Lack of showering

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Having your place will probably have its own advantages. Living with many people means a lot of suffering to me. I wish you both well. I'm also living with my boyfriend in one of those apartments called panelák built during the communist era. They are really not meant for living only for surviving. But my boyfriend has only got a low level disability wage and I'm dependent on my parents so there's no other choice.

I don't wanna sound like a total complainer but I have issues with cold too. My bf calls me nabalená which mean well-packed I tried leaving the door open a little bit, at first it was better but after just a few minutes beagle came and opened the door to its widest and I was freezing.

Wow, that's cool your brother can do such a thing. Your dreads looked amazing in the photo you shared in the photo thread. It reminded me that I knew somebody whose dreads started to fall off. The idea was kinda dreadful Anyway I was never able to grow my hair long enough to get them also people around me are kinda hateful about it too

I'm from a country of built-in bidets so I need my baby wipes in the toilet to clean my bum in a European country It must be a hassle to wash your face with dreads. I never wear wake up either. Especially around my eyes I'm very sensitive and it makes my skin literally crumble and it's painful. I have a skin color of a ghost so sometimes if I look too scary or sick I will wear a lipstick and wipe it off few times until I have barely any color left and I feel comfortable with the texture. Luckily I don't get any pimples or acne since I'm 16. I had a skin condition before that age where I had a lot of acne from a very young age. I used some f*cked up medication for it as a teenager and since then I have a really dry and acne free skin.




I have this too...

I didn't have this exact problem, but I can relate to it. For a couple of weeks, I was fearful of going to bed, because I thought I might die in my sleep. I'd get heart palpitations, shortness of breath and my mind would race (more than it usually does).

In the end, it's an anxiety problem. Learning core mindfulness, deep breathing and distraction are non-pharmaceutical ways of dealing with anxiety. Or maybe even try taking a bath instead of a shower, and if you can tolerate that (it might be slightly less uncomfortable), slowly working your way to a full shower via systematic desensitization.

I think I saw that trait in an Aspie quiz or something. I don't remember exactly where, nor do I know how to explain it. The only example I can think of is that I don't always wash my hands after using the bathroom. If I just go #1, I don't feel the need to wash my hands afterwards because they don't feel dirty. However, if I go #2, then that's when I wash my hands because they actually feel dirty. Does that help explain it better?

^ In Rudy Simone's list of female asperger syndrome traits it's written: 'Will not spend much time on grooming and hair. Hairstyles usually have to be 'wash and wear'. Can be quite happy not grooming at all at times.' It's not exactly it but there's a small hint in it maybe.

I'm pretty sure there's anxiety included but I don't believe it's all that. I think it's more to do with sensory processing.
I'm very sorry that you needed to go through that kind of a thing yourself. I've had similar things/phobias myself. I still have a daily struggle of 'walking without stepping on the lines'. When I step on a line I feel like something dies inside me.

Becoming recently aware that I might have autistic traits, I'm still exploring sensory processing part of my symptoms; so it's still difficult for me to see it in others. I can't stand the sound of the emergency alert on my iPhone, its terrifying and ingratiating! I also get weirded out by certain sights; I looked at my alarm clock when it read 4:15 am and I was weirded out by how the digits appeared in conjunction with the color and size. I also covered my ears a lot when I was kid, as I couldn't stand loud noises.

But I read over the previous posts more carefully, and caught that you can take a bath (standing up) without much problem.

It's less "clean" than a shower I guess, but it's still better than no bathing at all. It's still enough to keep the stink away.

The pH and temperature of the water make a great difference to me . Temperature and texture of towels and clothes that I use right after are important too. Also I try showering my head/body/feet etc seperatly.This helps me keep a daily schedule AND I'm over with each shower-torture a lot sooner!

Fainting in the shower can be dangerous especially if you are on your own when it happens. Please take measures to fix that
(^ it wasn't necessary for me to type that was it?)

Yeah I think so , sounds like it might be the perception of what is dirty.

I have always been a bit of soap dodger and I'm not sure why ( possibly don't like the transistion from dry to wet and back again ). When I was in work I showered daily but this was for others benefit not mine. It's wierd but when I was younger I was able to do strenuous work all day and not suffer from body odour so maybe I never felt dirty. Nowadays , getting out of my chair causes me to sweat and gain body odour and I know I smell and am dirty but put off taking a shower for as long as possible, I think this might be due to depression as I still don't like the transistion of showering but can push past that if I really smell.



Ha Ha , the more I read , the more it sounds like I have predominately female asperger syndrome traits. Maybe I'm a female Aspie trapped in a males body and don't know it

^ I hate that transition. I need to immediately dry myself after a shower. Depression might affect this too as you said, so might ADD (Thinking of it as a boring thing when I have so much else to do).

