menthol hill nest

SORRY FOR THE VERY PERSONAL COMIC!!

This is my half of “Unhealthy”, an essay comic double header with the lovely and talented Sarah Winifred Searle. She and I both wrote about our personal experiences as overweight ladies with eating disorders, and her story is breathtaking! You can buy a physical copy of the book here: https://topatoco.com/collections/abby-howard/products/ah-unhealthy

- Make sure the place where you’re going is accessible!  Your date might opt to use a wheelchair that day, and if they’re using a cane, best to make sure there aren’t a silly number of stairs involved in whatever date you’re considering.

- Call ahead to the place to see if wheelchairs are available to borrow if you’re going somewhere that involves a lot of walking and standing around, like a museum.

- If your date is using a cane, they likely only have one arm to hold things.  Consider bringing their food/drinks to the table along with yours– let them claim a booth while you get the food!

- Be prepared and willing to be someone’s physical support sometimes, especially if your date is having a rough leg day.

ask yourself, really ask yourself if you’re fine with plans being cancelled at the last second, cancelled mid-event, and for plans to often be “come over to my house and lump on the couch with me” - if you aren’t? don’t date somebody with chronic pain/fatigue. especially if you will take that sort of thing personally and/or hold it against the person. if you date me, you date my disabilities. i have to deal with them, so do you.

if you are grocery shopping with someone who uses a mobility aid like a cane or rollator, and that person is pushing the cart? DO. NOT. MOVE. THE CART. while they are using the cart, it is taking the place of their normal mobility aid and moving it is like moving their leg. DON’T DO IT. i have fallen in grocery stores more times than i want to think about due to an ex who couldn’t get it through his head that THIS IS MY CANE RIGHT NOW and would just grab the basket and drag it somewhere.

if your date says “no, it’s fine, i’ve got it” when you try to do something? let them. just let them. my disabilities takes so much away from me, the things i can actually do are things i am proud of. it makes me feel better to be able to do things for myself. i detest nothing more than an able-bodied person INSISTING on doing something that i can do myself, even though i’ve said multiple times that i’d prefer to do it myself. it says volumes on what that person really thinks of my abilities as a functional human, none of them positive. i get that you’re trying to help, but i promise, taking away what autonomy we do have? not helpful.

learn to tell your date beforehand what the date will entail. learn to look for the things your date would need to know. i had an ex that never factored in things like “walking half a mile” or “it’s a three story walkup with no elevator” because those things were no problem for him. i, on the other hand, would arrive at the destination crying from pain and unable to enjoy a damn thing - and exhausted in advance by knowing i’d have to repeat the journey just to get back home. don’t be afraid to ask your date what things they need to have taken into consideration. ask what accessibility options are necessary for them when it comes to cane/wheelchair access, how much access there is to regular seating, how much walking will happen, how many stairs there are. if you go to a movie and the only parking is way in the back, ask if they’d rather you drop them up front while you get a spot - because sometimes traversing a large parking lot is the difference between watching a movie and sleeping through it, or being too distracted by pain to follow it. by and large, we know our limitations and it means the world to have someone say “hey i want to take you to this exhibit, i think you’d really enjoy it! there’s several stairs to the entrance and the wheelchair ramp is kind of obnoxiously far away, so it’s either a bunch of walking or deal with stairs to get in there, but once you’re inside there’s a lot of comfortable benches and not a whole lot of walking.” because they thought about how you navigate the environment. 

if your date is using a rollator or wheelchair, make sure your car (or whatever form of transportation you are going to be using) has space to put it. don’t ask me out to the renaissance faire and then show up in a CRX and look confused when i say my rollator can’t go in that so i’ve gotta stay home.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/finuccinialfredo/

I learned about this the other day, when I posted about palinopsia (visual trailing/afterimages) being common in autistic people, and a couple of our followers told me about their VSS. I did some more research, and discovered that I also have it.

Visual Snow Syndrome is a neurological condition that interferes with visual processing. It’s caused by hyperactivity and hyper-excitability of nerves in certain areas of the brain that process visual information.

