Allergy Queen of the World

Ernst, Rodolphe - The Perfume Maker

I havent posted in quite a while.

I have been busy with work, moving to a new place and trying to get my life together.

At the moment, it is spring time, therefore it is the time for major allergies for me. I am like the woman in the bubble who cannot be around anyone.

I am really allergic to a number of trees, bushes and grasses. Severely allergic that if I came into close contact with them, I would surely lapse into anaphylactic shock. Just being around the pollen is enough to create such allergic reactions in me.

From the red itchy eyes where no white is visible, to the itchy and blotchy face, to the blocked and itchy nose, to the headache and pain, to the inability to breathe, to the dry cough so bad that I almost start to convulse because I cannot cope with coughing so much.

I dont have asthma. I have severe allergies.

Now if that wasnt enough, but of course it's not. I have multiple-chemical allergies too.

Just being around any type of chemicals (cleaning or others with strong smells), perfumes, deodorants, body sprays, makeup, shampoo, conditioner, body or hand lotion - anything that has any type of chemicals / perfumes in them - I react in exactly the same way as if I am exposed to an allergen, but worse. My lungs cant cope with these strong smells and again I start coughing so badly to the point of convulsing and it hurts so much to breathe.

I cannot even be around anyone with a strongly smelling anything. Even if I cant smell it, if they have used anything I react.

Most of the time I dont like being around people because they dont seem to understand that I react this way. And they get offended thinking I am telling them that they smell bad or something. No! My immune system is hyperactive and is not functioning properly.

And to top it all off, no medication seems to work for me very well or at all. Even if the medicine does provide a little bit of relief, it also brings with it a number of side effects that require further medication, again which brings yet more side effects and the circle of never-ending inability to get better continues.

The only thing that helps even a little is some herbal medicine I have, together with vitamins and minerals for the immune system.

This year, my hay fever and other allergies seem to be the worst in a very long time and I have almost two months of it to go. And very little understanding or compassion from anyone, because they cant seem to understand that I am so badly affected and think I am making it up! Great! Like I would make up coughing so much that I convulse to the point it hurts my lungs and I cant breathe. Like I would make up my nose and face getting itchy.

I have been tested and the tests have confirmed my allergens exist - some worse than others.

I am so sick of being sick like this.

I am on high alert, so stressed every single day

With a family like mine, I certainly don't need any enemies - my family is enemy enough for me - they treat me worse than they would treat their worst nemesis.

Because they are so abusive and volatile every day, it just stresses me out endlessly.

Having the idiot brother who puts on his perfumed products and walks into the kitchen if he thinks I will be there, knowing that it will make me ill (yes I am that sensitive, unfortunately) or coming straight into the kitchen if when he's coming back inside from having a cigarette, sees me in the kitchen, just to imbue the air with his stinky cigarette smoke, which also makes me allergic, using his perfumed products in the bathroom right next to my bedroom and leaving the bathroom door open and my step-father's volatility and emotional as well as physical abuse, my brother LayZ boy's mental and physical abuse and my mother's bitchiness as well as her enabling their vile behaviour, well all of that, every day, just affects me so badly.

I have to worry about putting my clothes out on the clothes line, because LayZ boy loves to stand next to my clothes and blow smoke into them, so that they are imbued with the cigarette smoke and it affects me, by making me allergic when I put them near my face - this happened with my bed sheets. I was so allergic for a while because of his cigarette smoke imbuing the sheets and it was making me sneeze, get itchy, have a runny nose and find it difficult to breathe. Unfortunately for me, I am severely allergic at present, basically due to this intense stress I am under, so my allergies are critically bad.

I have multiple chemical sensitivities, which means I am allergic to basically just about everything. LayZ boy knows it and he on purpose does things to make me ill. What a disgusting, vile piece of shit he is.

Needless to say, I feel stressed and upset all the time. That isn't good for my immune system and that is why I have had this flu now still for almost four weeks and my voice still sounds congested and sinuses and lungs are sore.

New place to live isnt happening fast enough

I have tried to call that woman from the agency to help me find cheap accommodation, but every time I try to call her, she is not picking up her phone - it goes to voicemail!

Frustrating!

She told me to call her yesterday afternoon and I did, but she wasn't there. I tried earlier today, again, she wasn't there and I got the voicemail again.

