#wardengrey

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE, TAKE CARE OF THEM

I literally cannot stress this enough. I don’t care what you’re doing with your hands: typing, drawing, knitting, writing, sewing, gardening, sculpting, pottery, mail delivery, lab-work, IT DOESN’T MATTER--all these small movements, precision movements, heighten the chances that you’ll get carpal tunnel syndrome.

What is Carpal Tunnel Syndrome?

You’ve likely heard of it before. Your favorite artist(s) probably complain that they can’t draw for extended periods of time now.

“Carpal tunnel syndrome is a condition that causes numbness, tingling and other symptoms in the hand and arm. Carpal tunnel syndrome is caused by a compressed nerve in the carpal tunnel, a narrow passageway on the palm side of your wrist.” (Via the Mayo Clinic)

The nerves in your hands and wrists have a casing, like the rubber or plastic around cords and wires that are all over your house/apartment/dwelling. When you do too much repetitive movements, these casings get tighter and constrict the nerves. This leads to tingling, numbing, constantly cold fingers, etc. 

BUT THAT’S NOT THE HALF OF IT.

GUYS. I’M SO WORRIED FOR ANYONE WHO USES THEIR HANDS. MY MOM WAKES UP IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT CRYING BECAUSE HER PAIN IS SO BAD. Her hands numb up, circulation up to her neck gets cut off, and her whole arm goes numb. Her muscles tense up too. I have to hold her glass of water sometimes because she’ll drop it. She’s only 46 and she already can’t button her shirts. Sometimes she can’t grip the steering wheel and someone has to drive in her place. The tips of her fingers have been numb since the start of the summer--it’s been 3 months. She can pick hot food up with them and not get burned because her nerve ends are dying. (The doctors in America say this is irreversible, but my aunt in Jordan who is also a surgeon says that the tips of her fingers were also numb but after she did a surgery to open the nerve casings, the nerves came back to life--only possible if you do an operation immediately.)

You guys, this is a serious condition but there are remedies. 

As mentioned, surgeries are available. They open up your wrist and open the casings to free the nerves, giving them more mobility--freeing them from constriction. You can’t use your hands for 3 or so months, but after that you’re free to do whatever.

massages and stretches. All these do the work to loosen muscles and nerves to stretch them out, to help them be more pliable. YOU HAVE TO DO THESE. They help a ton, I promise. My mom recently started going to physical therapy, but because she has moderate-to-severe carpal tunnel in both hands, all she can do is manage the pain.

braces. You can pick these up at a local drugstore for ~$15 (US) or get them from your doctor. These braces have a piece of metal in them arranged at an angle designed to stretch out the nerves. It relaxes the muscles and nerves. Please get a pair if you think you’ll have carpal tunnel for a while 

lotions, salves, and essential oils. These can help relax muscles and nerves to alleviate pain and make it easier to stretch or sleep

not a remedy but: invest in thicker writing utensils. Like the kind kindergartners use. Fat pencils and crayons and pens make gripping easier and lessen the tension on how tight you have to hold the pen. I have a friend who writes a single check and has to take a break because her hand goes numb. Get thicker pens.

(link for more info)

IF YOU CATCH CARPAL TUNNEL EARLY ENOUGH, YOU CAN REVERSE OR REMEDY THE EFFECTS FOR A LONG TIME. 

I’m not diagnosed and I’m not a doctor but I know what it feels like. I know what it looks like to have someone deal with untreated carpal tunnel. 

Please please please please take care of your hands. There are so many people I want to tag, so many creators, but I can’t reach them all. Please share this and please care for your hands. Because of the rising rate of technology and touch-screens, the rate of those who experience carpal tunnel is going up and they get diagnosed much younger. (2011 stats) (Breakdown of risk factors)

I KNOW THIS IS LONG. I’M SORRY.

wardengrey : I personally think the creators handled it extremely well given the circumstances, and while the fan feedback is critical, I dont think anyone is able to offer real solutions. Everyone is pointing out whats wrong, but not saying how to do it right.

a few artists I’d recommend checking out:

