have to keep trying things until something works. What I was thinking about is that movie The Happening. Spoiler alert: it’s the one where plants make people kill themselves with pollen, or whatever. I think it’s directed by M. Knight Shamalamadingdong. It’s not a great film, but the idea of plants making people kill themselves is kind of what allergies is like for me. They mess up my brain in a very real way that negatively affects my mood to the point of clinical depression. So the premise of the film is not as insane as it might seem at first.
I’ve never heard anyone else describe the feeling I get behind my eyes when they describe what their allergies do to them. It makes me wonder if I just experience the world differently, or maybe most people aren’t affected in the same way as me. It’s kind of like where is the voice in your head? Mine seems to be in different places depending on how I’m feeling. I don’t like to think about it a lot because it freaks me out when I’m not feeling normal. Generally the voice in my brain, the me that is aware of myself as a being, is kind of between my ears a little above my eye line. But, as I say, it shifts depending on how I’m feeling. When I’m feeling really good it feels like it’s really hard to pin it down as coming from a place. It’s so rare right now that I’m having trouble remembering how it feels. I think it shifts to a little closer to right behind my eyes when I’m feeling good though.
I know I’ve asked this before, but where is your awareness located in your head at any given time? Have you ever even thought about it? Does it just feel like it’s all of your head all the time? I’m curious.

36 Comments

Are you just trying to pair everyone off? Because Wes x Maddison would be the best of the worst kind of pairing.

About the awareness, I think mine manifests itself mostly around my head, but sometimes when I’m afraid or really happy I…don’t know exactly how to explain XD
It just kind of really feel conscious of my whole body, like when I feel fear I can be much more sensitive in any given area, and when I am really really happy I just kind of flow through it. Hope it’s an interesting answer :)

I forget:
why is Maddie attracted to Reggie? Would she take Wes, as good substitute, for Reggie?

She just thinks he’s cute, and she doesn’t have a lot of criteria apart from that. She kind of likes everyone because she doesn’t pick up on subtle cues, like sarcasm.

Cool. Thanks!
I thought maybe she thought Reggie was dreamy, for talking about his first girlfriend, or lover, or something.

Is Reggie blushing ? IS REGGIE BLUSHING ? OMG !!!

Sinusitis. My mother has that. There’s kind of nothing to do about it. It is horrible.
She also as too small sinuses. The doctor told her it is possible to operate, but it has like 50% chance of success and is a quite serious operation …

“This guy.”

And then Jackie turned into Tom Siddell.

As a bi dude I can guess that Wes is probably attractive enough on the surface to garner Maddie’s attention, but even if her cues and suchlike are off I really don’t think she’s going to stand for his horseshit for very long if anything happens there.

That’s a really cool question Earlier this year an article was going around written by a guy with aphantasia – – so, he couldn’t “picture” things in his head or even get music stuck in his head. He said he didn’t have a voice in his head, except a little reminder voice telling him things like why he came into the room or what he needed at the store. His reminder voice never stops talking, but doesn’t feel like him,doesn’t have real tone or personality.

As for myself, I don’t feel like the voice in my head comes from somewhere, though I do have a sense that I’m looking out from somewhere behind my eyes, like the thinking thing that is me is located in my head at eye level. I have heard enough people say something like that that I think it’s normal.

I don’t feel like I have an awake feeling that is behind my eyes. My feeling of awakeness is more just a lack of tiredness. Maybe the closest thing I could compare to what you’re saying is that to fall asleep, I do kind of need to convince myself not to have my eyes focused – I have to stop thinking of myself as looking out at the blackness of my eyelids. Whatever you’re feeling, the fact that it’s being given a location isn’t weird in itself. When you feel something, why shouldn’t your body decide on a location for the feeling? Any place is fine, it’s not always based on anything. Nerve endings don’t have GPS.

Location of self for me pretty much equates to the old Voltron / Power Rangers style robot where the pilot seat is in the head.

Funny thing is that if I feel “out of it”, for various reasons but not chemically induced mind you, the feeling is more like that the me that is me is floating just behind and above the physical me, even if I am lying down.