I just want to get out of here, out of this hell house and the sooner I can leave, the better it will be for me.

It's so bad for my health - mental, physical, emotional, spiritual - to continue living here!

Once I get out of here, I can start healing properly from the pain of the abuse I have been subjected to.

The problem with accommodation here is that everything is unbelievably expensive to rent on your own. And if it's cheap, it's still a lot more than I can afford, given that I am not working at the moment and am depending on Government assistance for the money I get.  Anything I can rent would eat up almost the whole amount of the money I get - then I would have no money for food, electricity, phone bills, all of that would create over $150 worth of debt each week. It's too much.

I cant share with anyone, because I am so damn allergic to everything. How easy would it be to find someone who doesn't use perfume/aftershave/deodorant/shampoo/face care/cosmetics/cleaning products/laundry products that are not going to make me ill? Not easy at all and I probably wouldn't be able to find it. So while it would be cheaper to share, I cant. I have severe allergies, which is due to the multiple chemical sensitivities I have.

So basically I am stuck between a rock and a hard place and it's so difficult.

Abusive, angry controlling step-father

This morning was the morning for cleaning the house, so that meant I had to wake up early and leave the house because I am allergic to dust and dust mites.

My step-father told me I had to move my bags which were next to a tallboy in the lounge room downstairs because he didn't want them to be there. I told him to just leave them, that I would take care of them when I came back home. That was not an unreasonable request.

He wouldn't hear of that. He started screaming at me and told I had to do what he told me to do, that this was his house and he didn't want my bags there (they had some items of crockery which I hadn't packed away into the cupboards in the kitchen and a bag of CD's).

I was in the kitchen at this point, making a smoothie for breakfast (a quick breakfast so that I could leave quickly and not upset him because you never know when he's going to blow, he's so volatile). My step-father was screaming at me while we were both there and then threw a bag he was holding at me. Luckily it only had plastic bags in the bag (my mother recycles her plastic bags) and then they fell in the sink that was filled with water. I asked him, "what the hell is wrong with you to throw this at me?" and he responded by telling me that I had to move my things right now or else he was going to smash everything.

I followed him into the lounge room as he started to move my things to the door, so that he could take them downstairs, into the garage. I asked him what the point was for putting things in the garage, when I had to bring most of it back up again, because it belonged in the kitchen mainly. He told me he didn't care, that I had to just do what he told me to do because this was his house and if I didn't like it, I could "piss off" out of there and I should just "fuck off". He also called me a lazy bludger (of course he did because he cant think of anything else to say).

He then hit me. He hit my arm - he lashed out at me because he was angry and I threw the glass I was carrying onto the floor - it still had some of the smoothie in it - and the glass broke, shattering all over the floor and there was purple liquid everywhere on the floor too. Then my step-father went off his head again, screaming at me even more, calling me horrible things even more. This is such an untenable situation for me to be in and the violence, chaos and abuse I am constantly subjected to.

I was so upset by him screaming at me, for absolutely no reason whatsoever and that is why I threw the glass on the floor. It is unbelievably frustrating living with these people who yell and scream at me, flinging abusive words and actions at me because they cant control their emotions and take out their anger on me.

Still feel really sick today

I woke up earlier this morning to take my antibiotics and then went back to sleep as I just didn't feel very well at all - my sinuses are hurting me, my head hurts, my lungs hurt, my throat hurts, my ears hurt and it all feels really congested in my upper respiratory area. I still felt dizzy and nauseous and weak.

I have the "asthmatic cough" again, which means the bronchitis has been triggered yet again by last night.

I was also feeling hot and cold last night - just a bit of a fever too.

I have an appointment with my regular doctor today, so I will explain all of this to him to try to get an appointment with an allergy specialist.

When I went into the family room in the morning to take my antibiotic (I have to take one every 8 hours for the tooth abscess), my mother and step-father were there, she was kneading some dough and he was sitting on a chair watching television. I took the antibiotic with some water and on my way out of the family room, my step-father goes to slap my backside as I am walking past time in a playful, angry way. He's so inappropriate. I got out quickly and he didn't touch me. But he acted like he was about to - with my mother in the room too. Sick sick sick people!

