Pyroluria: Testing times

[stephbg]

So today was the day I took myself and my precious precious Pyroluria test paperwork to Clinipath in West Perth, the one place where they collect and process one's wee for shipping to the one lab in Queensland who do the actual testing.

In my last post I contemplated the requirement that I be stressed at the time of the sample collection. To quote the written instructions, "Pyroluria is increased during stressful periods; therefore the samples are best given during these times. If the patient is asymptomatic, it may be wise to postpone the collection until they are under stress or later in the day or evening."

In addition I was to suspend my various mineral supplements for a couple of days prior to the test. The long weekend made some of this timing a bit complex, but I'm satisfied with my prep. So, did I manage to turn myself into a gibbering mess of rage and tension? Did I undo the hard work of literally decades of treatment and therapy and send myself into a death spiral of angst and torture? Was I really trying my very best to get the highest damn score on that test anyone has ever had?

No, not even close. Thank you relatives-who-care-enough-to-be-rude, but it just didn't happen that way. At all. Not remotely. Nada. Nil points.

I think possibly the biggest confusion may have come about due to a misunderstanding of the terms. As a psych graduate, I probably assign very different meanings to a lot of terms such as stimulus, arousal, and stress. Most people skip the entire idea of a stressor entirely. A stressor is a stimulus that causes stress. Stress—and here's the important bit—has both emotional and physical components. An emotional response to the stressor and/or the physical component of the stress may in turn create a feedback loop that exaggerates the physical component of the reaction, until the person goes kablooie.

Physiologically, fear and excitement are the same, as are love and hate. It's how you interpret these physical responses emotionally that gives you the result. That and your cognitive response,i.e.  how you think about the situation (e.g. "Oh my god I am going to die!" versus "Dude, best rollercoaster EVER!")

Apologies for the lecture.

Anyway, my plan for raising my physiological stress response didn't quite work. I added some stressors to my life, and gave myself permission to wig out i.e. have a maladaptive emotional and cognitive response thus creating a feedback loop to exaggerate the physical response. That was the plan, and in the thought experiment that was the previous post, my brain wandered off into interesting territory. I became aware of just how much of my time and energy goes into suppressing my base urges to shout and kill people. I was alarmed at how close to the surface all this horror lay. Wow, I thought, I am really messed up, and merely playing at civilisation. It's not going to take much at all to turn me into a quivering test-passing bundle of anxiety.

Cool.

Except, no, it didn't work like that. Up to a point—the point I was willing to put myself under pressure for the sake of the test—I'm far too good at disassociating my anomalous physical reactions from the emotions I allow myself to feel. The anti-depressants are a big part of this of course (and I did not stop those), but I'm far too well trained now to get myself into a tizz when it's not actually called for. At first my fantasies of letting go, alienating people, telling them what I really thought, abandoning all pretence of empathy, and hurling insults and pain without fear of the consequences frightened me. Then they felt nothing but cathartic brain games. There was no way I'd go there. So, sadly, I missed the chance to be horrible.

So emotional manipulation was out. I considered plain ordinary physical stress, going somewhere loud and flashy, but never quite got around to it. Just couldn't make myself do something I knew to be harmful. I came up with any number of these stressful scenarios, but just couldn't make myself go, because that would be silly. Some of the best ideas involved driving, such as going to Fremantle on a Saturday night and trying to find a parking space, but again, there was no way I could put myself or anyone else including The Catmobile at that kind of physical risk. Sure, a carpark bingle would stress me no end, but it would have to be an accident. Surprise, then, was the key. Like tickling, it seems I cannot really stress myself, not in the time scale allowed. If only Sector 7 had caught on fire.

Eventually the only way I could think to place myself under some sensible level of physiological stress was non-beige food, the non-beiger the better, so for the past couple of days I've eaten some Bad Things. Lolly snakes, salami, lemon cake, Barbeque Shapes, that sort of thing. Probably could have pushed the preservatives a bit harder. As an unexpected bonus (and it had to be unexpected after all) I got to sit on the ground for a few hours during a Sunday picnic at Kings Park. That gave me plenty of physical discomfort  to help things along. Didn't manage to get the muscles twitch and jerk but them's the breaks.

This morning I hydrated as best I could, and drove myself to West Perth. I did actually have the option of a lift after all, but thought my traditional fear of navigation and parking would add that little something to my test. I passed on the bright idea to drive in during peak hour, but even so got several stretches of stop-start driving through two sets of roadworks and  one's fellow road users rubbernecking an earlier accident site. Also had a bonus detour, thus invalidating at least part of my carefully planned route. Got a disappointingly straightforward street park, but fumbled the ticket machine (yay!), and realised I'd forgotten to bring much in the way of change (woohoo!). So it was with a satisfying little buzz and background of pain I went into the lab, and filled out the latest batch of forms with a suitably shaky hand.

I then waited, continuing to drink, joining in the how-long-have-you-been-here? banter in the waiting room, and enjoying (curses!)  the  comfy seating. Pain levels weren't nearly bad enough to upset me, but were hopefully messing up my vitals a bit. I realised there was a good chance that my parking ticket would run out before I was done, and attempted to whip myself into a frenzy of fear about Breaking The Rules, and at and what point I should attempt to leave and rectify the situation. Would I lose my spot in the queue? Did the machine take notes? I had no change! Nope, couldn't do it, no frenzy of worry for me. I might get a parking ticket, so what? Fortunately I was saved by the arrival of a harried mother with two small children.  The noisy small boy and his loud video game irritated me quite nicely (excellent).

I was eventually called and given multiple bits of paraphernalia, then directed to the bathroom that opened directly off the waiting room, mere feet from the noisy child.

It was a very nice bathroom, but having cultivated as much anxiety as I could muster I discovered that I just couldn't go. It was the voices. Twice (TWICE!) I was on the verge of success when someone came in and tried the door. I drank more water, I concentrated, I tried to relax, but most of my usual techniques were rendered ineffective or indeed impossible by the gyrations required of an overweight female to collect her own waters with a modicum of decorum and cleanliness.

I was in there for quite some time. Eventually I managed a small offering, and followed the decanting, sealing, shaking, and wrapping instructions as best as I was able. I doubt very much that I was able to produce enough for the test, so there's a good chance I'll have to try again. If I need to do it all again it won't take as long to get replacement paperwork, and I'll be able to fine tune my prep with much greater efficiency, so I'll just have to wait and see and cross that bridge when I get to it.

SEE? I totally suck at getting emotionally stressed. Which is actually kind of awesome ;-) .

(No, I didn't get a parking ticket. But yes, I've been leaking like a sieve (a sieve with access to plumbing, I hasten to add) for the last hour. It's all in the timing.)

Comments

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

If you need to go again, assuming there's an appropriate time... I could offer you a lift in—and sit you in the back of the car (there's plenty of room, and access is reasonable... but there are also a collection of randomly loud kids...). If that would help. I could even make sure (like it would take much effort!) to be running late...