Weird about water

An excellent online acquaintance messaged me about some health stuff the other day, and the strange tension of living with unprecedented and difficult issues whilst also dealing with the everyday mundane. “Birds chirping in the yard, you still gotta put the bins out,” they said.

Doesn’t that just sum up what it’s like to live in the world right now? The Mad King with the Power to End All Life has issued one of his terrifyingly vague Truths, and tomorrow, we get to find out if the world ends, or if it’s just the more usual kind of murder with bombs. In the meantime, I have the kids at home on holiday, keen to play all hours of the day, client work to sort out, and I really wish I could get on top of this strange issue I have with water.

I am hydrophobic.

I don’t know why, but unless I’ve been exercising heavily I don’t really get thirsty. I can quite easily go an entire day where my entire liquid intake is the two coffees I let myself drink. Obviously, this is not good for me, and while I don’t get thirsty properly I do suffer the predictable effects of not drinking. I get grumpy and cloudy-headed and headachey, and occasionally some kind of physiological switch will flip and I’ll wake up at 2 AM with a suddenly raging thirst.

Samson drinking water ass's jawbone
Look at Samson. I bet he never didn’t want to drink water.

And what’s weirder is that I don’t want to drink water. I don’t know why! Objectively, I like water! It keeps me alive! But I’ll look at a full drink bottle or glass and a perverse bit of brain will go “yeah, nah,” and just kind of steer me away from it. I just checked and there is indeed a nearly full drink bottle on my desk. It’s been there all day. It’s a rare day where I actually manage to finish anything close to the recommended amount of water.

Perhaps I have a case of Mild Rabies. Or maybe it’s an autism/ADHD thing. Apparently folks who land somewhere on the autism-ADHD continuum can struggle with interoception, the ability to feel and understand the body’s signals; and lack of thirst (or excessive thirst) are common enough among autists that there are a bunch of people posting on Reddit about it. My brothers both get it too. It’s odd. And I’d like to get on top of it.

So that’s the plan for tomorrow. Remember to put out the bins. Try not to get lost in the endless terrible news. Keep the cat’s litter clean. Try to work towards a world where evil narcissists aren’t handed the power to destroy all human life. Drink enough water.

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Comments

Leave a Reply to VenetiaCancel reply

12 responses to “Weird about water”

  1. Emily Writes Avatar

    I did not know there was a name for not drinking water! I am weird about water in that I am very specific about the temperature. It must be very cold or I can’t drink it. And in this world we are living it that sounds so terrible. Bringing the bins in indeed.

    1. tworuru Avatar

      They used to call rabies hydrophobia because one of its many, many horrible side-effects is to make victims salivate and crave water whilst also not being able to drink it.

  2. Katie Avatar
    Katie

    I’m also weird about water but in the opposite way – running out of water is my (literal) greatest fear and it’s taken (non-literal) exposure therapy to get to the point of being able to leave my drink bottle in the car while I go so something for half an hour

    1. tworuru Avatar

      Argh that sounds really rough! On the plus side I imagine dehydration is rarely an issue?

  3. rainbow brute 🌈 Avatar
    rainbow brute 🌈

    Ooh, interoception is really interesting. I’m sure one of my kids can’t tell when they’re getting hot or cold, it seems more than just being distracted. The article you linked to also mentions somatic therapy – mind/body connection work. I reckon a lot of us are weirdly disconnected from what’s going on with our own bodies and emotions. Water must be annoying! Frustratingly basic

    1. tworuru Avatar

      I used to boast a bit about how I “didn’t feel the cold” but now I’m less sure about having good core temperature or whatever and thinking that I may literally not feel it.

  4. Kate Avatar
    Kate

    Similar to you I can get through the day on just coffee. But I’ve made a concerted effort lately to drink a glass of water with dinner. And, disturbingly, I’ve found I can drink water during the day if I put it in a wine glass. I got some odd looks in the office when I did this.

    1. octopusgrrl Avatar

      The vessel does help – my water has to come from my metal bottle or it doesn’t taste right and the temp is wrong. I try and prescribe myself water to drink during the day: it’s ten am, so I have to take three sips of water; ten thirty, another three sips etc. If I don’t hydrate properly, my body treats me very badly and this is the only way I can do it. But other times when I’m fantastically thirsty, water is the best thing in the world and I don’t care where it comes from – so go figure.

  5. Daniel Tebbutt Avatar

    The most success I have had with hydration (albeit possibly bad in other ways?) was when I was drinking Ninety Nine brand Lemon Crush from Woolworths. I think I was averaging over 1.5 litres per day of that. Something about it tickled my brain enough in a way that water didn’t, and as long as I didn’t think too hard about the artificial sweeteners it was pretty close to water.

    1. tworuru Avatar

      Coke Zero kind of works that way for me but I don’t like thinking too hard about how much acid (not the fun kind) I must be imbibing.

  6. Venetia Avatar

    I really struggle to drink water as well. I find it doesn’t quench my thirst. If I didn’t have to drink a large glass of it every morning with my thyroid medication I would easily go days without any plain water, so I’m kinda glad I have to do that. I drink a lot of tea though, and find if I don’t have enough of that or other fluids I do get dehydration headaches.

    1. tworuru Avatar

      Ah, my old friend the dehydration headache. If only there was some other way my body could signal that it needs water!