I Have A Spasm

This is going to be the weirdest post ever.

Okay, so I get these spasms in my muscles. Twitches if you will.

I've heard other people talk about this, particularly people who work out. So, I know it's not just me.

The thing is, I am and always have been completely obsessed with them. If you didn't think I was weird before, brace yourself.

It's not from working out either. I've had them since I was a wee child. And I've always been obsessed with them.

I used to think, as a wee child, that it was a "pulse" of some sort, like blood trapped in my capillaries or something. I have since been educated that it is muscle. I still joke with my husband saying "it's blood! It's a pulse gone awry!", so he will be happy to know that I am finally admitting that it's muscle.

In case you have no idea what I'm talking about...you know how sometimes when you are tired you get that twitch in you eye? It's like that, except I get them all over my body at various times. Here are all the places I have gotten twitches/spasms (never at the same time, mind you):

1) Eye lid (upper and lower, either together or separate)
2) Lip (upper and lower)
3) Nose in various parts
4) Temple ( get this a lot - right above temple actually)
5) Various parts of my scalp
6) Neck (very common)
7) Stomach
8) Various parts of arms and legs
9) Clitoris (not kidding - I like those)
10) Other parts of the private region
11) Back
12) And the best twitches of all - the ones that originate somewhere else, but then cause an appendage to twitch - like it originates somewhere in my forearm causing a finger to twitch. Or in my foot causing a toe to twitch. It causes the appendage to move in a way that you could never move it manually or on purpose, and it's realllly weird....oooohhhh!

How I am obsessed (if you couldn't tell already):

A) I think part of the reason I'm obsessed is that I am so damn aware of them. They cannot be ignored. When I ask others about it, they are like, 'I dunno, maybe I get them, not sure'. I know where I get them and when.

B) Likewise, when I have them, I can barely function. I have to stop what I'm doing and look at them. I alternate between looking at them, touching them, and looking at them in the mirror. Sometimes, like if I have one in my leg, I like to lay down and put an object on the spasm and watch *it* move, like a book, pencil, or a coaster or something.

The best, and weirdest thing to do is to take a piece of chewed gum, stick it on the spasm, and then stick a toothpick in the gum and watch the toothpick move. It's really creepy. These are best for those subtle, really deep spasms that you can feel happening within the muscle, but can't feel with your hands and you can't see. The toothpick/gum combo reveals all.

C) I also feel a compulsion to make others feel it or see it, but this is a privilege only people really close to me get to share (I don't make public announcements regarding my weirdness. Well, I guess this is one of sorts, but the audience is small). When I was younger, it was my best friend forced to look at or feel all my spasms (not the genitalia ones).

My parents also have had their fair share of being forced to look at them, to the point where they ignore me when I request they look. My mom ended up exclaiming "go to the doctor then!", so I quit showing her.

Now, my darling husband gets spasm duty, and he almost always obliges. He's very good that way. I get to look at and feel his occasional spasms, too. His nose is the place his spasms like to go. We can even kickstart it if it stops by flicking his nose with my fingers. Then it really gets mad and twitches like crazy.

My spasms do have a habit of stopping once I get someone to look at it. So if I want it to stop, I ask Matt to look at it. I love it when he catches it in action though. It's total validation of what I have to suffer through. I always say, "How am I supposed to function while I have this spasm going on"? Another common thing to say in my house: when I stop mid-conversation and stare at my arm, for example, I need only say "spasm" and Matt knows what I'm doing. In fact, he says it for me much of the time.


You can imagine my delight when I was pregnant. Those were the wet dreams of spasms. They weren't true spasms in that it was not my muscles moving, but it felt almost exactly the same, except much better. I'm talking about baby moving. First the kicking, then the rolling around and out and out moving from one side to the other. I also did the thing where I put an object on my belly to watch it move, mostly the remote control. And my baby was game, too - what a mover he was. I had my hands on my belly all the time to feel the moving and bumping and twitching, and at work, I spent half my time staring at or feeling my belly. It made it very difficult to drive b/c I wanted to feel it then, too, as I do all my spasms.

I probably need more vitamins. Or therapy.

The spasm I have today is in my left thigh. Actually, it rotates between my thigh and left calf. It's intriguing. Okay, time to feel the spasm again. Gotta go.

(and people who wonder in what way I was a nerd in high school, here ya go!)