Lindsey deGruy Monday Is Pepto Bismol Pink (Narrat Essays

Lindsey deGruy Monday Is Pepto Bismol Pink (Narrat Essays Lindsey deGruy Monday Is Pepto Bismol Pink (Narrative on Synesthesia) " What color is three ' to you? I ask my friend, upon explaining that for me, it's a soft shade of forest green. We're seven years old and splayed out on towels under the hot Las Vegas sun, trying our best to keep up conversation amid a mouthful of popsicle. My curiosity is met with a confused stare and a response along the lines of, what do you mean? This was the first time I realized that the way I perceive things is different than that of my peers. It was also the first in a long line of questions that I eventually just stopped asking. Up until the age of twelve, I felt like an outsider. It wasn ' t a loneliness issue I had plenty of friends. The dilemma was that I didn't understand how no ne of them saw colors, shapes, and patterns when they listened to music ; why to me, the month of July was an aggressive shade of orange and tasted li ke cream soda while to them , it was simply July. I couldn ' t comprehend the thought of Wednesday adjusting itself anywhere but above one ' s left nostril, couldn ' t wrap my head around the notion of a stomachache being anything but warped and winding wisps of yellow and blue. My seeing and feeling things this way may not sound like it was overly detrimental to my wellbeing during my developmental years because, at a surface level, it wasn ' t. After all, there was no real communication barrier, and physically (besides a nasty habit of walking on my toes) I was just as able as everyone else. I could do whatever it was my friends were doing without any real problems arising. Problems did spring up, however, at times when it was necessary for me to convey my thoughts and feelings to others. Experiencing things differently from those I was surrounded by made that communication process one that is already difficult for most youth even tougher. M y perceptual dissimilarities were something that could be easily brushed off or avoided, but the issue was that I never could (and sometimes still can ' t) tell whether the way I viewed something was the same way as everyone else did or unique to me only. In each of the few instances that I did open up, I ' d gotten nothing in return but a quizzical or sometimes even critical reaction, leaving me to feel as though there was something wrong with me from a very small age. These feelings dissipated and left a whole new world of possibility trailing behind them when I was searching for a project topic in eight h grade. I went to a project-based school where, instead of following a strict curriculum, we had to work independentl y, choosing topics that both interested us and fit within state guidelines. The requirement being that I chose something in the science category, I decided to go the psychology route and look at a list of unpopular neurological conditions. The alphabetized list contained brief descriptions of each one. I skimmed through it to no immediate avail and was on the brink of giving up when something caught my eye : a phenomenon called " synesthesia . " There was and still is a serious research deficit on the topic, but it was described, in short, as the involuntary crossing of the senses ; and the so-called symptoms were strikingly familiar . It wasn ' t just a " me " thing after all. People with synesthesia all experience it differently, but one thing is definite: they don't undergo emotions and perceptions or see the world on the quite the same spectrum as someone without it. Simply put, the definition of synesthesia according to William James is " a peculiar combining of sense perceptions. " This means the crossing of any two senses or more , however, and senses affect everyone exclusively; so a lot less s imply put, there are literally infinite crosses, combinations , and results synesthesia can produce. Some people obtain the ability to taste shapes , some