The sorrow of isolation
September 29, 2008 by Susie Collins
CatherineWO, at Breathez, posted about Sisterhood yesterday, lamenting the loss of getting together with other women as much as she’d like since developing Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. While she’s found some comfort with online blogs, she makes a very valid point about the need for personal interaction.
She recently attended a jewelry party at her daughter-in-law’s. She writes about the gathering: “…even more important to me was the opportunity to just sit and talk with other women. It was a small group, but they all knew I would be there so had come fragrance free. It felt good just to relax and enjoy the company of others.”
But she has a much harder time being able to participate in her church activities. I wrote about CatherineWO’s successful activism at her church, where she lobbied church elders to make all church buildings fragrance free. But she still has some problems with more casual gatherings with women friends, which causes her deep sorrow.
We all suffer losses in our lives for which we must grieve and then move on, hopefully filling the gap with something else of value. But I am not sure how to fill this gap in my life. In moments of selfishness and self-pity, I rail at the women in my own local group who refuse to change their behavior so that I can participate. Yet, such wallowing is so unproductive. I can’t change the behavior of other women, and railing on them to myself only makes me more angry. And I don’t want to become just an angry old woman.
One place I still feel sisterhood is through online blogs. There are some wonderful LDS group blogs that reach out to women, such as www.feministmormonhousewives.org , http://segulah.org/blog and http://the-exponent.com (my favorite). Blogs cannot replace the intimacy we get associating in person with other women, but they do offer a free exchange of feelings and ideas that helps to fill the gap.
Perhaps my greatest resource for sisterhood is with my own daughters and daughter-in-law, four truly amazing women who reach out to me on an almost daily basis. I love them and really appreciate them, but it is unfair and unrealistic to expect them to fulfill the bulk of my social and emotional needs.
So I continue to seek new ways to conpensate for the loss of sisterhood I feel in the isolation of chemical sensitivity. Even introverts need a little socializing once in a while.
I too find that the most difficult part of having MCS is how difficult it makes having a social life. This past weekend I decided to go into the possibility of fumes to attend a good friend’s b-day celebration. There was a guest or two wearing perfume and consequently my neurological symptoms flared terribly after the party and when my medicine wore off. Effect continued the following morning.
Yet, it feels worth it, to have connected with others, celebrated my friend in person and just to have had a great time..and now to have the fun memories of the evening.
Sadly though, cannot do this often, due to the toll the neuro-toxins have on my neurological condition.
Hope someday, awareness will bring changes…and the toxins in perfumes, laundry products etc…will be exposed as the toxins in cigarettes now are. The thought of “no perfume” sections, or perfumes no longer containing toxic ingredients makes me smile.
I understand exactly what you mean. My biggest problem is my religious community. The habit of wearing fragrances is culturally ingrained and when I tell other women–over the phone–that I can’t come to such-and-such activity because of the fragrances they just say they’ll pray for me to recover from my illness. I can’t get them to understand that their behavior is what makes me sick.
Today was a major religious holiday and I had to stay home because the fragrances are especially strong on holidays. My husband said that it was so strong in the room that he nearly got sick. When he and my sons came home, they all had to change their clothes immediately.
I’m able to go to stores (though not the mall), the library (except when the air conditioning is on high), and many other places. But I am shut out of my religious community because most of the people are from overseas and they simply do not understand the concept of intolerance to fragrances.
Kerry, I share your hope for the toxic chemicals in perfumes and fragrances to be addressed!! We need more research, more data to confirm what we canaries already know— the stuff is poison. Or even the concept of “fragrance free zones” catching on like “smoke free zones”– oh, heaven.
Linda K, aloha & welcome to The Canary Report! I enjoyed visiting your website and learning about your life, work and family. My heart breaks at your isolation from your religious community. It’s so very hard to get people to understand chemical sensitivity as it relates to perfume; without experiencing it, it is so hard for people to understand.
Be well, my canary friends, it’s wonderful to have you part of the flock, sharing your lives.