Laundromat use and sensory input

Post Reply New Topic

This week I went to the laundromat, and came home in a state I'd never noticed before in previous visits.

Totally wiped out. Almost in a stunned state. I'm figuring it was the constant noise.

This would suggest a sensory issue, but I've never noticed it before.

Anyone else here who uses a laundromat, and comes out of the experience feeling like you were hit in the face with a shovel?

I hate it. All the noise and people milling about with nothing to do. Plus I don't like people seeing my laundry for some reason.

The only issue I had when I used to use one years ago was boredom.

Funny an old special interest was washers! I didn't mind the noise.

Okay. So much for that theory, I guess.

I find laundromats to be rather annoying, too. I'd never really thought of it until I read this thread but, yeah, I don't like spending any more time there than I have to. I have a washer and dryer at home but when I need to wash something too big for my machine, like a sleeping bag, I go to the laundromat. What I do is hang out in the parking lot in my car and read or something or just take off for a while and come back to move whatever I'm washing from the washing machine to the dryer then back for it at the end of the drying process. There is a risk of having things stolen by not being there to guard them, though. I think what annoys me is the sound of all those washers and dryers running at once. Hard to really pin it down to any one thing, though.

Sometimes I come home feeling like I was hit with a shovel no matter where I was.
Just being away from home itself can drain me to death.

They're horrorshows. Manky old washers, coin drawers that stick and are gummed up with old detergent, hot scented dryer air, noise, alarming people milling, ugh ugh ugh. And the floors, don't get me started on the floors.

Yes, I've had that feeling before, although not after having spent extended amounts of time in a laundromat, specifically. It's happened to me following other sensorially-taxing events or just instances in which I have gone through extreme psychological and emotional stress.