welp, that giant can of worms and BAGGAGE just opened up here oh hai PTSD trigger
😟 Oh Joyce, honey, you didn’t need to tell them that anything that specific about the referral, if anything at all.
Whatever comes of this, whatever Joyce decides to do with this referral and its HEAVY implications, my biggest hope is that her friends totally and completely respect her wishes.
I know exactly what Joyce is feeling right now, how hard she’s trying to repress it, that spiral of emotions. 😖😖😖
I know all too well how it feels to have the ability to decide for yourself who you are just RIPPED AWAY FROM YOU by the uncontrollable circumstances of your birth, and other humans, “professionals”, “friends” who act like what they’re doing is “compassion”.
She didn’t have to tell them anything, but it’s good that she did. Joyce is clearly having issues, and her friends(and Dina) are good people who have additional perspectives that she needs.
I’m sorry that this is a stress trigger for you! 🙁 Plus it sucks when people who are supposed to help don’t, or they assume what’s best for you and don’t get your input.
I had a doctor at a university clinic prescribe me an ADHD medication that had too many side effects at the dose where it actually worked – worsened anxiety and appetite loss (except for sugary stuff – I lost weight when I didn’t want to AND got like 4 cavities).
Not to knock the drug itself – I know at least two people who are doing great on Vyvanse – but different people react differently to the same stuff.
Anyway, he should have followed up better and listened to me about my symptoms. I was also annoyed because I assumed he was a psychiatrist and then found out he was a GP (in retrospect that’s understandable, because the school didn’t have infinite resources and my case wasn’t a life-or-death issue). When I did see a psychiatrist, she actually listened and was much more helpful…not that all psychiatrists are helpful, of course, but that one was!
A diagnosis is a mixed blessing. It puts you in a different drawer that might be a better place to work from. Similar to medication: in my case it increased productivity and decreased the already rather limited competency and patience I had dealing with people of perceived lower comprehension (essentially everybody). It was a net loss for being a productive member of society. Sometimes not being an asshole is important.
I once had a roommate I was randomly paired with in college bring in a bunch of her family (that I had never met) to “explain to me that I had Asperger’s Syndrome”. It almost felt like those interventions that you see on TV, except the only person I sort of knew was my roommate and they were going on about how it wasn’t a bad thing even though they were blaming my personality and reactions to some stuff on it. Considering I have a cousin that works scientifically on that syndrome and strongly said that I don’t have it, it was weird to say the least. After that, I really think that you have to be careful talking to someone about stuff like that even if you think that you are helping. Most people want someone to listen, and will let you know if they want your thoughts on the matter. I might not always be the best about it, but I try. I just know that your fifth paragraph really hits on the feelings that I had at the time. I know that some people find diagnoses like that helping as it can help explain things for them. That doesn’t mean that it’s that way for everyone. It can also sort of feel like they are saying that if it wasn’t for this condition you would be a better person. They might not mean it that way, but it can come across like that. Like a denial of the way you are being fine and normal, which can feel like a rejection of your very being, if that makes sense. Things like that are not something like a drug addiction, though it feels like it is treated like that with trying to train or use medication to get rid of it. Sorry if I am rambling, your comment just really struck me.
It sounds like your roommate was an asshole.
She used your supposed diagnosis as proof that the way she was is normal and the way you thought was weird.
Wellerman, you perfectly summed up what happened when my mom “diagnosed” me at 14. Yes, I did get a proper diagnosis and second opinion later, but by that point the scientific proof was comforting. That initial burn of my own mother taking solace in having an explanation for “what was wrong with me” completely took the foundation out from under a teenager. A foundation most kids question at that age anyway.
As awful as it is to be forced into outing yourself, the successive clarifications of her previous sentiments feels very on brand for many regions of the neuro-diversity spectrum. Over-sharing is a widely recognize trait within the community from what I have seen
Would the two necessarily connected? Unless being autistic also gives you hypersensitivity to pain/cramps, if I told a doctor I had menstrual pain, I wouldn’t expect them to also be like “Yeah, i think there’s something wrong with your mental state too/you’re definitely not neurotypical” or so (I mean i do also have social anxiety issues but that’s beside the point lol) But i know some women are more sensitive to cramps while one only get their period for like 3 days instead of the average full week as well
idk if a doctor can ask about religious stuff but i wouldn’t think joyce’s family dynamic was too healthy growing up either but i never had religion forced upon me growing up
Medical personnel at the college should have access to a student’s personal records as well, right?
Before I’d dangle an autism eval, I think I’d first flip thru that report and take a moment to ask, “Are you seeing someone to help you deal with the kidnapping last fall?”
