Humidity is not my friend.

[azurelunatic]

It turns out that when you combine heat, humidity, and any amount of exertion, I start to pop off panic attacks like they were going out of style.

Have dinner in downtown Mountain View, and queue up for a gelateria? Panic attack due to claustrophobia.

Go to IKEA and try to go through the showroom backwards? Panic attack.

Try to communicate how to arrange two shopping carts so that I can go to the bathroom while Tif watches the carts, then allow me to fill my water bottle while watching the carts while Tif uses the bathroom? Panic attack.

By the third one, I realized that this is really not normal for me, and that my physical state during that amount of heat and humidity had to be contributing.

At some point over the last year or so, I wound up going to a work music thing and mentioned to Purple that I was somewhat claustrophobic, and the crowd might set me off. It didn't manage to fully do that, thanks in part to Purple being mildly obnoxious and distinctly funny, on purpose in order to distract me. I was appreciative.

Later, I ran into some article on computer modeling of crowds, and they weren't getting the crowd dynamics right until they started modeling motion changes on time until collision. At that point I decided to do an audit of my crowd-based claustrophobia if it was just that my collision alarms were blaring.

It turns out that there are two primary drivers for my panic at being in variously crowded public spaces. One is my collision warnings going off continuously. Another is the time-until-collapse alarm. See, my stamina hasn't been too great in the past, and I've been learning to compensate for that. So I always have a vague sense of how much standing time/walking time/walking distance I have left in me. In a crowded place, I also have a vague sense of how long it may take me to get out of the crowd and into some place of refuge/place to sit down safely. When these two timers start to get close (let alone compare unfavorably), I panic. Less common is if/when my brain and communication starts to delaminate. If I can't communicate clearly my need to get the fuck out and sit the fuck down, it's not safe either. Which distresses me more.

Humidity, it turns out, entirely fucks with both my actual stamina, and my calibrated sense of how much ability to keep upright I have left to me. The level of sweating that happens in extreme humidity turns out to closely resemble the amount of sweating that happens when I have burned through all but the very last reserves of my energy. This doesn't make me feel super secure. Annnnnd ... panic time!

One that used to get me a lot was feeling dehydrated. Yay water bottles.

Now that I know this, I can maybe cope a little better. Ugh.

Comments

[kaberett]

Well done on working it out, and good luck.

[azurelunatic]

Thank you. We shall see whether knowing these things helps any.

[nanila]

Wahey for parsing out contributing factors and (hopefully!) finding a way to mitigate them.

[azurelunatic]

Just knowing that I need to be careful is probably going to help a lot. I already have an alarm set to warn me if it goes over 60% humidity at home, because I know it makes me miserable.

[ghoti]

wondering if this is something I should keep an eye on for myself...

[azurelunatic]

Possibly! Probably wouldn't hurt to keep an eye out if only to rule it out.

[sithjawa]

I identify with this entry. Except for me, the trigger is usually air quality instead of heat/humidity. So sometimes walking past the candle aisle/perfume counter, or people who are smoking, or oh look it's a smoggy day, will make me go "doooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooom~"

Additional mental stuff-to-parse will also make me go doooooom. At Westercon, Will at one point decided to take a shortcut through con suite without adequately warning me what was going on. Con suite was not crowded. There were like 10 people in an average size hotel room, which is "cluttered" but not really "crowded." But because I was *also* trying to figure out why we were in con suite and what I was supposed to be doing, it was enough sensory fuckery that I spent the next ten minutes responding to all communication with "huh?", "what?", or "oh," while Will apologized repeatedly and worriedly.

I have to plan things ahead when there will be crowds, like here's where I will be going and what I will be doing and have already looked at a map of the place.

[azurelunatic]

Woe crowd!

[sithjawa]

Also I think it was you who suggested the having a large cart thing as a collision warning protection measure. (For me, it does not work because I do the body-sense thing that one also sometimes does with cars, so it is like "suddenly I have to maneuver and I am become very large and unwieldy." I tend to instead small basket and rudely dodging around people. Sometimes I think about how rude I am and am embarrassed, but if I try to do the spatial avoid collisions awareness and the everyone is people and social awareness at the same time, it is a meltdown, woe! So usually I am just rude)

[azurelunatic]

Eh, not-colliding is much more polite than collisions.

[umadoshi]

Hooray for figuring it out, and I hope it does help a lot!

[azurelunatic]

We shall see! Also it cooled down today.

[jesse_the_k]

Outstanding! You have not only figured out a crucial interaction for yourself, but named exactly what my triggers were. O I C!

(I'm fortunate that I use a wheelchair. It answers the "where's the next seat" and "how long till my energy wears out" questions as well as providing a handy spot for the water bottle and emergency food. On the downside, my invisibility in crowds increases the collision incidence.)