RockDrummer616 wrote:
my family has been concerned about my hygiene lately, particularly my dislike of showering. They took me to see an occupational therapist today and we determined that most of the issues are due to hypersensitive skin. The therapist gave me a brush that I'm supposed to brush over the skin on my arms and legs, several times a day if I understood correctly, but I really don't like the feeling of the brush. It makes me feel really tingly in a bad way. I was just wondering if anyone else has had issues with hygiene, potentially due to hypersensitivity? Did they get solved? If they did, how were they solved and how long did it take?
Unlike the comments about smell, I will rather try to give you some solidarity. I take forever in the shower, mostly due to my rituals;
2-4 minutes to get wet(can't stand the initial feeling of water on my skin, so I need to acclimate)
1-2 minutes to shampoo my hair
2-3 minutes of rinsing my hair (I need to rinse it until I can feel the friction, or else I get a feeling there is soap left)
1-2 minutes of washing my face and ears
2-3 minutes of rinsing (same here, and everywhere on my body, if the friction is too low, then I need to rinse more)
1-2 minutes of washing my upper body
2-3 minutes of rinsing
1-2 minutes of washing my delicates with a mild soap
2-3 minutes of rinsing
2-3 minutes of washing my lower body
2-3 minutes of rinsing
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a shower takes me 18-30 minutes, and thats not included when I shave my privates or face, and ~once a week I clip my fingernails, all in the shower.
I understand its ok for people who use 4 minutes in a shower, to shower each day, but spending ~25 minutes every day, often as much as 45 minutes, is a waste of time. Oh, and I get so high pulse after a shower that I need to lay in bed 5 minutes after a shower to cool down and relax. So, 30-50 minutes a shower.
I try never to go more than 2 days without showering, so that means showering every 3rd day is my max limit, or so I try to atleast. On special occations I do shower of course. Before I go to the store / parties / social call / before I get visitors / etc.
Rituals and hypersensitivity make showers a timeconsuming ordeal. I read a book about how a wife tried to get her husband(an aspie) to shower quicker, he spent 60 minutes in the shower, she tried to learn him to do it in 4 minutes. "Thats how crazy people shower" or something like that, was his thoughts after the shower. Poor guy.
Edit: Another options would be to wash up instead of showering, I do this some of those days I don't shower. I wet a small towel and wash underneath my arms(thats where the smell usually comes from), then I dry and put on new deodorant. It takes me 3-4 minutes instead of 30-50 minutes.
Edit2: Lately I've started to finish off my shower with a 5 minute cold shower to acclimate back to air temperature. When I do this, I don't need the 5 minutes of relaxing on the bed after, but it takes the same amount of time.
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AQ: 42/50 || SQ: 32/80 || IQ(RPM): 138 || IRI-empathytest(PT/EC/FS/PD): 10(-7)/16(-3)/19(+3)/19(+10) || Alexithymia: 148/185 || Aspie-quiz: AS 133/200, NT 56/200
Last edited by Blownmind on 05 Jun 2012, 5:02 am, edited 2 times in total.