The core feature of VSS is constantly seeing tiny, fuzzy “feedback” in the environment. It’s kind of like seeing the world through a staticky TV screen. Some people’s visual static is larger than others. Mine is relatively fine-grained, but it gets bigger and more obvious in low lighting.

Some of the other symptoms of VSS include:

Palinopsia (visual trailing/afterimages)

Photophobia (sensitivity to light)

Increased and enhanced ectopic phenomenon, such as floaters, phosphenes, and Scheerer’s phenomenon

Seeing glare, starbursts, and halos around lights

Difficulty seeing at night/in the dark

Seeing random flashes of light and/or color, without cause from the environment

It’s common for people with VSS to experience comorbid migraines, but VSS is not the same thing as migraine aura.

So, why do autistic people often have VSS?

It comes down to the fact that VSS is caused by the hyper-excitability of neurons in areas of the brain that process visual information. A core feature of autism is hyper-excitable neurons, especially in areas of the brain that have to do with sensory processing. So it makes sense that autism would often inadvertently cause VSS.

Here are some illustrations of visual phenomenon that VSS causes, in case you want a better understanding of what the world looks like for me and many other autistic people.

Visual snow/static:

Palinopsia/image trailing:

Scheerer’s Phenomenon (tiny bright moving dots):

Starbursts around lights:

Floaters:

I hope y’all have learned something :)

I’ve found it very intriguing to realize that the way I see the world is more unique than I once knew!

do stuff while waiting for other stuff

like that sounds intuitive and vague but so much of the day is spent in a period of wait and if you struggle to motivate yourself to do things then this is the best time

waiting for your water to boil? bag up your garbage. waiting for your coffee to drip? wipe down your counters. roommate taking up the bathroom? scoop the cat box. waiting for your food to cook in the microwave? do however many dishes you can while it’s in there. 

“How many chores can I do while the water is boiling for my tea?”

“Can I put away the dishes and wipe the counters before my lunch finishes reheating?”

“Can I sweep the floor AND change the laundry while the dogs are out back?”

They may look like the person has become calmer and less involved, dismissive, even. Some people become intensely subservient and silent. Some become catatonic.

Panic doesn’t always involve screaming, crying, and obvious signs of distress. It involves an extreme form of the person’s fear response – which can be altered by circumstance, ability, and what they’ve learnt to fear.

Let’s say that maybe, after hundreds of hours of self-training like the person above has put themselves through…let’s say that just maybe, you can speak and sound like you don’t have a verbal disability:

as long as you aren’t too tired

as long as you’re prepared to deal with the constant stress & anxiety

as long as you’re able to put up with a long recovery time after socializing

as long as you’re willing to spend hours and hours practicing & overthinking & preparing & agonizing over something that comes naturally to other people

as long as you don’t feel entitled to actually enjoy the conversation

as long as you’re willing to feel stilted & anxious & self-conscious & exhausted no matter how successful your ‘performance’ is

as long as you’re willing to put in 100x the effort other people have to

Stop telling people “Oh you aren’t really [x]. you seem normal.” 

It can also manifest in additional types of manipulation & enmeshment, where the child (even once they’re an adult) isn’t “allowed” to have their own problems, emotional realities, or independence without the abusive caregiver making it about them in some way as an attempt to destroy self-other boundaries between themselves & the child, and keep themselves at the center of attention / both parties’ lives.

The caregiver / parent often also lashes out if & when the child rejects the role they have been forced into, reveals the caregiver’s secrets, or defies or disagrees with the caregiver when the caregiver is seeking the child’s “support.” The “punishment” can be direct or indirect, but often bears the hallmarks of psychological & physical partner abuse (emotional withdrawal, destruction of property, making the child feel as if the caregiver’s actions are their fault for not giving in to their requests, etc.).

Links:

GoodTherapy - Enmeshment

GoodTherapy - Emotional Incest

Understanding Covert Incest

Emotional Incest

Childhood Covert Incest and Adult Life

okay

2. Paying attention to what you’re doing ; changing and completing tasks

3. Ability to direct your focus ; ability to process what you’re doing

4. Understanding & expressing emotions in healthy ways

5. y’know that thing where you put something down and it’s Gone Now? That’s an example of this. Things sticking in your short-term memory, you being able to remember them.