A Battle-zone Outside my Home
A tale of late onset agoraphobia : Living in “rural” PNW America is not a peaceful place
I now experience Agoraphobia on a daily basis. This is ridiculous considering I live in a “rural” town on the Olympic Peninsula of Washington State. But even 10,000 people (most retired people as this town is the oldest place in America outside of the state of Florida) can make chaos out of a beauty.
To briefly give you an idea of myself, I am recently diagnosed Autistic (AudHD) with PTSD. After a violent marriage, two tragic deaths, living in a moldy house, my entire body and mind is in complete burnout. It’s been about two years now. I am an unemployed single parent going back to school to upgrade my skills in a technical and creative industry that will allow me to work flexibly and remotely. I have too many co-morbidities (fibromyalgia, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, multiple chemical sensitivity) to ever even come close to a neurotypical 40 hour-a-week slave job to capitalism. I tried too many times and it always ends in illness. Both my BA/MA in the Humanities and Social Sciences have only gotten me in debt with absolutely no career due to my need to constantly change jobs from burnout and boredom. However, due to my perfectionist mindset and engrained need to be productive, I have picked up a Work Study gig to improve my chances of employment after I graduate.
Over the past two years I have spent most of my time sick, recovering from a moldy house and trauma, and now it’s the complicated combination of PTSD with autism that makes me sensory processing issues the most challenging part of my new life as a disabled person.
You would think at 8 am it would be safe to go outside my home; a little apartment in an old building that I am obsessively nervous has mold in it (due to this damp, humid, forever spring climate and that the tenants on the floor below have active black mold problems). For my home to be safe, I play high frequency and sound healing music to block out the loud trucks and motorcyles that zoom past my flat or keep fans on at all times; I am obsessive with saturating my place with essential oils to block out the chemical laundromat right below me and all the car fumes that accumulate on the busy road in front of my place; and that I constantly clean to keep away the dust and potential dust mites that bring me horrible allergies.
NOW, due to our society’s never-ending addiction to cars and entertainment distractions (this is a tourist town might I add), the city has decided to put in a roundabout for nearby ferry traffic. One step outside my place and I am accosted by construction exhaust, war tank-like noise and rumbling, and even more car traffic as the main road is blocked and my road is the detour.
I thought after leaving Delhi, India, one of the most polluted places in the world, I would be safe here in small town on the coast (undiagnosed at the time so I was not aware of my sensory issues…I clung to the idea of being “highly sensitive” and that I could still handle a normal lifestyles). Boy oh boy, was I wrong. India nearly killed me especially after going back three times in two years to attend to my deceased husband’s funeral and family obligations, which I have now let go of as I cannot support my daughter in that trauma of pollution, sensory overload, and sexism (my mother in law blamed me for his death because I left his addictive/aggressive traits).
Nowadays, even stepping outside in my “backyard” with the local YMCA and kid’s playground, the retired old folks have taken over with their new obsession of Pickle Ball. I am now bombarded by constant noise from these active elders with about 7p decibels of back and forth “clicking”/”bonking”/whatever the hell noise it makes. To give you some perspective, 30 decibels is the noise level of a soft whisper, while 80 decibels is the noise level of a vacuum cleaner.
So today as I was walking to my local Food Coop, I somehow forgot my headphones/music as I was in a hurry to get food before my daughter had to go to school. A HUGE MISTAKE as now I am panicky and frantic.
IT’S LIKE A BATTLE ZONE OUTSIDE MY HOME! Cars, trucks, pickleballs, dogs barking (there is also a dog park at the YMCA), construction, bad smell from the local Paper Mill (smells like farts and dirty diapers due to the chemical release of sulfur, and yes I complain to the city about this because it makes me nauseous every time I smell it), cigeratte smoke from the homeless people who hang out near the food coop and from the people who smoke at my apartment complex, airplanes from the nearby local airport…an onslaught of constant incoming adverse sensory experiences for me.
So after two hours of massage to unfreeze my traumatized muscles from almost 40 years of stress, anxiety, injuries, and a horrible food system, I am left feeling tense and achy and all the mind-body work has been negated.
THIS SOCIETY MAKES ME SICK. I am afraid to leave my home. You may think, just get in the car and all will be fine. NO! I hate driving now because I cannot deal with the loud sounds as they pass me by and my arthritis that doesn’t like to sit in a car and the challenges of oncoming traffic just on my left. Plus, the slow drivers in the this town make me insane. They are mean and rude too. The other day some guy flicked me off in rage because I was too close behind me as he was driving at a snail’s pace. He then followed me to my yoga studio and swore/cussed at me for a few minutes telling me to go back to California (I am not even from there, my license plates are WA).
What’s a traumatized, disabled Autist to do?
MOVE! But since I’ve spent all my savings to get me healthy, lost my job from the moldy house and burnout, I rely on affordable housing. I have sent my low income housing applications to move to a smaller town in Central, WA. I am always planning ahead. I will survive the frigid, damp cold winter, but the forever spring that comes shortly after makes me scared because that means more tourism traffic and allergies.
I have now developed Agoraphobia — thanks America!
P.S. I had a meltdown after a Costco run over the weekend due to all the people, chemical smells, and a whole hour of driving just to get there. NEVER AGAIN COSTCO. I am done with this sensory HELL. It gave me only two hours of sleep that night.
REFERNCES
https://doyourspin.com/pickleball/pickleball-noise-solutions/