Yeah, I feel like regardless of how she presented, a referral to talk to someone about trauma is an obvious choice given her history, both recent and extended.
Hyper sensitivity to pain absolutely can be one of the sensory difficulties that can present if you’re autistic. So can insensitivity to pain. I don’t think we’ve seen Joyce exhibit either though.
That comment she made earlier about “talking sounds like a chainsaw to my spine” might be a tip-off. Like a kind of synesthesia. Like how a lightbulb’s hum can sound particularly shrill to the point of causing physical pain in some folks on the spectrum.
Obsessive and zealous adherence to the precise and predictable rituals of religious observance might have been a very familiar and comforting routine for a person with spectrum traits, too. Just thinking about family history.
We (here meaning AFAB autistics) apparently have a high rate of menstrual disorders, on VERY brief Google Search. Now, granted, I didn’t look further to ‘how much higher compared to the general population,’ and it could just as easily be a ‘we’re more likely to get diagnosed because it’s harder to ignore the pain when your body CANNOT SHUT OFF ITS AWARENESS’ the way I suspect autistic people being queer and particularly trans is really more a reflection the rates are way higher but we’re way more likely to declare social rules silly and ignore them if they don’t make sense to us. But if the doctor was already aware of that statistic and getting pings of recognition at Joyce, I could see her bringing it up… and it is VERY easy to see Joyce failing to mask given the stress she’s under and the commentariat’s speculation for like, the last decade.
BUUUT, I should also note that there’s current research looking into a theory that endometriosis is in some way an autoimmune disorder, and that it has become increasingly obvious that Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is REALLY underdiagnosed because it was only formally codified in 2007 or so and doctors haven’t been trained to look for it. (MCAS being an autoimmune disorder that can have a WIDE variety of ripple effects throughout your body, and which is part of this cluster of frequently-connected conditions including Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome… both of which have VERY disproportionately high co-occurrence rates with autism, to the point where there apparently are in fact theories that there’s a causal link somewhere in there.) So like… there actually is a possibility the two are, in fact, actively connected, almost certainly through a third systemic condition that would be a massive pain in Joyce’s ass to manage whether it’s EDS, MCAS, or both. Having been on this particular journey the last several months… I admit I’d kind of like seeing Joyce’s freakout faces when she got some of the shit I’ve been dealing with, especially trying to manage the increasingly-troublesome dietary restrictions. I wouldn’t wish it on another human, but DAMN have I been relating to Joyce’s Handling Medically Necessary Life Changes Poorly crisis with glasses pretty hard the last few months.
It could also just be Willis introducing something for narrative convenience when a doctor’s appointment was already being set up to bring something autobiographical, which Willis has at least been increasingly publicly identifying with for a couple years now, into the comic and confirming a long-held fan-theory.
Incidentally, Willis, if this IS your way of publicly stating you’re autistic, whether on-paper diagnosed or elsewise… congrats, if they’re something you’d appreciate? I know people have a wide spectrum of feelings on the subject, especially with formal diagnosis since it can open the door for some active discrimination in formal settings (bias against us as parents with adoption or custody hearings, struggles to get medical care while autistic and trans because how could we ACTUALLY know our own brains, perceived lower quality of life when talking about medical triage situations like organ donation or life support – and I urge anyone who wants to ask further questions THERE to Google ‘autism COVID deaths’ or something to that effect because I will NOT be doing that explanation tonight – point being, there are issues even beyond the standard assumed autism/‘weird’ discrimination,) but I also know you’ve been at least somewhat publicly identifying it on Twitter and such for a while now, so inasmuch as it’s a ‘figuring out your own identity and being public about it,’ that can be anxiety-provoking and I appreciate it being stated in the text of your work. This is rambling. Whatever.
… The spectrum pun in that last paragraph was not intentional. I so firmly claim ‘autistic’ as my identifier and have for years that I barely even THINK of the spectrum part anymore.
*slides in* EDSer with MCAS and POTS here! And yup this is spot on. Studies have shown both Autism and ADHD occur at high rates in people with EDS (and perhaps related conditions). I just got diagnosed with ADHD myself (which seems to have a decent amount of symptom overlap with Autism as well, curiously enough).
Technically I’m in a ‘we can’t diagnose it as hEDS because you don’t have the classic-type skin elasticity that distinguishes from HSD and any family member who COULD show a family history of hypermobility never got diagnosed before they developed arthritis even though there clearly IS familial hypermobility’ gray zone but hey, extremely similar hats. Internet gesture of solidarity.