Now the effects of Barley water / potato juice, leaves me feeling like that I am getting ever increasing lag in the controls though I have never gotten “over refreshed” since college.

Dude you need to stop writing for a month and go see an allergist to nail this down. Your not doing yourself any good. Either that our move where there isn’t as much farming happening

Hey Jackie,

I have some pretty bad allergies that used to make it hard to sleep, have you tried sleeping in a small room with an air purifier? We live in a really old house and that made it a lot easier to sleep, just with a reasonably cheap honeywell purifier from Lowes. Doesn’t help much with being up and around during the day but sleeping better makes a world of difference and if I hang out in the room itself it helps then too.

Hey Jackie, I used to get really bad cracks on my heels too. I started using a pumice stone on them in the shower, and put O’Keeffe’s for Healthy Feet Foot Cream after. Made a huge improvement! You can find the stuff at your local wally world or on amazon.
http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B0002QB9NE

Hope this helps out!

Udder butter is supposed to work really well for cracking skin. It’s the stuff designed for cows. With you living in an agricultural area, it is probably easy to find.

Used to get sore cracks around my cuticles-hurt all the time-especially winter. You know it was bad to have a guy comparison shopping in the lotion aisle. Corona salve (think it’s actually a veterinary item, but they sell it everywhere) worked in like a day. Put it on kind of heavy at night then put a cotton glove(or sock) to keep from getting it everywhere/ rubbing you eyes (though you probably don’t rub your eyes with your feet).

Ha! That ending part is kinda how I met my wife. She was interested in my friend, but my friend wasn’t interested. I stepped in ’cause I thought it was funny and wanted to make it worse (’cause I’m a dick). Then she and I hit it off and we’re together as I type, watching Steven Universe, because why do things when you can do no things?

That guy.

I’d call Wes a dick in cheap clothing, that that would acknowledge that he’s part of a man. Anyway, Maddison is certainly up-front — regardless how you choose to interpret that. But please, find her a real man.

I live on Claritin most of the year, for Spring and Summer pollen and Fall and Winter dust and mold. I’ve tried Allegra and Zyrtec, but neither works as well. None of these has the drowsy side effects of Benadryl (Diphenhydramine) or Chlor-Trimeton (Chlorpheniramine Maleate). YMMV, so you should check with your medical malpractitioner before starting any of these.

YES!! I am painfully familiar with the feeling you describe. When I was a teenager (in the Early Paleolithic) I described it as someone blowing up a lead balloon behind my eyes. Not 100% accurate, but it gets the idea across. It was sinus-related, and I used to take Sudafed (Pseudoephedrine) for it. I’ve since learned that Pseudoephedrine and its evil twin Phenylephrine are bad cess for people with high blood pressure. I don’t know what the answer to that one is.

Hey, in case your doctor didn’t tell you, if you are mixing up the saline yourself make sure you boil the water properly first. Makes sure you don’t put any nasties up your nose with it.

I’m not sure everyone is reading Wes the right way…Wes seems the type to be into body shaming…

Going off your last question: honestly, I never really put much thought as to where my thoughts are coming from. Thinking about it now, and reading what I’m typing, it comes from the middle of my head, like where I hear sound coming from when I listen to music with headphones. When I’m speaking, however, I don’t really think about it, so my thoughts just come out of my mouth. It just FEELS like it comes from there rather than my head.

I don’t know if it’s worth a shot, but I saw this article the other day for a strap that goes around your head when you sleep that supposed to prevent snoring and sleep apnea because it keeps your mouth, throat, etc properly positioned so there are no airway issues – I think it was called snoring solution or something – no experience myself, but might be worth a quick look …

Can confirm, nasal irrigation is really helpful for allergy issues. Doesn’t help my headaches at all, but apparently for me those are caused by secondary muscle tension caused by a combination of stress and constant allergies. Don’t know what type of irrigation you use, but I find mine works better if the saline solution is warm, almost to the point of being hot. I usually microwave mine for 15-30 seconds before using it.

