<![CDATA[Eyeballs eyeballs eyeballs]]>It’s been a long time since someone’s really been insistent with the eye contact while I’m squirming and trying to get away. I noticed today exactly how much I react to that.

So I’m sitting there in a doctor’s office, and he’s leaning towards me and sticking his face up to mine.

And I’m sitting there trying to think in a way that, were it in words, would go something like this:

Okay… he’s got to…. EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS he’s got to be unaware… EYEBALLS!!!! …he’s… uh… eyeballs… uh… EYEBALLS!!!!!!!!! people like him think this is EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS …some people think… EYEBALLS!! …some people think this is friendly… EYEBALLS!!!! EYEBALLS!!!! EYEBALLS!!!! he really doesn’t mean anything EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS he doesn’t mean anything EYEBALLS EYEBALLS he eyeballs doesn’t eyeballs mean eyeballs anything eyeballs bad EYEBALLS EYEBALLS he doesn’t understand why I’m turning EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS why I’m not coming up EYEBALLS why I’m not coming up with words EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS oh crap hand going banging head EYEBALLS EYEBALLS oh crap not right thing to do EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS stop hand now EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS is he saying something? EYEBALLS EYEBALLS am I trying to type something? EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS oh crap better remember EYEBALLS EYEBALLS remember EYEBALLS what I’m trying EYEBALLS what’s he saying? [shading eyes as if staring at sun] EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS am I saying something? EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS EYEBALLS what’s going on?  EYEBALLS THREAT BAD EYEBALLS THREAT BAD EYEBALLS THREAT BAD EYEBALLS THREAT BAD EYEBALLS THREAT BAD… segmentation fault

Etc. Until I finally reached some point of shutdown. And where every EYEBALLS is not just the picture of eyeballs but of something very threatening about to eat me or something. I unfortunately in all that couldn’t figure out how to tell him that it was his eyeballs that were unnerving me, and I’m not sure I did a very good job of convincing him that I’m not that freaked out all the time. It wasn’t just eyeballs either, it was leaning at me with eyeballs. I tried briefly to remember that people like him consider eyeballs to be friendliness, but it got drowned out in the swamp of eyeballs, and all thinking got drowned out in the end in a sea of fight/flight.

Note to anyone who interacts with me: Eyeballs do not help, unless by “help” you mean “extinguish everything but eyeballs and fear”.

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