Showing posts with label phobia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label phobia. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2018

Voted

The polling place was in my building, so no doggies.


The physical environment was distressing because of halloween decorations that trigger my panic attacks. I find myself wondering if that's allowed. But the decorations were put up by fellow residents (as opposed to by property management) and I has already politely asked property management to remove the ones that distress me (when I thought property management had put them up), so I don't want to pursue this too aggressively when the resident committee who put them up now know where I live and know my greatest weakness.

This year, I got one flyer from each incumbent councillor candidate, and one from one of the challenger trustee candidates.  I got multiple emails from the incumbent candidate of my old ward because I was subscribed to his newsletter in my capacity as a constituent. Weirdly, I also got one email from the other incumbent candidate, even though I don't think I've ever emailed him.

I saw signs for the incumbent councillor candidates, the incumbent school board trustee candidate and both frontrunner mayoral candidates.

Despite the fact that my head injury still hinders my reading, I feel like I was able to make an informed decision. I do have some ideas about how the media could have helped me do that better, which will be the subject of future blog posts.

Friday, July 01, 2016

Things They Should Invent: vacuum bags with insecticide inside

This post contains non-graphic descriptions of killing household pests from a phobic point of view.

My severe phobia of bugs means that it is necessary for any bugs in my home to be eliminated, but renders me too squeamish to touch them directly or indirectly.  So my standard approach is to spray the bug with Raid or something similar to kill it, then to vacuum up the corpse.  However, sometimes circumstances make it impossible to spray it with Raid first (if it's on the ceiling, if it's flying around, if I'm startled and the vacuum is closer than the Raid), so I end up vacuuming a live bug.

The internet tells me that the trauma of being vacuumed will kill a bug, and the internet tells me that the trauma of being vacuumed won't kill a bug.  So, as a precautionary measure, if I vacuum a live bug, I spray Raid down the vacuum after it, then block the opening to the vacuum for 24 hours. I've been doing this for 13 years, and have yet to see any evidence that the bugs survive the process.

But it occurred to me in the shower that the makers of vacuum bags could help people like me by selling vacuum bags with insecticide on the inside.  If a bug gets vacuumed up, it is automatically poisoned to death.

In addition to helping people who vacuum up bugs as part of their home pest control approach, this would also help regular people by killing things like bedbugs, fleas, dust mites etc. It would make sure that they get killed in the natural course of housework, resulting in a healthier living environment for everyone.  They could also add antibacterials and germicide to help kill everything before it escapes the vacuum bag.

Some might object to the introduction of additional poisonous chemicals into the household.  However, putting the insecticides inside the vacuum bag would reduce the need to spray them around the home, so they're less likely to end up in the air you breathe or in your food.  On top of that, they can totally continue to sell non-insecticide vacuum bags for people who aren't interested in using their vacuum as a bug-killing machine.

We already have the precedent of introducing not-strictly-necessary chemicals into household cleaning products for psychological purposes.  For example, anti-bacterial toilet cleaners are a thing that exists, even though everyone is going to treat even a freshly-cleaned toilet as a contaminated surface anyway.  So why not give us the option of treated vacuum bags, and address the psychological needs of people with one of the most common phobias?  I'd even gladly pay extra for it!

Saturday, July 05, 2014

How to illustrate articles about dying bees

Lately, there have been quite a few articles in the media saying that bees are dying out because of pesticide use, with the general thesis that this is a bad thing.

Problem: some articles are illustrated with giant zoomed-in pictures of bees, far larger than life, where you can see all the yucky details like hairs and antennae.

And, given my phobias, my immediate visceral reaction is "AAAAH!!!! KILL IT KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!"

Which isn't quite the reaction the article is going for!

I do understand how ecosystems work so I know on an intellectual level why bees dying is a bad thing.  But the visceral phobia-based reaction is faster and louder, so the "KILL IT KILL IT!!!!!!" comes to mind before I even notice what the article is about.  And then, if I can bear to look at the headline, it's telling me about how this thing is being killed.