Oof I’m sorry. Tbh that seems so much like it just depends on the doctor. I don’t have extreme skin elasticity either and my dr told me not all hEDS patients do (I have basically every other symptom including doughy skin texture, bruising, dislocations, easily tearing skin, etc) so he said the stretchy skin wasn’t necessary for dx. Some drs are still following outdated views though and thinking it’s mandatory for dx. :/
My doctor is actually quite good – she does think it’s EDS, just ‘yeah we can’t prove it until and unless they isolate that gene, and the diagnostic criteria are really specific now to the point they almost certainly have a few edge cases on either side in the wrong category, so we’re writing down HSD and treatment wouldn’t differ all that much anyway but you clearly have a connective tissue disorder.’ (I then got tested for other types.) I just like being specific and from what we can tell the connective tissue disorder may be ‘my immune system is attacking my collagen.’
My one grandma actually DID get diagnosed with hypermobility in her 40s (and didn’t tell us until I’d been diagnosed with hypermobility causing a repetitive stress injury,)… but she’s on the side of the family that isn’t where we have hypermobility, dysautonomia, balance, and GI issues all over the place, and none of her kids seem to have it. So we’re assuming it’s from the side where all my grandma’s siblings just cannot wrap their brains around the fact that it actually is unusual for one’s elbows to invert like that, because they can do it. What do you mean that’s not standard? (I love them all, they’re not being jerks about it, it’s simply so normalized that everyone in the family got growing pains that woke you in the night crying or can put their foot behind their head that the idea this ISN’T something everyone goes through does not compute. Fair enough, I missed the implication of my PTs telling me I hyperextended for years. A lot of weird genetic quirks on that side are now being reassessed.)
And yeah I sympathize on the lack of family history too. I’m lucky my dr overlooked that as I didn’t actually find out my grandma was hyper mobile until literally last month, 6 years after my diagnosis. Neither of my parents have really obvious symptoms (though my dad and I share some health issues) so it was a mystery where I got it from until then.
I kind of wonder if there’s another subtype division or if classifications will change again, as there seems to be a divide of some hEDS patients having stretchy skin (or maybe that’s more cEDS?) while tbh MOST of the ones I know don’t but just have extremely friable skin instead.
It means we don’t understand what it is exactly, the disorder at present is closer to a loose grouping of symptoms rather than a traceable process failure. Because biochemistry and biology are really really really fucking complicated.
We’re not sure about the correlation, it may be the other way around, or they may just be conditions linked to the same genes. We’re not really sure! I know some of the theories about the prevalence of Adhd in EDS patients are that reduced blood flow to the brain due to POTS (caused by stretchy veins) may play a role, but that’s just a theory and doesn’t necessarily explain it all, or what the autism link might be.
Oh, yeah, definitely. There are a lot of things which all seem to present with one another, and various stages of connective tissue issues (the hypermobility) and autism are well-known to be very heavily comorbid with each other.
Note: Also very likely connected to the hypermobility, because it’s all *connective tissue problems* are the following, if you have them –
Weird fainting spells
Weird heart problems
Migraines, including migraines without the headache part
Weird digestive issues, including but not limited to frequent bouts of constipation AND diarrhea
Weird hives – I can get hives just by carrying a cold can of soda or by scrubbing too hard in the shower
Anything at all having to do with the joints
Weird circulation issues
(This list is almost certainly incomplete.)
Normal people don’t say “Gosh, I have migraines AND weird joint issues, I wonder if those are connected?” they say “Welp, my grandma had weird joint issues and my mom has migraines, guess it’s just one of those things yay”, but if everything’s an issue, think “connective tissue”.
hEDSer here as well. I’ve been suspicious about possible ADHD or ADD but my therapist ran me through a basic assessment and I wasn’t even close to borderline. Thankfully I don’t have POTS and no indication of MCAS, but I did get a weird “by the way you have ‘a little bit of’ endo” diagnosis during my fibroid surgery (he took the liberty of attacking the endo with lasers since he was already in there). UGH at all of the things.
There are so many of us here! Hello fellow zebras!
And yeah I don’t know what it is specifically (inflammation or what) but almost everyone I know with EDS and a uterus seems to have various uterus/pms-related problems. I’ve never been formally dxd with anything like endo but I do get bad ovarian cysts and my periods were a NIGHTMARE pre-IUD. Much how Joyce’s have been.
*waves*
what a day to check in on the comments section – while I was away I found out HSD exists *and* that I’d been misinterpreting the beighton score. I don’t get a diagnosis because canada is like “no diagnose, only treat” when it comes to hypermobility disorders 😛 but I’m halfway through doing Muldowney on my own anyways. I have a feeling I’ve ranted about my health when I was around here years ago.
