I kept myself occupied today by wading through my pile of sewing projects that have been languishing in my office for... I don't want to think about how long.
Anyway, I was halfway through hemming a curtain I'm pretty certain I started making in 2021 when I realized my background TV show had switched at some point and I was now 'watching' Ghost Adventures.
After another twenty minutes of only half-listening because I couldn't be bothered to get up from my sewing machine and change it, I realized they were talking about the physical manifestations of possessions and ghost attacks, and I looked up in time to see a woman sitting in a mold-riddled space (it's worth pointing out the host was wearing a respirator for this exact reason), with all these excited men pointing at the flushing on her neck and face, all of them going, "wow, look! Something hit her, a ghost hit her! That's crazy!"
And the longer I watched, the more I realized she was experiencing what looked like MCAS pattern flushing (which can sometimes look like the lupus butterfly rash, but can spread far more rapidly and will just keep going unless you get away from the trigger. The neck can become especially affected), and then the next day, they asked her how she was feeling and she said, something along the lines of "I'm okay, I had a bit of a migraine this morning, I feel really drained from the ghost attack."
And I was just sitting there. Squinting.
Like, obviously, I cannot diagnose anyone, let alone over a TV show —and who the fuck knows if any of it was real or if the whole thing was faked somehow — but also... I think if you're only experiencing ghosts in your moldy haunted house, and the physical symptoms you describe are flushing, dizziness, nausea, headache, and "feeling an oppressive weight on your chest,' I think you might be having an allergic reaction, actually. (Obligatory Vicotiran doctor: you got ghosts in your veins, here, do some cocaine Benadryl about it.)
"But I was seeing things!!" Mast cell inflammation in the brain can literally make you hallucinate and lose time if it's bad enough. I used to get auditory hallucinations post-anaphylaxis because of how my untreated mast cell disorder manifested. If I start hallucinating sounds, I know it's time for a trip to the hospital because I'm about to need my body weight in intravenous steroids to stay alive.
"But I went to the doctor, and they couldn't find anything wrong." lol. lmao, even.
Like maybe there are ghosts. Maybe they are throwing things at you and telling you to get out. But I think it's because they're trying to save you from the mold. God knows, you're certainly not helping yourself. Wear a mask, get some nasalcrom. Jesus.