I get phenomenal pressure in my eye sockets when my allergies get bad, so bad I feel like digging my eyes out with a spoon. I don’t think that’s what you’re talking about, but eye issues seem to be pretty common with allergy issues. When I can’t sleep, it’s not because I’m not sleepy, it’s because of the pain. I do tend to dissociate like you describe when my allergies are bad and I haven’t been sleeping well, tho.

My thoughts tend to “sound” like they’re coming from behind my forehead, unless I have a bad headache or a full-on migraine; then they come from the center of my skull and sort of pulse painfully outwards. When it’s really bad, there’s a echo effect where my thoughts will reoccur and layer over one another.

Have you tried Ocean complete sinus rinse? Seems to work for me, and like you I’ve had sinus issues my entire life to the point that I’ve been rushed to the ER because of blood coming out of my tear ducts. It’s pretty nasty. I find that once a week cleaning about half way into a hot shower helps a lot. Gotta get the sinuses warmed up first and then I can clear the hatefulness out of my head. I haven’t checked other posts, but do you happen to have a deviated septum? Best thing I ever did for myself was to get mine fixed.

I’d never thought about where the voice in my head has been speaking from. The part where I’m having no trouble answering a question I’d never considered asking about something I’ve been experiencing for as long as I can remember is blowing my mind a little, and I think I might try to objectively compare qualia in a minute. Maybe I should just apologize now for when this gets long and weird.
The music in my head is the easy one to explain – it sounds a lot like hearing music through headphones. Headphones give both ears the same information at the same time without a whole lot of environmental modification, so all the little cues your brain usually uses to figure out which direction something is coming from just aren’t there. The music is coming from everywhere… or maybe nowhere. I have no trouble imagining a directional source for the music in my head if there’s a reason to – a few songs that make deliberate use of stereo sound play in my head just like they do on an mp3 player, and somehow considering how individual parts come together in a piece of music is easier for me if I’m imagining them each coming from a different direction. (The directions I pick usually fall in my field of vision and line up in a complete failure to move beyond two dimensional thinking.) But usually the songs in my head aren’t coming from anywhere in particular.
The voice in my head sounds just like it does when I talk. By which I mean it doesn’t sound like what you would hear when I was talking, in the same way that you can be surprised by the sound of your own voice in something you just finished recording. And where do you hear yourself coming from when you talk out loud? Air is forced out of the lungs by the diaphragm, which vibrates the vocal cords. Then the sound is modified by the shape of the throat and mouth, cut to size by the lips and epiglottis, resonated through the chest and sinuses, conducted through the bones in your head, and bounced around whatever room you happen to be in at the time. It might be easier to describe a place your voice isn’t coming from.
My voice is very resonant. I don’t mean it sounds particularly nice, just that it gains a lot of volume by vibrating the empty spaces in my head and chest. And if I can carry my voice over the noise of the vacuum cleaner just by tuning up the holes in my head, well my vocal cords just don’t see the point in overexerting themselves. So the exact place I hear my own voice coming from depends a lot on how I’m choosing to project it. (Or on the object of my mockery – the nasal tones and booming chest voice are both useful tools for inflicting my sense of humor upon others.) But when I’m wandering around the house talking to myself, my voice comes right from the middle of my head. I would say it’s behind the bridge of my nose, dead center, a little further back than a headache behind the eyes. It wanders a bit depending on the tone of my thoughts, because my actual voice would do the same. More creative ideas are voiced a bit further towards my forehead if only as a learned association with the body part that allegedly generates them. And it’s not so much that it’s my own voice I’m hearing in my head as it is that I’ve turned off the audible part of the commentary to seem less like a jabbering mental patient in public.
There is an exception to this that may put me right back in the loony category. A lot of wildly inappropriate instantly gratifying ideas that I’ve turned down before finishing the thought will still get their time in my head. They can be funny to contemplate. But even though I still hear them in the same voice, they often come from a bit off to the side, and a little higher up.

Re health: if your desperate enough, read herbert shelton on fasting. Only problem is anyone around you will try to institutionalize you.

I have the trouble of not feeling sleepy too, no matter how exhausted I am. It’s one thing the zinc hasn’t fixed, but I think this new medication will.

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