I’m so glad I haven’t seen mcas or pots symptoms yet (or real period trouble)… having my muscles randomly try to tear themselves apart is quite disruptive enough 😛 and the brain fog still isn’t really gone… I’m not even sure if that’s from the muscle issues or something else, still.
sadly my brain is refusing to hyperfocus on the comments so I’m not likely to actually read all of this thread… er… I was actually supposed to be buying groceries online, lol
Forgot the rest of what I was gonna write (see there’s the ADHD): So much of what Joyce has been dealing with, both in terms of “quirks” that’re likely autism symptoms, and her PMS stuff, have been super relatable to me as someone with EDS/MCAS and ADHD so yeah there’s definitely a lot of overlap and similarity in all of this.
While I obviously don’t know what relationship there may be between autism and various conditions that have higher reported incidence among autistic people*, I think that at least some of it is because we are looking, not at the rate of incidence, but at the rate of diagnosis. If you have access to the kind of care and support that will get you tested for one, then they will likely also test for and diagnose the other stuff you have. Same thing with the correlation between being autistic and trans.**
* Oh my but there are a lot of them – oddly I don’t seem to have much of the stuff on the list besides anxiety and depression, and I hold that those, as with their correlation with being LGBT – are due to how people treat autistic and LGBT folks rather than a result of them being autistic or LGBT.
** I should reiterate that I am not saying “THIS is the cause,” because I find the idea of such things have a sole, identifiable cause to be ridiculous. It’s far more likely to be an amalgamation of factors, the the cause in question is just one of them.
My mother’s oncologist asked her if I was autistic, after meeting me (with my mother) a few times. Not because she’s a specialist in autism, she’s not, she’s a cancer doctor and I’m not even her patient – but because she has an autistic daughter.
(Story of my life. People who know about autism peg me within minutes. People who don’t go “Oh, but you don’t seem autistic!” Yeah, I do, and that statement is not polite but rude.)
Same. My immediate family can ping off walk/vocal cadence/general vibes pretty quickly because they know me. (They probably won’t bring it up unless you do first, though, because that quickly gets into rudeness territory. But if you do they’ll almost certainly say ‘oh cool, so’s my X, I thought that speech pattern sounded familiar.’) Neurotypicals with no frame of reference have been known to say things like that or ‘I never would have guessed!’ after asking me where my accent’s from. (The answer being: Right here. It’s the regional accent on an autistic vocal cadence. This is your accent on autism.) All depends on whether the observer’s tuned to the right signal.
Ah, autistic accent syndrome, I know it well, the very bane of my existence.
Though I have found that the further I get from NYC, the less likely it is that people will ask me where I’m from…. (Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn, and so’s my mom.)
I actually appreciate autistic accent syndrome because since my accent is kind of vague and odd people usually don’t peg me as being rural in my upbringing so I usually escape regional stigma (the regional accent I’d have without it is stereotyped as stupid and hyperconservative. The stupid stereotype is not with merit but the hyperconservative stereotype very much is – the riding I spent most of my childhood in recently broke a decades long trend of voting Conservative only because there was a more extremist right wing candidate on the ballot. People when they find out where I was brought up usually make assumptions about me that I don’t want made about me. Particularly as a bi non-cis person.
So the more I can obfuscate being from where I’m from the better.
I find the comments on mine funny more than anything but yeah, my accent and region aren’t particularly stigmatized and I don’t care who I tell I’m autistic. Sucks that it works out for you in that way because of the societal prejudice.
Oh man, did I ever have that. As a teen I have had kids who grew up in the same neighborhood as me ask “Is that accent from like, England or something?”
One of those kids, in high school, also point at my St. Patrick’s cross pendant and asked if it mean I was “Like, a Satanist or something?”
Never once heard of this “accent” thing, but I get weird looks when I talk, so maybe people are too busy staring like I grew a third head to bring it up.
Yeah this is a thing too. Maybe Joyce’s doctor has autism or an autistic family member! I first got on the EDS path because I happened to see an ortho who had it and realized I was hypermobile where every other previous ortho had missed it.
Often stress, being sick or being in pain increases cognitive load on autistic people so we’re less able to mask. It actually tracks for me that Joyce’s doctor might not see signs of autism in previous checkups but now that Joyce has a lot on her plate and is sick and sore to boot she can’t put on the cult personality she was indoctrinated to display.
This 100%. My ADHD symptoms became less manageable the worse my chronic pain/illness got. If you have a condition that requires a lot of mental compensation (even if it’s subconscious), the more stress on your mind/body, the harder it’s gonna be to keep that up and continue to function.