I know my reaction is not within the range of normal, but the fact remains that, in the culture of these articles' target audience, bugs are culturally considered yucky.  If I see a bug and I say "Eww, gross!" more people would think that's a "normal" reaction than if I see a bug and I say "Aww, isn't it cute!"  Bigger bugs are considered yuckier, and the details like legs and hairs and antennae are seen as grotesque. Fear of bugs is one of the most common specific phobias, many people are afraid of bees because they sting, and it's culturally considered normal and a valid choice to kill bugs because they're yucky (c.f. the existence of flyswatters and Raid).

In short, even among non-phobic readers, these enormous, grotesque pictures of the bees are far more likely to inspire revulsion than sympathy, which is contrary to the intention of the article.

A far better strategy would be to illustrate these articles with pictures of honey looking delicious and flowers looking beautiful - which is, in fact, the end result that you want people thinking about. If it is in fact necessary to portray bees, they should under no circumstances be zoomed in on so they appear larger than life! Features like legs and hair and antennae should be de-emphasized, and the image positions and camera angles should be such that people don't even for a second think there's an actual bee on their paper or screen. In appropriate contexts, perhaps cartoons of anthropomorphic bees could be used - more of a friendly food brand mascot and less of a creature that escaped from the gates of hell.

Zoomed-in pictures of bees are not going to change anyone's opinion from "meh" to "Save the bees!" People who think bees are fascinating up close already want to save the bees, people who are indifferent will react with indifference, and people who are grossed out will, even if only briefly, react with "Kill it!"  But pictures of honey and flowers might turn a "meh" into "Wait, I like honey and flowers, this is important!"  And, in any case, they're far less likely to inspire "Kill it!"

Sunday, July 03, 2011

Analogy for everything

This comes from an article on why dogs bite, but it applies to everything in the world:

Bites are usually caused by an accumulation of stressors. Each time a dog is exposed to a stressor, stress hormones are dumped into the brain. These stress hormones are like the puzzle pieces in Tetris. They build up over time. You have to actively reduce the stress (like a Tetris player clearing lines) through management, desensitization, counter conditioning, and general stress reduction techniques. If you are not taking steps to reduce the stress, it begins to accumulate. The dumping of stress hormones into the brain leaves the dog increasingly sensitized to stressors, which replicates the puzzle pieces dropping faster and faster until you eventually reach the threshold. Soon, the dog bites. The game is over.

Stressors vary in individual dogs. One dog may be stressed by loud noises, nail trimming, men with beards, wearing a shock collar, foul weather, and a bad diet. Another dog may not seemingly respond to these factors but is sensitive to visits to the vet’s office, small children, cats, people that smell like beer, dogs walking past the fenced in yard, and people approaching or entering the home. Every dog has stressors (commonly called “triggers”) and a big part of effective behavioral modification strategies is identifying these as accurately and thoroughly as possible, which allows behavior consultants and handlers to focus their efforts most efficiently. Stressors, like Tetris pieces, accumulate over time.


This explains introvert brain. The more time you have to spend in the company of other people without a moment of privacy, the more stressors (Tetris pieces) accumulate until you melt down.

This explains how phobias work. The more you're exposed to triggers (or the threat thereof) without having time to reset, the jumpier and edgier you get, and the more susceptible you get to future triggers. (Among other problems, this is why desensitization therapy is problematic when you're likely to have uncontrollable exposure to your triggers in everyday life.)

This explains why, when I was a kid, I often had trouble just being nice and putting up with stuff that grownups thought I should be able to just be nice and put up with. After being bullied all day in school, and having my sister get all up in my business when I got home, and being subject to whatever lectures and judgement external factors had made my grownups feel like delivering regardless of whether I needed to hear them, and having no control whatsoever over when I arrived and left and went to bed and woke up and ate (or even what I ate), I had very little room left to just fake being nice so we can all get along. It's not that I've matured, it's that I can now go home or eat potato chips whenever I damn well please, which clears a lot of Tetris lines.

