I hurt myself because of autism brain and now that it’s over, it’s funny.
Well, it’s funny to me, anyway lol!
Back in 2012, my mom had major surgery and was out of commission for awhile, so I was in charge of washing dishes and helping her get stuff down to cook dinner. Basically I was her hands and feet for everything but the actual cooking and washing the cooking pots / utensils part. (They were very hot and she didn’t want me to hurt myself touching them.) She went to wash the pots and pans after cooking and remarked that the water I filled the sink with was barely warm.
I’m extremely heat sensitive, so to me the water was hot. I said as much and mom told me the water has to be really hot so the dishes get disinfected as well as clean. I was making up for that by being very thorough with the scrubbing, since friction builds up heat that kills germs too. But it was mom advice and I told myself to follow that to the letter. Since that was the last time she needed me to be her hands and feet, it would be awhile before the situation came up again.
Mom was late getting dinner started because she had a dentist emergency (broken tooth, she’s fine). I wanted to help, so I fed Monroe, started the water on as hot as it’ll go and filled up the dishes side of the kitchen sink. I threw in the soap and did mom’s trick of bending forward until my eyes were level with the counter and shut the water off as soon as the dish soap foam appeared above the lip of the sink.
The water wasn’t quite scalding hot, but it’s much hotter than the showers I take. My mom has zero problems touching water this hot, so I know this is a skin / sensory issues for me. I ran some cold water to take the bite out of it. Then I had to reach in fast to grab things, wash them, rinse and put them in the dish rack. It hurt so bad that I was shrieking. I reached in real fast, grabbed and yanked, but I don’t have great coordination all the time. Sometimes I reached, pulled and THEN closed my fingers, so I kept missing my grabs, dropping stuff back in the water or not reaching in far enough to grab anything. I shrieked in pain each time I had to plunge my hand into that inferno and I started to feel the pain all up my arm. I alternated hands, but my left hand is about as useful as an octopus doing ballet when I need to be fast with it. (I’m right handed.)
But fifteen minutes later, crying in pain, I looked over at the dish rack full of clean cereal bowls, spoons and butter knives from lunchtime and told myself I did a good job.
I have first degree burns on my knuckles. I held my hands under the cold water until they stopped hurting and I stopped crying. They sting like a very faint sunburn and look slightly red, but that’s it.
I told mom about it when she got home and she said I was supposed to run warm water that’s comfortable to me to wash the breakfast / lunch stuff, then run it hot so it’ll sit and be cooler once it’s time to wash up after dinner.
“But you said it has to be hot,” I told her.
Mom said back, “Yeah, but you don’t handle hot water as well as I do. It’s okay to let it sit and cool a little bit first since you scrub things for a long time before you rinse.”
I just facepalmed and went, “Autism brain strikes again.”
I took her instructions from 2012 literally because she said hot water.
She did appreciate that I tried to help, so there’s that. I still think it was worth it to give her a break.
This is why I wouldn’t be safe cooking anything more complicated than a grilled cheese sandwich. I can do the mac ‘n cheese with hot dogs if mom writes the instructions down. But I could really misinterpret an instruction and hurt myself or ruin the food. It’s safer if someone else does that.
tl;dr Took dishwashing instructions literally and burned my hands with hot water. I’m fine, it’s just first degree burns. Feels like sunburn, damage is minimal.