As someone who is on the spectrum, sometimes I find that otherwise light contact or pressure can be overwhelming if I’m not expecting it, especially if I’m already stressed out
That said (and as a male I can only conjecture on this) I don’t think such a thing would necessarily apply to the regular pain of menstruation, especially since this only seems to happen to Joyce sometimes, and not every month
The previously stated theory that one of her ovaries is just very overactive is probably correct
The doctor most likely picked up on other signs of possible austism and, being a medical doctor and not a psychiatrist, referred her to someone who would actually be qualified to determine such a thing
I mean, it *can*. I’m hypersensitive to water and loud noises, and probably at least a third of the people I met at a local autism-spectrum support group had some kind of sensitivity too.
Srsly, just glad someone has recognized a problem that was shrowded by her getting homeschooled. With nobody to interact with except family who were used to her, her neurodivergence was probably just written off as “Joyce being Joyce”.
My mind is now racing to find other potential symptoms that I’ve been missing thus far. Like, oh yeah, remember when she binge-watched her friends’ favorite cartoon and immediately became a super-fan? And I guess her encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible scans with how autistic people tend to learn (as perhaps does her hyper-literal understanding of it.) Not to mention the, shall we say, intensity with which she approaches things like her comic. And while she doesn’t necessarily struggle socially, she definitely does have a pattern of failing to read the room properly. Oh, and there’s the way she performs certain habits and routines almost as ritual, like her morning wake-up calls. Man, now I feel like kind of an idiot for not seeing it before.
her extreme OCD towards food touching, her intensity of affection towards her friends as if she doesn’t understand social boundaries sometimes, her need to over correct herself anytime she finds out she is wrong
For what it’s worth, I agree with some of what you said! The broad strokes that diagnostic criteria work in easily leave out a lot of people who share some symptoms, but not all.
Example? Me. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, but now the only symptom
I really exhibit is executive dysfunction (which could just as easily be a product of my depression). So I don’t actively use the ADHD label, even though I’ve been officially diagnosed with it. It just does nothing for me now haha.
Not to mention, like. I was diagnosed in the 90s. Understanding of neurology and psychology has progressed a LOT since then. So I’m not sure if it’s even an accurate diagnosis…? To be fair I DID fit the criteria pretty well as a kid, though, I’m just pretty different now as an adult.
I’ve known I was ADHD for most of my life. (Bless my parents for getting me tested early. And it helped my mom, too, b/c when she sat down and started reading ‘You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?’ to understand what I’d have to deal with, she went “… WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE–“)
… I’ve only recently, in the past few years (around when I was 33-34), realized that I am ALMOST CERTAINLY also autistic.
Yeah I could see the gears turning in my dad’s head when I was describing the symptoms and my mom basically outright said “maybe we should get your dad tested too…” XD
I mean it’s not necessarily not OCD (although that tends to be over applied in the common vernacular rather than diagnostically). OCD is one of those things more common in autistic people than in neurotypicals.
There’s also the food things. Not wanting things to touch or sticking to certain specific things. Having hangups about food (especially like, texturally) is a pretty common autistic trait.
I never even considered the food thing I mean I don’t care that my food is touching but I can’t stand certain textures of food. spaghetti was always a big one I hated the texture, but in my family spaghetti was a staple so my parents would make me rigatoni or boil macaroni shells.
See, I can tell you’re fuckin’ with me because everyone knows that Kingdom Hearts 2 is the third main game, plus it’s publicly available knowledge that the only proper spinoff/non-main game was a semi-obscure mobile game exclusive to V Cast phones.
Another fun public-knowledge fact (which we both of course know, but is nonetheless fun to mention in conversation) is that due to the convoluted nature of release (A different console every game after KH2? Come on, Square.), it got slightly messy figuring out which games went where until 2013, when the first “half” of the games got remastered and released together in a bundle on the PS3, followed a year later by the next half on that very same console, handily tying nearly the entire series together in an incredibly accessible way.
But of course everyone knows this and it’s just fun to make jokes about how wonky things were for a good number of years until that point.
Well now, that’s just plain untrue. It released in January of 2019, concluding a nearly two-decade saga. Maybe some of the fans weren’t especially happy with some of the story events or gameplay elements in it, but—
Oh, I get the joke now. Very funny. Uproarious laughter. 😐
I will argue that KH III’s story is Pretty Good, Actually, though I get that the Disney worlds feel even more blatantly unattached to the plot than ever even with the ‘New Seven Hearts’ thing and it makes the whole game’s pacing feel weird. But I will argue for it thematically and go so far as to argue that KHI is the weird outlier for NOT touching on the existential question of what makes a human. (I won’t here in the interest of not TOTALLY derailing because that will in fact be THAT long, but like. I could and have.) I also maintain that while Days-BBS-Coded is the proper order to experience that chunk of games in playing Days before II is wrong and only happened to keep things even rather than putting two numbered titles and COM on the 1.5 disc and then one PSP game and two movies on 2.5. Release order is the proper order, these are the hills I will die on.