It's the most multi-purpose analogy I've ever met. I think if you're lacking an analogy for anything, this one just might do the trick.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Kudos to Sesame Street!

Kudos to Sesame Street for a completely non-triggering depiction of a spider! The video is here (not embedding in case there are people who trigger more easily than I do), showing Jim Parsons teaching the audience the meaning of the word "arachnid" with the assistance of a blue muppet spider.

I don't know if this is by design or just a happy coincidence, but nearly everything that triggers visceral fear has been eliminated. It doesn't descend from the ceiling, it walks on from the side. And it doesn't walk on with its eight legs (thus creating that terrifying motion), it enters nondescriptly on invisible legs as most muppets do, with the exact same movement you'd find on Grover or Kermit. It has two eyes and a toothless mouth arranged on as human a face as you'll ever find on a muppet. It's blue. If it weren't for the eight (motionless) legs on its back, it could be a ladybug. Or a hunchbacked anything muppet. I had a brief demi-second of squick when Jim Parsons touched it (because EWW! He TOUCHED IT!). But then the blue guy said "You kind of freak me out" and that made me laugh and the squick was gone. It was far better executed than I'd have thought anything involving an arachnid could possibly be.

There is a parenting theory wherein, to prevent children from developing a fear of creepy crawlies, you talk to them about how good and interesting they are and try not to show any fear yourself. During the brief time between when my parents started doing this and when I had my first phobia incident (story is #3 here), it seemed kind of phony and artificial, as though they knew something and weren't telling me. But Sesame Street actually achieves this, by doing something that's completely natural within the Sesame Street universe and portrays the spider as harmless and friendly (and this despite the fact that Jim's first reaction is to scream), without using any imagery or elements that would trigger a congenital phobia like mine.

As an easily-triggered arachnophobic, I appreciate how incredibly difficult a balance this is and I wouldn't have thought it possible to do well, so kudos to Sesame Street for pulling it off!

(Props to @BroadwayProfe for knowing me well enough to know I'd appreciate this despite the subject matter, and for presenting it carefully enough that I could make an informed decision to watch and take precautions to avoid triggering.)

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Bullying has a half-life

Something bad happened recently. A joke misfired and caused me to have a panic attack, in a very inconvenient time and place, in front of people, without access to my usual coping mechanisms. It was probably in the top five most humiliating experiences of my adult life. The person who did it immediately apologized, but the damage was done. I was a sweaty, shaky mess, everyone was looking at me, and I was generally jumpy for the next 48 hours.

But here's the cool part: I could tell that the person who did it didn't mean it. It was completely obvious. I could tell that objectively speaking the intended joke was well within the range of what I can normally dish out and take, and they'd just misestimated the impact of my phobias. So there were no hard feelings and the next time I saw them (after I'd regained my equilibrium) we were back to normal.

This is significant because my bullies would often trigger panic attacks, and then in front of the grownups would go through the motions of apologizing and/or saying "What? It was only a joke!" One of the long-term effects of having been bullied is that I'm distrustful and defensive. I tend to assume people's intentions are malicious because for so long even the most innocent of questions that in the real world are perfectly valid ways of making conversation had malicious intent behind them. But that didn't happen this time. It simply wasn't there.

Often when people tell stories like this, their thesis is "Look at me, I've chosen to forgive and move on, I'm so fucking zen and transcendent!" That's not what I'm saying here at all. The reason this is significant is I didn't choose this reaction. There was no "Well, you have to look at it from the other person's point of view," there was no "I want to be a better person than that." It just happened. I was still shaking and holding back tears and jumpy enough to snap at anyone who talked to me, but could I see that it was intended as a joke, the joke was objectively innocent, and the apology was sincere. That was my first and only interpretation of the situation, and the precedent set by my bullies didn't come into play at all.

The bullies weren't inside me. Even in a moment of weakness, they were completely irrelevant.

It never occurred to me that this could ever happen. It has never happened before. But this probably means it can happen again. I doubt they'll ever be completely gone, but maybe one day I'll be able to go days and weeks and months without ever feeling the bullies.