At the doctor's appointment, I told him all about my super strong allergies to everything, that I have been getting so sick lately with upper respiratory viral infections almost non-stop since the beginning of the year and that I just feel so tired all the time. He told me he could hear the congestion in my voice, so that was validating. He also referred me to an allergy specialist. I told him about my idiot family and their inability to understand that someone can get allergies as bad as me and that all this sickness I have been subjected to has all the worse since I cam back from the coast in late-November 2009 and had to live in the same house as all of the abusive family I have around me every day.

When I finished there, I had a bit of shopping I had to do and then I went home.

I prepared some food for dinner. My step-father was in the kitchen and then LayZ boy came into the kitchen as soon as he knew I was home. He has this weird obsessive need to be around me and antagonise me when he knows I am here. He then said to me, "loser, are you going to ask me to take off my jacket?" as his way of greeting. I just ignored him and held my nose while I was in the kitchen. I took my food into the lounge room, away from them, to be able to eat in peace and quiet.

After dinner I went to my bedroom, as the television in the lounge room isn't very clear, plus I wanted to turn my heater on and get warm. I turned on the computer for a short while and then I had to have a lie down - I was exhausted from doing the shopping, making dinner and eating it, that I had to sleep.

I fell asleep for about 1.5 hours and when I awoke, I felt completely exhausted but I forced myself to get up because if I kept sleeping, I would wake up in the early hours of the morning and wouldn't get back to sleep for ages and wreck my internal body clock even more.

It's now 10pm and my head still hurts, my sinuses hurt, I still feel dizzy and nauseous and lethargic and weak. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow!

My family have no compassion or sympathy for me

Yesterday was great for most of the day. I went out early in the morning as I wanted to get some shopping done and when I came home, no-one was home. It was so nice to be without any type of irritation or frustration from any of them.

Unfortunately that wasn't going to last all day, because they (my parents and brother, LayZ boy) would come home soon enough. But since I felt good, I cleaned up the kitchen and family room, set up the fireplace ready to be lit when it started getting colder later in the afternoon, early evening and I brought some wood to the balcony for later use.

When my my parents came home, I asked him if he noticed that I set up the fireplace and brought some wood. His response? "What did you do? Nothing." I don't know why I set myself up for his negativity like that. As if he would ever say anything nice to me to show he appreciates me and my efforts.

A short while after they came home, mum and step-father went to the pub for dinner and LayZ boy came home stomping through the house and into his bedroom, like he normally does.

When mum and step-father came home I quickly closed the family room doors while I asked them to "please take off your jackets before you come in here". My step-father responded with, "Why? Do we stink or something?" and my mother with, "What for, why should we have to take our jackets off to suit you." I replied with, "You know I am allergic to the perfumes at the pub on your clothes." I have talked to them about my allergies, how their clothes get imbued with the perfumes of the people around them at the pub and they agreed to get undressed into their normal clothes when they come home immediately, not in like two minutes, as they normally would. So I am not asking them for something so outlandish, just for them to do something a little earlier than they normally would. They agree and then they resent doing it, as if they are being asked to do something so difficult, when they are just being contrary because they don't believe I can be that allergic because they are so ignorant.

Soon after, my step-father came into the family room and told me off for leaving the doors closed (he was still angry). I just ignored him. About a minute later, LayZ boy came in and started yelling at me, telling me that I should not expect them to change their clothes, that this was their house and I wasn't allowed to make any rules and that I was a "loser". I told him to shut up and stop his nonsense. That of course inflamed our step-father who started yelling at LayZ boy for not ever cleaning up after himself, that he just took clean dishes and left his dirty dishes on the sink for someone else to wash and after LayZ boy left (he doesn't hang around to listen because he doesn't think he should do anything, so he just walks away, ignoring whatever anyone says to him) my step-father then started on me.

I was getting affected by their perfumes and so I was holding the cuff of my cardigan to my nose, so that I could breathe in there and not the perfume in the air which was making me itchy. Step-father went mental about that, telling me how dare I put my jumper to my nose so that I couldn't breathe the air in, that I was not allowed to watch television there, that I had to leave as soon as they came home because it's my fault if I got sick, he wasn't going to do anything to help me and then he turned off the television at the switch and was acting all threatening to me, my mother holding him back from hitting me.  I had to leave soon after and went to my room crying.

