Sensations that make my skin crawl...

I've just spent the last half hour in sensory hell. I took a shower. Usually I'm able to tolerate it, but I got in the shower and the water pressure was strong, it felt like little fire ants stinging me every where the droplets hit. And of course I shed like crazy, so my hair was coming out and getting stuck all over my body. I felt entrapped by my own hair! I started getting on that point of crying, and wiped my eyes (stupidly) and got shampoo in my eyes. I quickly rinsed off and got out, and toweled off, but the wet/dry towel sensation was just short of excruciating on my skin. So here I sit, cold, wet, and semi-clothed. I just want to enjoy showers like most people.

Does this sound stupid to you? That's a journal quote from last week. I would have let it go, except for the fact that when I went to Walmart someone touched me. Worse than touched me. Someone with a (likely) mentally disabled child went running after said child as their kid headed out the automatic doors as I was entering. She pushed me aside into an end cap, which was horribly assaulting to my senses on many different levels. First, because a person touched me, second because a person I didn't know touched me, third because a person I didn't know touched me HARD, and fourthly because a person I didn't know touched me HARD unexpectedly and without asking. The logical part of my brain doesn't expect her to ask permission to move me out of the way to get to her child running into a busy parking lot, but I wanted to scream and punch the woman I was so angry. How DARE she touch me? How DARE she not ask? How DARE I feel this animosity towards a woman just trying to protect her child?

I remember simply being brushed past in a doorway in elementary school and slapping the offending child who did nothing more than touch shoulders with me. But it was unwelcome, unwanted, and I wouldn't tolerate it. I made him feel the way he made me feel, yet only I got in trouble. He could have brushed past me or punched me, and it would have felt the same to me. 

I distinctly remember having all the tags cut out of my clothing, and having to rub shirts on my face or chew on them to make them softer as a young child. I didn't like to be picked up unexpectedly, and god forbid if you tickled me...

I feel so weird needing a service dog to help me with these sensations, but back to the first scenario, the shower, as soon as I got out and was half dry and shivering Maddox jumped up and came over to lick me and eventually settled next to me with half his body draped over my lap. What a beautiful boy. I really do love him...