If this is what it means to get older, bring it on!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Things They Should Invent: construction materials that make bugs infertile

I'd love to make all the bugs in the world die, but that would probably throw off the ecosystem a bit, so I'll settle for just not having them come into my home.

I've previously come up with the idea of making everything (walls, floors, ceilings, doors, windows) poisonous to bugs, but the problem is then they'd also probably be poisonous to humans and puppies.

So here's the next best thing: add something to all construction materials that makes bugs infertile on contact. They don't die, but they can't reproduce. So eventually darwinism kicks in and all the bugs that would dare enter human space have died out?

Q: But wouldn't it make humans infertile? A: I can't say for certain, but I think bugs reproduce vastly differently than we do, so it's quite conceivable that there's something out there that would make bugs infertile without affecting human fertility.

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

New economic indicator: are the bugs going to get me?

When I was writing about how I'm terrified by the loud people who don't want the garbage men earning a decent living, the best way I was able to articulate my fear in a single sentence is that I don't want to go back to having things crawling out of my walls. That's basically it. The single greatest improvement in my quality of life - the #1 example of money buying happiness - has been housing that is free of panic attack triggers. Even if I lost everything, it would still be exponentially more pleasant to be sitting hungry in old sweat-stained clothes with nothing but library books for entertainment in a bug-free space than to have all the food, wine, clothes, make-up, computers, TV, and internet I want in a space where something might crawl out of the wall at any time. Many people see wanting bug-free space as overly fussy, but now that I have this comfort, losing it would break me.

It occurs to me that everyone might have some #1 dealbreaker issue like this, some über-alles comfort or quality of life factor either that money has bought them and they don't want to lose, or that money could buy and they can't yet afford. It varies from person to person, and it might even change depending on your place in life. (For example, when I was a kid it was having my own room. If we'd had to downgrade to the extent where we had to share a room, it would have broken me.)

A truly informative economic indicator would be go get everyone to identify what their #1 thing is, then determine how much of the population has their #1 thing. How many people have gained it in the last quarter, and how many have lost it?

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Labour relations

First two questions, then some worrying, and probably some other random stuff along the way because I'm not particularly organized today.

Question 1:

Price was uppermost in the mind of a woman who identified herself only as a bar owner on Ossington Ave.

"If I opened a bar in the United States, a bottle of vodka would cost me five bucks and I'd sell a cocktail for $4.25," she said hotly.

"Here a bottle of vodka costs $35.26 and I still have to sell a cocktail for $4.25, and I have to pay a 10 per cent liquor tax and GST, and I have to go through all these hoops for licensing."


Can any USians confirm that a bottle of vodka costs $5? I assume we're talking approximately 750 mL, which Google tells me is about 25 oz. I'm thinking if that was actually true, it would be far more common knowledge and it would be WAY more common to bring back your absolute maximum quota of booze every single time you cross the border. I've heard that it's cheaper in the states and people do bring back booze sometimes, but not to the extent that that price difference would result in. I blogged previously that media outlets should fact-check reader mail before printing it - maybe they should also fact-check statements like this in quotes that they run. It isn't right that a person should be able to get a statement like that printed as though it's fact, and decline to use their name in the process.

Also, I've noticed multiple times in the comments threads people pointing out that there are all kinds of great wineries in Niagara, and we Torontonians are probably just too snobby to come down and enjoy them. WTF? It's nothing against Niagara wine at all - I drink it all the time. It's just most people, most of the time, want buying wine to be a straightforward errand, not a day trip that you have to travel two hours each way for. Would you want to have to come up to TO every time you want alcohol?

Anyway, my question is: is it true that you can get a bottle of vodka for $5 in the US?