Soon after that, my nose started getting even more itchy and my sinuses at the front of my head hurts so much, plus I had pain in my ears and my throat started getting sore. I have an immediate reaction to perfumes like this all the time and the stress I get from their menacing, abusive, threatening words and action, just exacerbates it more. They make me feel like I ask for way too much when I ask them to try to be supportive and helpful to me.

My family is so abusive, ridiculous and totally ignorant!

It doesn't matter how many times I tell them how super allergic I am, it doesn't matter how many time they see my reaction to perfumes and other allergens, it doesn't matter how much I explain it to them - it means nothing, they continue to behave abominably to me in their totally dismissive, threatening, belligerent and obnoxious way with no regard to my health at all. They are just selfish people!

The allergies rise again - should be living in a bubble

I am so allergic to everything, that it makes like difficult. Other people simply don't understand. And my family, they cant seem to understand the concept of severe allergies, like what I have.

Today my parents were out at their friends house and when they came home, I asked my mother to get changed out of their clothes because the perfume was starting to bother me - my head and my sinuses was starting to hurt.  Even thought she was standing about 2-3 metres away from me, the aroma was pervading the room already and starting to affect me.

The interesting thing is that my mother wasn't wearing any perfume herself, the aroma came from being in the same proximity, touching and kissing her friend and his wife, in just normal social interaction - shaking hands, hugging, kissing on the cheek hello and goodbye, probably touching their arm - and because their friends wear a great deal of deodorants and perfumes it pervades the air and everything they touch. So just being around them, some of it will rub off on other people. This wouldn't affect other people - just me!

After arguing with me about why certain things affect me more than others (I told her I cant control or predict what will affect me) they finally went to their room to get changed.  When my mother came back, I walked past her to get something and the aroma was so strong near where she was standing, that immediately my nose started itching and I started to cough with an asthmatic-type, dry cough. I told my mother that she should see the cause and effect of how allergic I am and instead of being sympathetic, my idiot step-father told me to "piss off out of here" and to "piss off to you room" and "you're good for nothing, you're always sick".  My mother, meanwhile, just stands there and lets him say whatever he wants to me, even as I was leaving left the room, he was still talking his crap. It's only when I have totally gone that he stopped.

Nice huh?

They are completely unsympathetic towards my illnesses. It's rather disconcertingly awful to be treated in this terrible way.  They simply (a) don't believe that I am that allergic and (b) cant understand how someone can be that allergic. Shows just how ignorant they are. And it of course makes me feel bad to be treated in this shitty, abusive way. Why would I even expect anything better from them?

What a family. No need for enemies when you have a family like this!

Just from that very brief exposure to the perfume my lungs still hurt, as do my sinuses, even though I am now in my bedroom, with the heater on and nowhere near them. I am so completely sensitive and allergic to almost everything - like the girl in the bubble!  This family of mine just doesn't seem to understand this at all!

It just upsets me that they would be so obnoxious to me, when I do everything right. I collected all their clothes from the clothes line and put them in the lounge to get dry (the sun is not very strong now so it takes ages for clothes to dry and if you collect them from the clothes line after 4.00pm, they feel a bit damp. I also closed up the chicken house, I washed all the dirty dishes and I even started the fire and so the house was nice and warm when they came home. But nothing I ever do is good enough for them. I could give them a million dollars (if I had it) and they would still complain and bitch about me to me and behind my back. They are just ridiculous people without any sense at all and they just take great pleasure in hurting and abusing me!

No compromise is possible with my family

Last night my mother came into the kitchen, where I was preparing my food for my dinner, to tell me I must get up at 8am the next morning, in order to leave the house so that she and my step-father can vacuum the floors.

I cannot vacuum anything because I am allergic to dust and dust mites. If I am around people who are vacuuming, my body immediately reacts with allergy symptoms almost immediately (itching, blocked nose, runny nose, pain in the sinuses/lungs and painful breathing). I can be sleeping and if they start vacuuming, I get woken up with pain, even though my door is closed, I am that sensitive (unfortunately) that I get so adversely affected.

So when they vacuum the house, I have to leave and go elsewhere. It makes absolutely no sense for me to get up that early, because the only people on public transport will be office workers, all primped and perfumed ready for work and being in an enclosed space with that much perfume will just make me more sick with the allergy symptoms and is not a good idea. I have multiple chemical sensitivities, so being around anyone with any perfumed products just causes my body to over-react with major allergy symptoms, tightening of my bronchi and just feeling itchy all over. My step-father's suggestion in the past has been to tell me to catch the public transport from one end of town to the other, just sit there and do nothing. He has no clue and doesn't want to understand or sympathise. He just calls me a lazy, good-for-nothing layabout because I am sick so much.

