Sometimes I become hyper-aware of the area around my collarbone and it gets very distracting. It is most noticeable when reading and sometimes when trying to sleep. It can get to a point where I have to stop reading because of how distracting it is, and also makes it harder fall asleep.
Has anyone had anything like this and/or know of any ways to alleviate it?
Whoah, I have this, except it also extends to my jaw area and under the chin, maybe even back of neck. People touching there will make me gag, but clothing, hair, and even air can trigger a gag response from me. I usually associate this with being anxious, particularly used to be bad with travel anxiety or test anxiety or public speaking. In rare cases, I’ve associated it with eating something bad or sickening (including junk food or food poisoning or eating too much).
Sorry, I don’t have a cure. But it did start happening less often after I hit my 20s. maybe since I got more used to travel and graduated and stopped needing to take tests. Still happens a few times a year.
Since mine is related to gag reflex, actually gagging/retching kinda resets it for me, and often makes me feel slightly better after a bit.
Hyper aware of what? Like that it exists or something touching your collarbone?
It’s both. If I have a shirt on I become hyper aware of my shirt touching my collarbone. If I’m not wearing a shirt I’m aware that it exists. When I’m not wearing a shirt it’s like I feel how my skin stretches from my neck to my shoulder, or how my skin folds between my chin and my collarbone.
Could your skin be dry?
That could be a possibility, I do have dry skin.
Yeah, I absolutely get that level of sensory overwhelm when my skin is dry and cracking or just about to be so dry it’s cracking. Try some basic moisturiser with no fragrance daily for a week, if that works, keep it up.
For me it’s from the collarbone up to the chin, especially the front. I can’t stand having t-shirts with collars that sit anywhere in this zone. I remember as a kid the collars on my t-shirts would be soaking wet because I would hold them in my mouth to keep from touching my neck. My solution is to wear low cut or V-neck tops. I sleep on my side on two pillows, this means most of my neck isn’t touching the pillow very directly, just the upper part and on the side. Also don’t like the ‘double chin’ touching my neck when I look down so I have been ‘mewing’ for decades to avoid it. I only learned it’s called mewing recently, and no it doesn’t tone your jaw (not what I was doing it for anyway)
Yeah everything you described is exactly how it is for me. I even held shirt collars in my mouth as a kid too.
I kind of get this, but it’s not specific to any particular body part. Usually it’s if I feel something slightly different than normal, like a fingernail that’s just a little bit too long, and I will unconsciously fidget with it for the next hour or two.