I’m a socially challenged neurodivergent and wanna join
😗 👉👈
But do I have to identify as “autistic” ?
Neurodivergence is just…. really fluid, as fluid as gender and sexuality, and I feel my stripes matter just as much, even though I can’t really put them under a nice, neat little word
It’s not that I don’t haven’t eschrewed some “””autistic””” elements (if you choose to count them as such) but i’m just….. more…. you know ?
I mean, it’s not like the idea hasn’t been brought up numerous times in the comments, but to actually have it brought up in-strip was not something I was expecting, or at least not yet. This day has been a real double-whammy for Joyce.
Oh I would love that. His school struggles have been so relatable (skating by/doing well until he actually has to study and suddenly grades drop because he lacks the ability to focus).
Yeah I mean I’m definitely not an expert, I was literally diagnosed only last month, but I have always had a really hard time studying/making myself do any homework that I wasn’t SUPER excited about, and not out of laziness/lack of desire to succeed, but just…couldn’t do it. I could never explain it. I WANTED to do my hw and study and do well but then would procrastinate every time. Walky’s distress over his current math situation reminded me a lot of that.
And like Walky, I did well in school generally, but my deep dark secret was I rarely ever studied. So the second I encountered a topic/test/etc. that I actually had to really buckle down and study for in a class I couldn’t focus on, I’d get a poor grade. And then panic and beg the teacher to let me do extra credit to bring my grade up. And round and round in a cycle like that. So I was literally doing MORE work in the end because I just…couldn’t study. 😐
Finally in my 30s I stopped being able to work entirely. It’s like my willpower just…broke. Like I’d been running at max power for 30+ years to compensate for my poor executive function and finally ran out of steam. That’s what finally led to my diagnosis.
Basically the way my psychiatrist explained it is that people who are smart but have ADHD (especially the inattentive type because it’s less behaviorally obvious) often fly under the radar because their academic skill is enough to compensate for their lack of focus, so their grades end up looking like a weird mix of fantastic and bad based on their enthusiasm for the subject or their focus at any given time. Like I graduated with honors from HS and college, but also got my fair share of Cs, Ds, and Fs, and missed assignments. It was chaos that I was always super ashamed of because I didn’t understand what my problem was.
I dunno if that’s where we’re going here with Walky but he definitely gives me some of those vibes.
And like with Walky, a major life change such as a harder subject, new life stressor, or just generally increasing difficulties and responsibilities with age may make the “staking by unnoticed” ability to compensate start to crumble. That’s definitely what happened with me.
Sorry for the 3 replies kept thinking of more stuff…I blame the Adhd XD
I was diagnosed with Aspbergers sometime in 2000 (which pretty much explained alot about the nature of why I had [&have] so much trouble with social interactions.)
I became aware of the, somewhat extreme, likelihood that I have primarily inattentive ADHD (back when it was ^still^ known as ADD*) when I was first introduced to ‘You mean I’m lazy, stupid, or crazy?’*
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
*Not long before (what used to be) ADD became a subtype of (the new) ADHD with DSM-4
Yeah, I was not expecting today to have gotten that whammy of a line or I would not have checked until morning because I am excited but also really need sleep. Also, yeah, hope this also means Walky might be closer to getting a diagnosis and hopefully some medication and/or ADHD Hacks.
Congrats to the people who were more willing to say ‘autism, specifically’ than me for years and pinged on her WAAAY earlier than I did, btw. If I feel the exciting glow of Textual Representation in a comic that makes me feel seen I imagine you guys are too right now.
I think the fact that she heard Joyce from that distance with a lowered voice implies she was already paying attention. She was expecting to see Joyce freakout over birth control and is surprised with this turn of events.
I’m curious if Joyce even actually knows what that is (and if not, what kind of wild misconceptions she has about it.) I’m also curious how the hell that came up in a visit about getting birth control meds, but I’m guessing I’m never getting an answer for that.
Maybe a strong aversion to being touched by unfamiliar instruments, such as a metal speculum. Like the pain she had with the air-puff test at the eye doctor. Intolerance of new touch sensations and textures can be one spectrumy trait.
