Yes, the title refers to this.
You could argue that this song could correlate with another. But I digress.
This wetting was somewhat inspired by a recent conversation with a friend who reads these. Yes, I’m talking about you, ‘Hello’.
In said conversation, I’d jokingly quipped how my childhood memories primarily consisted of migraines. There was some ring of truth to this, having faint recollections of doctor’s visits and laying down, either on the couch in the living room, or in my darkened bedroom with one of these over my forehead.
Thankfully, it’s been a good year or two since I’ve had the joys of another as flooring as before!
Why this of all topics then, when there are a plethora of others far more interesting?
Introspection helps me make sense of the present and future, with hopes such musings resonate with others. Introspection might help you. If it doesn’t, well, hopefully something else does!
As someone who remains a firmly seated passenger in the train of thought (regardless of whatever I’m doing), I’ve recently reminisced about such frequent migraine attacks, and am pretty certain they were to do with; my brain development, and how such were triggered by overanalysing (like now really!) and the stresses and meltdowns I’d experience due to finding the space and world around me incredibly noisy, bright, confusing or overwhelming.
Before now, I’ve compared my sensory processing issues to a sequence from the film The Incredibles 2. I took the liberty of creating a GIF of the sequence to help explain what I mean:
For me, Autism in regards to sensory processing means my brain has had and still has this wonderfully adamant ability to hyper-focus on just about anything and everything, like each panicking passenger on that train above.
I have my primary long-term hobby fixations such as Film and Music, but short-term pre-occupations can range from my child-like wonder at how the house I sit in was built, to the fascinating migratory path of the birds keen to share their ‘good luck’ all over my patio.
Further elaborating on the train example, if you will, imagine you’re sat on a train that is about to depart. Fix your attention on something or someone, and as you begin to move, then attempt to devote that same level of focus on other objects or people that the train passes.
That’s about as best as I can explain it. With this in mind, this consistent daily occurrence is ubiquitous. From focusing on not only sights and smells, but also sounds, and what kinds of sounds. Loud and busy environments, bright or flashing lights, and my brain’s compelling urge to attempt take it all in.
To listen to all of the surrounding multiple conversations, alongside the noises of; traffic, construction workers, machines and the hustle and bustle of customers exiting and entering shops.
One sensory overload triggered migraine that comes to mind stems from a soft play area that used to exist inside the Millenium Dome before it was converted into the o2. I went there once as part of a school trip. For the life of me, I can't remember the name of that area. I do also recall a calming sensory room, which somewhat helped. Plays like a fever dream whenever I remember it.
The inability to properly process the world around me's perhaps a reason why at a young age why I reacted to all of such on-goings the way I did, on top of social and communication difficulties that often hindered my ability to articulate all of this. Yes, I was a child, but even little people without such issues are able to explain better one way or another if something is distressing them.
For the last 20 years, I’ve known that this is just the way my brain is wired, and to take each day as it comes and learn how to cope within this rather glitchy VR experience! Primarily why I politely decline a turn on an Oculus Rift!
In terms of social etiquette and communication, it's made for a frustrating experience, taking baby steps whilst the majority of my surrounding peers seemed like they were soaring, or always ahead of me.
It’s often why I don’t feel too nostalgic about my childhood, as a great majority of it was taken up by working out; why I am the way I am, what was going on around me, and what I can do about dealing with it all. Not without the loving understanding and support of course. Something I’ll never stop being grateful for!
Yes, I have fond memories of playing with my siblings, going out and about to places and remembering certain; TV Programmes, Films, songs, Toys and adverts for such toys, but do I really want to venture back into little John’s mind and body, where I couldn’t understand my fixations (cars at the time!), or why I became overwhelmed and stressed by the most trivial of issues?
Trivialities, such as my Mum taking a different route to school, or to my Nan’s. Or worrying about the future when most children my age didn’t give tomorrow a second thought.
Growing up as the 2nd of 4 made for a noisy environment, but it was family and felt like a comfortable and content sort of noise at times. Just as similarly contradictory as the controlled noise of some of the music I listen to and decide to blast through my earphones to cope with crowded public transport.
There were arguments and conflicts as we all grew up, yes, and alongside the uncomfortable visual and audible noise of the outside world, is probably perhaps why I’ve aspired for the quiet life. My own personal Migrelief plan.
Difficult to achieve when you end up with a child of your own! But discussion of Fatherhood and how that’s been managed over the years is for another wetting.
It’s taken me a long time and only recently to be able to reside somewhere that aligns with such an aspired head space, without sacrificing the needs of others, further replicating such desires for more personal space by becoming more withdrawn from social media, primarily using my only two handles that exist to network and gather film-related resources.
Rural, peaceful and the only aggravation are of the neighbours residing within my own head. A way of relieving the figurative migraine, or perhaps staving off a literal one!
With my subconscious still reeling from a previously lived experience of my previous area of residence, my long-standing depression and anxiety also like to conjure my regret for previously struggling to work towards somewhere better, accompanied with stressing over what appears to be menial in hindsight, further anticipating the worst with great apprehension.
A blessing and a curse that my brain more often than not hovers over everything tangible and intangible with a magnifying glass, attempting to make sense of it all through countless train analogies, and flippant remarks about defecating flying squads!
The very thought of it all might trigger a migraine for you, let alone one for me! But also in turn helps me take a moment to reflect how to properly deal with and process this often wonderful and frightening place we choose to inhabit for a while, alongside the wonderful and frightening world inside our own heads.