SKIN-CEPTION
Terrorised by Toxic Mold: “I Started Hallucinating Home Invasions!”
--
Living with toxic mold, quite literally, drove me crazy. Now, I’m terrified of mold.
Avoiding my reflection in the mirror, I groaned as the red splotches on my face began to weep. As a child, I suffered with eczema on my hands, in the crooks of my elbows, and on the backs of my knees. My mum used to bathe me in a milky solution of Oilatum and lukewarm water, before slathering me, under protest, in the foulest smelling beeswax balm that still gives me flashbacks. My skin had cleared up once before, so I was confident that I could wait it out. But that mindset didn’t last long.
By December 2021, I had become fed up with the condition of my skin. Eager to unearth the root cause of my skin issues, I booked an appointment with my GP. “It looks like severe allergies,” she said, prescribing me with antihistamines and topical creams. For a while, though the sores on my skin refused to heal, the pain lessened. Then, in early 2022, after submitting an appeal to the council, I came down with the abhorrent COVID-19. Great. Being bedbound for two weeks in a poorly ventilated house riddled with mold spores and crawling with COVID pathogens was the last thing I needed, especially with university deadlines looming! Understandably stressed, my skin flared up with a vengeance; my skin looked, and felt, irritated. In fact, it was more severe than it had been before — the red lesions spread onto my face, and they eventually enclosed my eyes. I was glad that I was isolated from everyone. All I needed was for someone to lock me away and throw away the key.
“The condition of my skin left me looking, and feeling, like a clown. Down in the dumps, inflamed sores left me extremely self-conscious. I couldn’t even use make-up — my skin wouldn’t have been able to take it.”
The only ventilation I had was a dodgy single-paned window that jammed every time I tried to lift it; I lived in that house for a year, and I never once got it open all the way. I lay on the bed, unable to lift my head, until a man in a balaclava clambered through the crack and made his way into my bedroom. I felt my body betray me as my limbs froze with fear. It took me a few moments to blink away my hot tears and come to the realisation that my mind was deceiving me. Nobody, and I mean nobody, could fit through that window. I had just hallucinated a home invasion! Believe me when I say…I was on the phone to my GP’s receptionists within minutes. This visual hallucination had me thinking that I was crazy. Thankfully, the alarm bells rang in the wonderful mind of my second GP; it took her a matter of seconds to put two and two together. Mold plus hallucination equals…mold-induced psychosis? Toxic agoraphobia? Toxic mold syndrome? Well, whichever it was, I felt a weight fall off my shoulders and shatter into pieces on the ground. The news practically reduced me to tears.
After the diagnoses, I was given Prednisolone, an oral steroid that had to be taken alongside Omeprazole — used to treat gastroesophageal reflux disease (GORD) — to prevent the lining of my stomach from becoming irritated. I was so thankful for the treatment, but I didn’t take to it well. I gained a substantial amount of weight, I became severely depressed, and weirdest of all…the smell of my sweat changed. And it was the most disturbing of smells. Not long later, I was put on a course of Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which worked like a dream after the dosage was increased.
Two months on, back living in my family home, I find myself panicking over the smallest bit of mold. Just yesterday, I found myself scrubbing the bathroom ceiling with bleach because I found some mildew above the shower. Beads of sweat, that I won’t insult you by describing as ‘iridescent’, trickled down the sides of my face and dripped from the tip of my nose onto the bathroom floor. I had scrubbed away at a single spec of mold on my ceiling until the tips of my fingers bled. As I’m keying away at this excerpt, my fingers are still raw from the bleach. But that’s my fault, so I want no sympathy — although, I wouldn’t say no to a smidge of appreciation for being ever so dedicated to my lovely readers.
Now that my mold-induced anxiety attack, on the hottest day of the year, has passed, I feel well enough to talk about it. In the moment, fear surged through my body. The thought of mold spores filling my lungs and setting on my skin was enough to push me over the edge. Come to think of it, that’s reminiscent of contamination OCD, an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) subtype, isn’t it? I stripped down to my underwear and got to work. I would’ve cleaned in the nuddy if it weren’t for the thought of a ridiculous amount of thick unscented bleach unbalancing my pH. Don’t ask.
I’m out of my shitty Landlord’s grip, free from that cursed house and near-enough emancipated from that nauseatingly mold rich (not just black mold) environment, and I’m getting stronger. I’m strong enough to tell my story, but not quite strong enough to give tongue to my landlord for being the bloodsucking leech that he is! Did I just say that? No names, so it doesn’t count. Right? I promise, I’m in a much better place both physically and mentally. And, although detoxing your body from mold can be a long and arduous process, I am ready to fight back.
