clatterbane:

Just reminded with those replacement headphones coming in very handy again, I have a relatively new contender here for the most ridiculous seizure trigger ever:

The noise and vibration from upstairs’ washing machine! 🙃

It is a relatively new one, and as I commented before when that blocked drain was flooding our patio, they run it at least once a day. Usually more, and at unpredictable times. Even though they do have a kid and a dog up there, I’ve had to wonder if they’re also taking in laundry or something. It’s running that often.

At first I assumed it was just the sound, but then I had it blocked out pretty well one night and still started getting muscles twitching and jumping in rhythm with the vibrations. And it kinda went from there. That effect was freaky enough with music my nervous system hated before, but geez that was a weird experience. Happened more than once since, too, with no idea of what might have been different those times.

(One day after I got up, I managed to get a fun combo of seizurey shit from that, and one of the pain meltdowns exacerbated by having to use the headphones when I was already that overloaded. Great fun.)

If I’m on this side of the house (including the heated rooms where I spend at least 90% of the time) when it’s running, usually headphones with the right music going at a sufficient volume to drown it out will head off the worst of it. But, I suspect it’s fucking me up and sapping more energy I don’t have to spare on a regular basis now Definitely staying headachy and spacy a lot more again.

It’s particularly frustrating when there’s basically nothing to be done about something like that. I mean, at least it’s not like when we had that horrible abusive asshole up there whose loud electronic crap kept scrambling my nervous system before–and I knew good and well that if anyone said a word, he’d up the ante on purpose. Just that kind of jerk.

But, you can’t really just say, “Hello, neighbors who don’t seem to particularly like us anyway. Possibly because we come across as weird. You know that new washing machine you bought a while back? Please stop using it, because it’s giving me/my spouse seizures.” 🤔 😩

At least it’s more manageable than the awful music situation so far, and I haven’t been waking up with a chewed-up inside of the mouth or anything so far. But, that’s still been a further quality of life hit that I could do without.

Also, I have pretty much exclusively seemed to have noticeable problems with this shit when something else has been lowering my seizure threshold enough to cause problems. (Which helped it get missed and misinterpreted over the years, yeah.) Medications, celiac deficiencies, whatever rather serious factors. I’m kind of concerned now about what else might be going on to make me more susceptible, but it probably ain’t good.

Didn’t think to mention earlier, but reminded by it starting up again just as I was wanting to go to bed. (In one of the rooms right under the worst of it 😬)

This would probably be less aggravating if it were a US-style top loader with the much shorter wash cycles. With the standard European home front loaders, which heat the water and all? You’d better not want the clothes very soon. “Short wash”/“fast wash” tends to run about an hour and a half. Regular wash cycles, at least 3 hours.

Thankfully, that thing doesn’t vibrate our floors and walls for the whole 3+ hours straight. Just certain parts of the cycle.

From experience, I’ve still got probably half an hour before it settles down enough for earplugs to be enough to let me get to sleep in there, though 😩

Thankfully this is the first machine anybody has had up there that’s so strong with the noise and actually made our place vibrate. No idea what would even do that. I considered that maybe it’s some extra heavy duty commercial model, but those usually also finish a load much faster.