Question 2:

WTF is up with all the media reports of illegal dumping? This is the second day of the garbage strike. There is no scheduled garbage collection on Mondays. If they hadn't announced the garbage strike, people would be only just starting to notice that garbage has been collected. But on the front page of this morning's G&M, there's a picture of a pile of garbage bags described as an impromptu illegal dump. That picture must have been taken yesterday. If garbage collection had been going normally, that garbage wouldn't even have been collected until at least today. Someone here is overreacting - either people are going "OMG! Garbage strike! I must immediately illegally dump my garbage!" without even waiting to see if it resolves within the first couple of days, or the media is vastly overreporting/over-sensationalizing alleged illegal dumping.

***

Meanwhile, I'm terrified. Not by the strikes (although the prospect of a prolonged garbage strike with no alcohol available is kind of scary for someone with my phobias), but by the attitude of the public. There are so many loud people who seem so vehemently opposed to anyone making a decent living. They seem to genuinely and truly want all these people - LCBO workers, daycare workers, even garbage collectors - to be among the working poor, floating through contract hell. They seem to actively think that it's outright wrong for these workers to be making a decent working-class living, something where you can rent a small house in a safe neighbourhood, go to the dentist whenever necessary, buy your kid some skates for xmas and take them to Canada's Wonderland in the summer. This terrifies me, because if they want these people to be poor, they also want me to be poor. I'm far less important and have a far easier job than a garbage man! They just haven't noticed me yet because my job is to be invisible. (Yeah, I know, all this blogging doesn't help.)

When I was in university, I was earning under the LICO and living within that amount. I had scholarships, most of tuition was taken care of, but, like most students, I was really scrimping everywhere possible for living expenses. There were things crawling out of my walls and causing me panic attacks. For a couple of years I used now-defunct free dial-up internet services, living with constant uncertainty as to whether I'd be able to get online. I rationed my cheese intake, because cheese is expensive. If I'd ever had a dental emergency, I wouldn't have been able to afford to get it dealt with but for the fact that I was still on my parents' insurance.

I was happy then because I was living on my own for the first time, but I don't want to live like that again. I want the security of knowing nothing is going to crawl out of my wall. I want to turn on my computer and have the internet be there. Hell, I want to have a computer - like if mine dies, I want to be able to replace it! I want to be able to eat cheese whenever I feel like eating cheese. I want to be able to get regular dental care. I want air conditioning. I want to make birth control decisions without cost being a factor. I want to wear women's shoes and make-up and bras in my correct size. And, yes, I want all that for city and LCBO workers too.

I know many people in the world don't get to live at that level, but here in Toronto in the 21st century, it isn't really so much to ask. I'm not asking for diamond-encrusted platinum, I'm not even asking for a car, I just want to be able to continue to make a living that allows me these small comforts. But these loud angry people who begrudge the garbage men a paycheque that allows them to buy their kids skates will, as soon as they notice I exist, want to send me back to having things crawling out of my walls. I don't feel safe.

I'd like to see a study of the people who begrudge others a safe, steady living for a solid day's work. What do they do for a living? What's their financial situation and career history like? What are some examples of what they think are appropriately-compensated jobs?

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Things They Should Invent: poisonous window screens

Window screens are meant to keep bugs out, which is a good thing. But sometimes bugs just walk around on the screen, which is yucky and a bit scary because it seems like they might at any time figure out how to make their way through the holes in the screen.

Solution: make window screens poisonous to bugs. They touch them, they die. That will keep them out!

(Of course, non-poisonous ones would still need to be available for households where small children or pets might decide to lick a screen.)

Saturday, May 02, 2009

I seem to have awoken into a nightmare

My windows are covered in mosquitoes. There are probably two or three mosquitos per square foot over the entire window area. Fortunately they aren't big or grotesque enough to trigger panic attacks (and I can't see them at all if I take my glasses off), but I'm highly susceptible to mosquito bites so basically I can't go outside right now.

Does this mean the whole summer is going to be like this, or is today a one-day fluke? I don't own any insect repellent because I never go out into the woods or anything. Am I going to need to find a source for that (possibly illegal?) 98% DEET stuff we had when I was a kid just so I can walk around the city without being eaten alive?

(I know the 98% DEET sounds like overkill, but it was a lifesaver. Mosquitoes would come within an inch of my arm and then veer away, like like-poled magnets repelling each other. Considering that I'd usually come back from a day in the woods covered in so many bites I couldn't shave my legs, this was a godsend.)