Anyone notice how Joyce’s “sick” appearance vanished and her smile returned as soon as Jennifer brought her to the health center and started talking with her respectfully? Even though Jennifer’s comment about “I had lost the plot” was blunt and harsh, it shows respect not to sugarcoat one’s statements.
Jennifer treated Joyce like an adult, and showed her kindness and caring. Big difference from her closest friends, Sarah, Dorothy, and Becky, who treat her like a child (perhaps with reason).
Maybe having physical pain symptoms that improve in socially comfortable settings might also be a trait sometimes associated with certain neuroemotional ways of being? I don’t know, maybe that’s a reach.
Or maybe Dr. Kaur asked Joyce about her activities, and Joyce got to talking about her comic strip and went into detail on all the complex world building she had done. The whole “obsessive interests” angle.
Lotta things about Joyce might tip a person off in a medical interaction.
…
Oh, hey, speaking of going into detail, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about this classic comedy routine: https://youtu.be/ZCqh5ROtQRg
“My name is Raymond James Johnson, Jr.”
That is so me. 100%.
Everything becomes a lecture. Everything becomes a bullet point list. Every possible option and permutation must be explored in detail, whether the listener asked or not. Every possible trigger becomes an infodump. Or an opportunity for personal exposition.
It can actually make communication quite difficult, and frustrating sometimes to my conversation partners.
Are GPs actually licensed to give referrals for autism diagnosis? Like, I can see it, but it also feels like a very blurry area.
I mean, I guess that’s half the point of sending someone to get diagnosed in the first place, but Joyce must have been really triggered for the doctor to suggest it in one checkup session.
Practically speaking, since Joyce is an adult, the hard part will be more “Finding someone who can actually diagnose her in the next fifty years”. A referral is fine but it doesn’t make the wait lists go away.
Most likely it’s a generic “talk to a shrink” referral and the shrink can decide what to diagnose her with, but it’s not an unusual issue to expect.
I’m mostly impressed the doc did anything beyond the bare minimum. Campus doc is probably overworked and underpaid, so taking the extra time to spot Joyce’s issues is very nice.
Indiana University has one of best medical schools in the US. Its related hospital system is cutting edge and staffed with outstanding doctors and nurses. My spouse has a medical issue being treated through IU and her physician for that is literally the world expert on the condition.
Out of all of DoA’s mildly fantastic elements (Joyce and Dina’s teleportation powers, kidnappings, car chases, Amazi-Girl’s feats, etc), who would’ve guessed “timely visits with competent medical professionals” would be the most unbelievable.
From personal experience a college clinic is the only place that seems plausible to be for a GP or nurse practitioner to be this thoughtful. I act like a terrified animal at the doctor and college clinics were always the most understanding
Why wouldn’t GPs be able to give referrals for autism diagnosis?
GPs are on the front line of medical care… Not experts on everything but hopefully able to send patients to specialists where necessary. If the GP cannot refer them who can?
It varies, perhaps. Here in Australia my psychiatrist figured out that I have haemochromatosis, but she couldn’t refer me to a haematologist. She had to send a report to my GP, who then referred me (to a gastroenterologist, but that’s another story).
Could also be an insurance type thing state side. I’ve had insurance who wanted any specialist to be referred by gp, I’ve had some that requires no referrals ever and others that require a 10 step song and dance routine to make it into a follow up because the last time I was there was a previous billing cycle.
I’m pretty sure a GP can give a referral for almost anything. After all, that’s mostly just, “I think you might have [X] condition, talk to this specialist about it”.
GPs are licensed to give you a referral for anything right? Like, isn’t that the whole point of a General practitioner? The one you see when Something’s wrong and that something turns out to be a whole lot more serious or specific than you thought so you see a specialist when you otherwise never would have
That’s how it’s always worked for me. Sometimes they’ll send you off to various different specialists one after the other as they try to figure out what’s wrong.
We Ven if both are autistic, Joyce’s symptoms seem to be easier to hide (I e. They often seem like Run of the mill foibles). On the other hand, Dina’s issues are more noticable… Non-typical speech patterns, more trouble handling crowds, etc
I’d be willing to bet big part of that lies in their upbringing. Dina’s parents both seem like they might be autistic themselves, and likely never forced her to adhere to societal social standards.
Joyce’s upbringing was probably the opposite. With what we know of her family and the church, any “weird” behavior was probably stamped out pretty fast.
Basically, Joyce is pretty good at masking(her autistic traits) and Dina is not.
I kind of doubt it. Joyce is almost certainly towards the bottom, if not actually the bottom, of Dina’s list of favorite people, and is also included in the list of ‘people Dina has threatened to bite’. Dina tolerates Joyce because Becky, that’s it.