When my mother told me about the cleaning, I told her that it would be nice if there was some compromise and not just them telling me what they wanted without actually finding a compromise. The conversation went like this (it was a heated conversation - me begging her and her being so stubborn and refusing to see my point of view):
Mother: You have to get up at 8am tomorrow morning because we are going to vacuum the house.
Me: Look, I need to wash all my linen tomorrow and hang out my duvet and pillows so they can get some sunshine to kill all the dust mites so I cant leave that early.
Mother: Well we have to clean the house tomorrow and we cant do it in the afternoon (they could, but don't want to)
Me: Can we find a compromise where everyone is happy with the outcome?
Mother: There is no compromising with you, you just want it your way.
Me: You are telling me I must do something your way, that is not only autocratic but it is no compromise either.
Mother: Well we cant clean the house in the afternoon.
Me: So why cant you let me get up later in the morning, get my stuff done and then I can leave and you can clean the house. What's wrong with that?
Mother: There is no compromising with you, we cant clean the house in the afternoon.

Then she walked off to the sun room, which is where my step-father was and proceeded to tell him all about our argument in a very angry tone of voice, complaining vehemently about me to him and he starts yelling loudly that "we are not cleaning the house in the afternoon", like they are on a schedule, when neither of them are working and besides which, that was not what I asked!

A little while later, LayZ boy walks into the kitchen, obviously he heard the argument and starting telling me I was "cuckoo" and an "idiot" and "loser". I just ignored him because, really other than lowering myself to his level, there was nothing else I could do.

It is just so difficult to deal with these people.

Sneezing non-stop - allergy allert!

Last night I was sneezing non-stop.  I think I sneezed over a hundred times in the space of about an hour.  My nose and sinus passages are just so irritated and inflamed that I couldn't stop sneezing.

I felt so sick and so allergic, it was absolutely awful.  I had to blow my nose so many times.  It was really hard to get to sleep.  I was sneezing so loudly and so much, that I know I woke everyone up.  I know they all heard it.  It was so loud, it would be hard not to have heard me sneezing.

All the stress of this family is just getting to me so much.  I don't normally get allergies like this in summer, but I am now because of them.  I told them all the perfumes and other chemicals are making me very sick and this is the result, which is what I wanted to avoid. But of course, they all dismiss my concerns, telling me that it's all in my head, that there is nothing wrong with me.

My idiot brother LayZ boy upon hearing me go outside, follows me out there, then I walk back in, so he follows me to where I am in the kitchen (he's sprayed himself with perfume so that I can feel sick and sneeze).  I realise what he's done and walk out of the kitchen immediately and go back to my prison cell (my bedroom).

Then a few hours later, LayZ boy sprayed his perfume right next to my bedroom, so that when I walked outside, I would be assaulted by the strong perfume and it would also come into my room and I would feel sick and sneeze more, which of course is exactly what happened.  What an asshole!

So I put the air conditioner on to full blast to try to get rid of the smell, but all it did was to blow more of that perfume and dust under my door and make me sneeze some more.  Great.  Soon after, my step-father came home and growled at me, asking me why the air conditioner was on so high and when I told him about LayZ boy's perfume he started telling him off.  Of course my brother lied about it and said he didn't do anything.

At this point, I was going off my head crying and screaming as I had reached my limit with this idiocy and selfishness. I was screaming at my step-father, telling him that he needs to stop my brother doing this stuff on purpose to make me ill. That I have been sick these past few days and I don't need to continue to be sicker.

I just got so upset that I just started screaming and screaming and screaming in the bathroom and I think the whole street must have heard, because next thing I know, one of our neighbours came to the door.  I was so upset that I didn't even recognise him (I also had only seen him a few times, so I didn't really know him all that well anyway).

He talked to me and I told him all of the crap that my mother and step-father and brother do and he was compassionate enough to believe me.  So now their bullshit duplicity is being uncovered and their masks are coming off so that the whole street knows who they really are - abusive liars! 