Thursday, October 23, 2008

It's more afraid of you than you are of it

They always used to tell me this when I was a kid. But they aren't more afraid of me than I am of them. Because they come into my house! I wouldn't go into their house!

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Phobia round-up

1. Scientists have found a correlation between political ideology and physiological response to perceived threats, which is interesting. But I wonder if they controlled the test for phobia? Two of those images mentioned would have given me panic attacks, and it is one of the more common phobias, but I think it's unrelated to what they were trying to test for.

2. There are people who think I should be indifferent to the presence of a phobia trigger in my home. Even though I have been given a professional opinion that as long as I can get rid of them somehow desensitization isn't necessary, a number of different people have told me that I should be just ignoring their presence, letting them wander around and do as they please. But the thing is, whether they make you panic or not, they are still an unwanted outside animal. If you walk into your bathroom and find a dog or a lizard or a bird or chipmunk or a worm or small pony, it's a problem, or at the very least a situation that needs to be addressed. You wouldn't just ignore it. Even if you like the animal - if I found a dog in my bathroom I'd totally keep it! - you'd do something as opposed to just ignoring it. Even if you personally think they aren't a problem because they're small or whatever, you should still at least be able to imagine why someone else might not ignore an unwanted outside animal.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

I don't need my newspapers covered in bees, thank you very much

Everyone should read this article. It is good and important and informative and it is very important for everyone to know the facts contained in it if they don't already.

Unfortunately, I couldn't read it in the print version because the Star chose to illustrate it with pictures of bees to illustrate the bee sting metaphor. For some reason bees don't bother me as much as crawly things, but these were really zoomed-in pictures of bees, where you could see all their grotesque insecty characteristics, the hairs on their legs and everything.

Insects are one of the most common phobias, and even the vast majority of non-phobic people would rather not see a bug than see a bug. The bees may be attention-getting for someone skimming the newspaper, but they do nothing to make people want to stay on the page and read the article, and will even drive some people away from the article.

I sought out the article on the website (at the risk of seeing more grotesque pictures there - but luckily there aren't any) because I agree with the thesis as gleaned from the headline and wanted to see what else they have to say. But people who don't agree with the thesis aren't going to seek out the article online, and if the grotesque bee pictures drive them away they're not going to learn these important facts.

Dear Toronto Star: please be more mindful in the future.

Friday, May 30, 2008

Open Letter to Riddex Plus

Dear Riddex Plus:

I am more freaked out by household pests than anyone else I've ever met. And yet, I still think your TV commercial is a bit too sensationalist and fear-mongering. Tone it down a bit maybe.

Sincerely,

The person who should be your most likely customer in the world

(Commercial can be seen here. Contains life-like drawings of mice and bugs.)

Sunday, July 08, 2007

Open letter to the hideous grasshopper inexplicably standing on my window

Dear Hideous Grasshopper:

You appear to have gotten lost on your way to a biblical plague. Perhaps I can point you in the right direction? You can get to the Holy Land by going in a straight line directly AWAY from my window. Coincidentally, you will also be able to find some, oh, I don't know, GRASS by going directly away from my window. I assure you, this balcony is made entirely of glass and concrete, and there's nothing of interest to you here. You'd really be much happier if you headed directly away from my window and never came back.

Sincerely,

The freaked-out human on the other side of the glass

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Conan O'Brien is messing with my mind!

Conan O'Brien's guests today: America Ferrera from Ugly Betty, Eddie Izzard, and an entomologist.

For those of you keeping score at home, that's my two latest obsessions, and my greatest phobia!

I hope Conan keeps his guests nicely separated and presents them in the order announced!

(Although if anyone out there is watching and is able to handle watching the entomology segment, let me know if Eddie Izzard ends up covered in bees.)

(Speaking of, I'm surprised the internet as a whole hasn't noted the fact that the end of the opening titles for The Riches is covered in bees.)