'My face is full of pins.' What happened when I went into sensory overload in public.

My eyes are closed, but I can see everything. 

My eyes are closed, but the man cheering after shooting all three baskets and winning an oversized Finding Nemo plushie for his girlfriend has a wiry ginger beard, a deep blue shirt, and shoes that squeak when he walks. My eyes are closed but the smell of body odour, hair gel and body spray tells me that there is a group of seven boys, between 16 and 19 running past me to join the line for the Haunted House. 

My eyes are closed, but the woman in the red food truck wearing a velcro visor in the same hue has just put on a new set of plastic gloves that rustle when she dunks the dagwood dog into the vat of tomato sauce.

Watch: Kate Page talks about adult ADHD on SBS Insight. Post continues after video.

I was tasked with getting lemonade from the stand across the way, and returning to my group. They’re getting the food, or finding a table – I can’t remember. I am now holding paper cups of ice and lemonade, and I can’t move.

My boots plant themselves firmly in the gravel, and I can feel the tiny rocks under my platforms like I am a princess standing on peas. Thick beads of condensation drip down my wrists from the paper cups, the lemonade and ice threaten to spill over. I am a hazard. I am a roadblock. But I have no choice. It is happening whether I ask it to or not. To be fair, I never ask.

Everything that was soft now has razor-sharp edges, and even the most lacklustre colours are now set to maximum saturation. It’s kind of beautiful, but I know it’s not fun from here.

It begins dancing on my lips, piercing phantom incisions into my skin with pins and needles. The pins tickle my nose and the needles puncture my cheeks, again and again, and again. My face is now full of pins. And all too quickly, I am carrying a helmet of static on my shoulders. It’s strangling my carotid arteries with both hands. It’s in my throat. I am swallowing static and my mouth is full of coins.

Talecia at the Easter Show. Image: Supplied.

The lemonade in my hand is fresh, with little bits in it. The good lemonade. I want to bring it to my lacerated lips, so I can’t taste the static, or the coins, but my arm is strapped to my body. The pins have reached my hands, and they’re dancing over my fingertips like they’re in a dance-a-thon, competing against those who are twirling their girls on my face. They’re really going for it.

My brain feels like bark, ready for the woodchipper. I can feel the splinters. The lemonade stand is suddenly serving lighter fluid, and one match could send the place up in flames. Is it hot or has someone set the lemonade stand on fire? Is my static helmet too tight? Does this full-body suit of static make my ass look fat? If I could figure out how to bend my knees and sit on this gravel right now, I’d be sitting in a kiddy pool of static. Even without the kiddy pool, I am wearing floaties around my arms, ankles, wrists and neck made out of chains. I doubt I’ll float, but it’s nice to be prepared.

I try to focus my breathing and remember how to actually do that. One in, one out – how hard can that be? 

My lungs feel shallow, like even if I could redistribute enough energy for breathing, there mightn’t be enough room in there to make a difference anyway. My tiny lungs are so small, and they’re getting smaller. My lungs are the door to Wonderland, and I have a tag wrapped around my entire body, cutting my skin with elastic, that says ‘Eat Me’. 

I count the beeps that I can hear from across the way. I think the beeps are a car alarm. The beeps are far, but I can hear them. The beeps are dull, but frequent. They are slicing through my brain in threes. One. Two. Three. Rest. It’s nice when there’s a break. But after the break comes three more beeps, each set of three singing in a sharper falsetto than the previous. Although it's causing pain, it’s something to focus on. I suddenly can’t imagine life without the beeps. And I am relying on them for stability. I don’t know what to do if the beeps stop, but I won’t let myself think like that.

Listen to Mia Freedman talk about her ADHD diagnosis on No Filter. Post continues after podcast.

“I found a table for us!” calls my sister. My eyes open too fast, and the floodlights lining the walkway promptly thrust me into a luminescent hellscape. My boots walk over without me, crunching the gravel like tiny teeth below the tread. I sit down and I say nothing. I nod along. I swallow the last of the coins in my throat, and take a swig of lighter fluid. 

The ice touches my tooth but I welcome the temperature sensitivity. The bits of lemon flesh remind me that this is lemonade, not lighter fluid. It is sweet, it is sour and tangy. It zings in my mouth and my nose, and zaps the static stuck in my sinuses. The glaze that was coating my eyeballs, dissipates. My sister sits diagonally from me and two of my friends fill out a perfect quad on the picnic table. 

My eyes are open, and I can see again.

I am at The Sydney Royal Easter Show. And despite the fact that this is Australia’s largest annual ticketed event, drawing an average of 828,000 patrons each year, I could feel sensory overload like this with not a single person in the room.

Image: Supplied + Mamamia.