The police then came as someone had called them.  One of them interviewed me then another one and the other was with my family.  My neighbour was still with me at the time, he was telling me to breathe and to calm down and that he understood that sometimes you just needed to let things out.  I think the police thought I was hysterical (which I probably was, but you know, it was understandable given what I have been through) and wanted me to go to the hospital to see someone to discuss my problems with mental health.

I am not very good at expressing myself articulately when I am emotional. I cant seem to make myself understood, I just cant articulate my feelings at all and because my mother and brother say exactly the same things (whatever my brother says, my mother back him and my father just says "yes yes") and they sound reasonable and believable because they are all saying the same thing: "Our daughter is not mentally stable, we don't do anything to hurt her in any way, but she just screams at us for no reason".  I can imagine that is what they would say to make out how "nice" they are and how they don't do anything wrong, it's all me.

The police finally left after reassuring me they would tell my family not to disturb me and to keep away from me.  One of the police officers even shook my hand (the one who didn't wear any perfume and who at first thought I wasn't allergic, but he soon saw that I was when I started reacting to the other officer's perfume/after shave).  I told the police as they were leaving, that the neighbours already thought we were a bit mad, now they would think we were totally crazy.  They did laugh.

Now I am alone in my room typing, without any hindrance.  Thank God!

You cant get sense out of people without any

Woke up this morning feeling like total crap. Still have the fever, still feel totally exhausted and sick. Definitely have the virus still.  I decided not to get out of bed and stay there sleeping for another few hours because I really did not have the energy.

Later I went out to the sun room, where the cat and my step-father were sitting on the chairs there. My step-father said something about the cat always sleeping and I told him that he slept on my bed the last two nights and my step-father responded with, "That's your job" as he walked back inside to go to his ensuite to have a shower.

I later went back inside and when I came out to the sun room to see the cat again, immediately upon entering the sun room, my nose crinkled up in disgust to the smell in there, it was like an offence against my senses!  My step-father had washed with some of my brother's toxic-smelling personal care products, which I cannot tolerate, as the chemicals they contain make me sick.

As soon as my step-father saw my involuntary response, he mocked me with, "Smells, smells, quick go away", laughing at me.

I don't think either he, my mother or my brother can comprehend that this stuff makes me sick. I am allergic to most personal care products (unless they are organic and mild) and being around the makes me itchy, makes me sneeze and makes me unable to breathe properly.  And the fact that I am already feeling sick from a middle ear infection/sinusitis, just makes me more vulnerable.

They are ridiculous people who care naught for me.

Another illustration of this flagrant disregard for my health was that one day my brother LayZ Boy bought a hand soap that he got from a supermarket.  He put it in the main bathroom, which I use too, but every time he used it, it would leave such a strong smell that would make me feel sick every time I had to use the bathroom.  I then moved it to my parents' ensuite.  I told them that it was too strong and I couldn't tolerate it as it made me sick.  I was told "too bad" and the liquid soap was put back in the bathroom.  And my mother even lied and said she bought it!  What a liar!

That night I took the liquid soap and crept into my parents' ensuite late at night and placed it on their vanity.

The next day I asked them how can they justify using such a toxic liquid soap when they recycle the water from the bathroom and put it on the garden?  Especially when she talks to everyone that she doesn't use any chemicals on her garden, but now she will be, so how can she justify it?  She then talked some nonsense and said she would put it in the laundry, so I reminded her again that that water is again recycled into the garden.  She again talked some nonsense, because she cant handle being shown she is totally wrong and I left, just shaking my head at her and her idiocy.

I think she may finally have understood the sense of what I was saying (even though she wont ever admit I told her so, she'll have to make out that it was her idea, yeah right!) and the liquid soap remains in their ensuite.

So basically when I tell her the liquid soap makes me ill, she takes no notice because she wants to make sure my brother does whatever he wants it's his soap (and he has more rights that me as far as she is concerned) and that I have no say in anything.  Yet when I remind her that using the soap in the bathroom or the laundry means she is recycling all the chemicals onto the garden, only then she takes any notice.  That's my mother.  She is totally lacking in any motherly care for her only daughter, she only cares for herself and her son.  I don't matter to her. I am alone here.  I have no support or love here.  I am totally isolated and alone, so no wonder I am sick all the time.  That's my family.  Or rather, my non-family!