Sachin Teng

Griz and Norm

Olivia Margraf-Posta

Celia Lowenthal

Tobias Kwan

Eliza Ivanova

Even Amundsen

Janhree

I don’t think I’ve ever existed unapologetically and never felt myself represented. (You know, as you would expect but to be honest I was blindsided by this. Like I never expected representation to affect me this strongly.) I spent a lot of time estranging myself so completely from Muslim and Arab communities because I didn’t want to be taken as “one of them” or whatever variation and brand the world has and so when I started writing, I never wrote about myself, my experiences, or had any Muslim characters in my stories ever. I started to notice that my writing, instead of rising above and using diction I normally appreciated, leveled out and was very simple. I cared a lot about the logistics rather than the majesty of whatever I was creating. I tried to write one (1) story about a Muslim girl for a class and it was spectacular fail and excruciatingly painful and hard to write. I lost interest within 3 or so weeks. I tried to figure out why this was, maybe I wasn’t using story elements properly, maybe I wasn’t engaging with the scene right, maybe my characters were flat, etc. The answer was right in front of me but I refused to see it. I wasn’t capable of writing complex and realistic Muslim characters because I’d never seen it done before.

Writing the content I needed for myself would put me in a box; the only Muslim girl in class writes about Muslim girls, it’s not surprising, people scoff, expect me to talk about that, and put me in a light that I didn’t want to be in. I confided in a few friends about this, about feeling like I can’t write X without feeling Y but I can’t not write X without feeling Z and some of their responses were “what’s stopping you?” and the answer is, nothing concrete, but all the pressure and the eyes and the negative emotions makes me want to stop and turn around and exist quieter and never say a thing again. The problem is I care far too much about what people think but I can’t not. I have to be aware of how people see me or it could get dangerous, so comments like “what’s stopping you’’ or “why not” hurt so badly. I’ve never encountered such a blatant display of representative privilege until now; the lack of understanding of my helplessness or my desire to just see myself positively represented in media without feeling like I have to be the one to do it. I just want the privilege of not needing to be the one to create the representation that I need.

This whole summer I’ve been trying to reconcile with these emotions, to try and create things that I can be proud of, to try and remedy the lack of representation. It.. hasn’t been working very well. I'm not at a place where I can create content like that without it feeling forced or uncomfortable or overexplained. I still feel like I can’t just exist to exist. I still feel like I have to write simply and plainly and explain every detail, as if to justify why it’s there—as if to justify why I’m here. It hurts a lot and what saddens me even more is I keep invalidating myself because others feel this too, @wardengrey, you probably felt the same and yet you’re out here creating amazing content that I weep over because it’s so beautiful and I still can’t walk out my front door without feeling like I have to explain why I am. When I read what the Boy/Bye Kickstarter was about, when I really took a good look at it, I started crying. There’s not one, but TWO scarved girls being unapologetic and sassy and confident. The girl in the red scarf and the yellow shirt looks like me. Like honestly, I wear that style of clothes, those colors, same general face shape, even the same style of hijab. This kickstarter couldn’t have come at a better time than this for me, really. I procrastinated so badly on pledging for this because I’ve never given any thought to anything I really wanted, as if I don’t deserve anything like this.

Seeing someone in a hijab making art with hijabis in it means so much more to me than I could say in a few paragraphs. I was sobbing writing this because I feel so strongly and I know representation has a direct influence on how marginalized and underrepresented groups see and interact with the world. Before, I knew the statistics and heard the stories and fought so hard to change it for everyone, but I hope I can get to a place where I can exist and create and fight for me, alongside so many others who work so hard to accurately represent people so they don’t have to feel the pain that I’m feeling now.

Overall I just wanted to say thank you, @wardengrey for helping me get one step closer, for creating art that I see myself in, directly, when no one else has. Thank you for creating a space in which I feel represented and unapologetically so. Thank you for creating a project that is centered on the lighthearted solidarity that should be commonplace but isn’t.

Just, thank you, so much for creating this. I truly hope the kickstarter gets you to create in places you dreamed of because you deserve it. You deserve to have someone create content that you feel represented in without you needing to lift a finger. I really hope that one day I can do that for you, but for now, I’ll just stick with thanking you from the bottom of my heart. There’s only 15 hours left on the kickstarter as of right now (1:21am PST) and I know this won’t do much advertising, but that’s not really my goal.

Thats SO gross and you gave the best revenge. Good for you hun.