Provocative blogging

“Under the Mattress – An Adult Journey Through SPD”

Wow. That’s a loaded title, eh? If I were in no way affiliated with this blog, my mind would meander over the many possibilities of what this blog could be about. There are lots of questions and ideas that come up when on this pretend mission to find out more about what this blog is really about.

The most prominent of those questions or ideas is, “With all this talk about mattresses and adult journeys, is this blog pornographic?” No. Not likely. Though I’m certain that, at times, there will be some not so G-rated topics I write about. I’m almost certain that I won’t be getting shut down by any censors (I hope…).

The next, “What is under the mattress?” Well, any number of things. Especially in our house. It’s a veritable zoo here; you could find anything under there. You could find Legos, a toy puppy’s plastic bone, a dirty sock mindlessly wadded and shoved to the depths. Or, you could find a person. No, we don’t put our dead bodies under the mattresses here. Those go out in the garden. ;o)

But wait, I did say you could find a person. I wasn’t joking there. About the dead bodies, I was. But about an actual person being under the mattress, totally serious. Well, then this begs the question, “What is under the mattress?” As in, what does the statement really mean?

It goes back about 6 weeks; that’s not a long time to pass, when you think in terms of evolution and dinosaurs. But, for someone who was diagnosed at age 35 with Sensory Processing Disorder, that’s a helluva long time. Wrought with anxiety, fear, depression, frustration, introspection, reflection, and learning curves. Oh, the learning curves. Perhaps more on those later.

Six weeks ago, a dear friend and her husband were traveling through Albuquerque on their way home to Austin. My friends stayed with us overnight. We lack a guest bedroom in our home, but we had an extra mattress that has served to makeshift the living room into a guest bedroom for our occasional guests. My friends visited, it was wonderful and they went on their way. Given that we are people who are way too busy and have children who like to pretend they’re gymnasts, we left the mattress down on the floor in the living room.

A few weeks of walking by the mattress, around the mattress, folding laundry on the mattress, and watching movies laying on the mattress, I became aware of this growing urge to crawl under the mattress. I suppressed this urge every time it presented itself, never having had a great track record with urges. One day, while at y new occupational therapist’s office, I mentioned this urge. I was taken aback by her response, “Go for it! Do it! Get under the mattress!”

It took me a day or two to give myself permission to do something so silly. That permission to myself from myself came on a day that I was having a really tough time. I was depressed from thinking about all of the potential happenings and events throughout my childhood leading up to this point in my life. I was overwhelmed and on edge from the world going “too fast” and being just plain offensive and assaulting. Eric, my partner, asked me what I needed. For a while, I was unable to provide an answer. I sat for a few moments trying to figure it out. I was staring at the mattress that had taken up it’s residence in the middle of our living room floor. I thought to myself, “What do I need?” I looked at Eric and said, “I think I want to try getting under the mattress.” He replied, “Um, well, ok then.” He walked over to the end of the mattress, picked it up and I crawled in. Eric gently set the mattress down on top of me and knelt down by my head. In an instant I felt this wave… no, a tsunami of emotion come over me. Before I could articulate what I was feeling, I was sobbing hysterically. Eric held my hand and I just cried and cried.

I was totally flabbergasted by this experience. I had no idea how to even frame this event in my mind, much less explain it to someone looking on. I imagine it to have been scary and unnerving for Eric, at first. I think that he came to understand my process and empathize with me. He had deep compassion for this emotional release I was having. This was a very new thing for me, this raw emotion. I mean, I have always had those frayed nerve endings that cause me to jump and jolt to every little stimulus. But, this. This was something I had never even thought was possible, much less could happen to me.

When I went back to my OT and reported what it felt like to get under the mattress, she said, “Oh good! I’m so glad that you did that. Keep doing it. I want you to get under that mattress three times a week.”

Now we can’t put the mattress in storage. It has to stay. We rearranged the living room to accommodate the mattress snugly fit into a corner between the wall, the built in book shelves and a long sofa. And I have been getting under there, as prescribed. Depending on how I’m feeling when I get under, I have a big cry and sometimes, I just hang out. All the while, having my needs for deep pressure sensory input sated.

Registration of sensory input. That’s what’s under the mattress. And me. I’m under there too.