Haha she also says that AS doesn't present itself differently in women but that it's perceived differently. It sounds like it doesn't much matter if you're a man or a woman you still have the same issues.

I'm sorry to hear that. It's very typical for us to have a twisted perception I guess.

Bathing just doesn't work at this moment. I need to either change my bathtub or move, neither seems possible as of now. I have a (strong) feeling like it makes me more dirty than clean.



How do you know the pH of the water? Is it something you can change?
I agree with the towels and clothing. I have a bamboo bathrobe, present from mom. Which is still really soft. But I feel like I need to wash my towels every time I use them... I also change my home clothes from shower to shower. So I wear the same things for over a week, all day long if I don't go out. After shower I change into something newly washed.

I think partially washing is like snoozing the alarm clock lol.

And don't worry the fainting only happened once like 2 years ago. I think I had a low blood pressure due to the steam.

I totally feel you, I hate feeling water on my skin as well. Showering, bathing, dripping water after the bath, watermeloen juices on my hand, they are just awful.

A water filter should me able to make the water's pH closer to neutral. ph-meter paper strips(which people use for their fish tanks too) might help you get the idea of where the current pH is around now and if water changes do make a difference for you.
I first noticed it after moving around. Towns closer to the sea have horrible water

The pH can be measured, either with purpose kits, or re-purposing a soil testing kit or meter.

Not so easily for a shower, short of relocating to somewhere with a different supply company, for a bath, adding a little white vinegar, lemon juice or citric acid will lower the pH, washing soda, bath salts, or soap will tend to raise it. You probably don't want to raise the pH (I'm guessing) as alkali tends to dissolve oils from the skin and dry it out, you mentioned earlier already having a problem with dry skin.

If your bath is enamel, there are companies who will refinish it for somewhat less cost than a replacement, options are more limited to restore the surface of plastic baths, though products sold to restore the gloss and buff out scratches on car paintwork may have a positive effect (cutting/rubbing compounds), these are relatively inexpensive from any car accessory shop and may be worth experimenting with.


I get this sometimes, tends to be when I run the bath or shower hot, the increased temperature causes the blood vessels under the skin to to expand, to shed heat, increasing the overall capacity of them, and thus lowering blood pressure. I have to move slowly getting up from a bath as both the change of position, and demand by muscles in the lower body reduce the blood pressure / supply to the brain, leading to faintness and dizziness.

It's funny that you mention ADD as I have a suspicion I might have that as well. I came to this site to find out about ASD and now think I may have ASD, OCD & ADD although I know that if I have OCD there is a chance that I'm just obsessing about ASD & ADD and may not have either.

Hopefully your right and it doesn't matter if your a man or a woman although it does seem that it's harder to get a diagnosis as an adult if your woman due to the differences.

About the pH and bathtub suggestions thanks people. I don't see knowing the pH of the water will help me with anything but the tap water here is really clean and drinkable if it's something that matters. I'm thinking about talking to our owner (well more like making my bf talk to him) about changing the bathtub. I hope he will accept it.



It makes sense but I can't stand to be under too hot water so I anyway always have it only warm. I had a thing with low blood pressure before, not sure if it still continues as I haven't been to a doctor in ages. Today while I was washing the dishes my body started to feel funny and I needed to stop and eat something salty. My hands and legs were strongly shaking and I couldn't see clearly. The problem is this only happens when I'm in contact with running water and/or steam.



I guess it's more like how the adult women express their autism. I can be very autistic at home for instance but hide it very well outside as long as it's for a limited time. Also our interests seem not to be so unusual, as for me my special interests (permanent ones) are drawing and languages and it's quite typical for a girl to be interested in art and cultural stuff.

Another deep sh*t is our exaggerated reactions might be misunderstood. I was told to be flirtatious because of my strong physical reactions when people talked about things I'm interested in (jumping, hand flapping or clapping). I had no idea. Or just a few days ago I was at work and they brought a new sound system and tried it out. It was so loud that I kept jumping in my place when they played with the volume and closed my ears and eyes slightly shaking. I was suffering and they told me I looked cute.

Sent you a pm about the other stuff.

Showers give me a creepy, unpleasant feeling like ants crawling over my body.
I've tried different showerheads, etc.
I usually just rub down with a flannel and have a bath every month or so.
I wash my hair by dunking my head in a bucket.
Fun times.

I wish there something I can do, so I can take a shower more. I did fall down in my tub.

I had worse pimples as a teen now they are certainly less frequent but still show up from time to time. As for dreads falling out they probably didn't take care of their roots too well...if those get too weak then the weight of them could certainly cause them to fall out. I will probably trim some of the length off mine if they start seeming too heavy.