I’m deeply neuroatypical. Not in ways that show up as autism spectrum, it’s a long story and I’m not going to get into details, but, I’ve been through that diagnosis process and none of it lines up. But I talk to humans pretty well, even if it’s taken a lot – a lot – of work. Like Joyce, I pass well. Better, arguably, since I don’t have the food issues.
A writer you’ve likely heard of is friends with most of my friends. We used to show up at the same parties before the plague, stuff like that. They are also deeply neuroatypical, and talk about that in public, but I won’t speak to their neuroatypicality since the specifics of that are not my story to tell.
We have fairly similar politics, we have a lot of opportunity to bond over various life experiences, we share a lot of interests and enthusiasms without so much overlap that it would just be boring. By all rights, we should get on like gangbusters.
Instead, we can barely handle being in the same room together because we’ve both built extensive translation systems for dealing with neurotypicals and none of them work between us. In fact, it’s worse than that: in person, we pretty much continually set off each other’s RED ALERT buttons.
It is so. goddamn. frustrating.
Not long before the plague we both figured this out kind of independently and managed to have a brief but constructive talk about it, so that we both knew what was going on, and after that, we’ve been able to coexist peacefully and even navigate brief conversations during chance encounters. But particularly in my case it’s all like, “goddamn, we should be like best buds and we are so not and never will be” and it’s like
well
fuck.
So I’ll be curious as to whether this happens here. It very well might.
It’s worth bringing up the mantra, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met ONE autistic person.” Joyce and Dina may share a diagnosis, but they’re still very different people whose specific experience of autism likely varies greatly. This won’t magically make the history of conflict between them go away – nor will it make what friendship they’ve managed to develop despite that vanish.
Or they react the same way towards things but for whatever reason that particular tic is VERY GRATING from other people rather than experienced internally towards yourself. (Especially if it’s a thing you find frustrating ABOUT yourself, which it often is.)
Speaking as someone who spent a loooong time ignoring signs (Adhd in my case, not autism), I’d say it’s definitely worth exploring. I score borderline on online autism tests (like close to the cutoff but not enough to be diagnosed) and just had full mental health testing done that confirmed I don’t have it but clarified a TON of other stuff (like learning I have dyscalculia) so I am definitely a big advocate of doing it if you can.
It was incredibly helpful to get this clear picture of what is going on in my head and I feel much better equipped to deal with things now.
Yeah it’s really fascinating how much symptom overlap there is with a lot of various conditions. I identify SO MUCH with some autistic traits but not at all with others so discovering I have ADHD and a learning disability clarified so much. I also spent my life assuming I probably had OCD and now know I don’t, and that it was likely ADHD/anxiety mimicking some of the symptoms.
It’s really so helpful to get a thorough professional analysis. I like understanding my brain better.
Also amusingly enough I share a lot of Joyce’s quirks (food aversions, some social issues, etc) so yet another example of how the symptoms can overlap.
Okay, here’s the thing: After the last 5 years, I doubt anyone is mentally normal. While the test may or may not be accurate, just taking it is a sign you probably think you have issues. Without a formal diagnosis, just identifying your symptoms can lead to some useful possibilities for improving your life.
How happy are you with the way your mind works? If it’s not impacting your life, then good. Maybe look up online advice or talk to friends/online groups with similar issues to see if there’s good coping mechanisms you’ve missed, but don’t worry a lot.
If you are having issues with how your mind works that you think need fixing, the question is how. There’s three basic options IMO. First is accommodations, second is therapy, third is medicine.
Accommodations can be anything from “less visual noise in the house” to “headphones at work” to plenty of other things. Online will have suggestions. You may need a doctor’s note for some of them, but there’s a lot you can just do on your own you haven’t thought of yet.
Therapy doesn’t need to mean a psychologist, but those are the most reliable option. This is how you get a formal diagnosis and a specific set of advice and treatment options for your actual problem. The downsides are first, money, and second, there’s a reasonable fear that having a formal diagnosis on file could cause legal problems in 5-10 years. I’m not saying don’t go, but think things through before you do.
Third is medicine. Some issues have a lot of pharmaceutical solutions, others don’t, but popping a pill every day can definitely make things easier. Definitely requires a formal diagnosis, but it’s a solid option.
TL:DR? Don’t trust the test, but you know your brain. If you’re having issues with it, whether or not you have any specific problem, there’s probably solutions to your symptoms. Take a further look, and whatever the test told you is a starting point.
In fact these points stated really get to why I really dispise what has become of the very concept of “mental disorder”.
You cannot create a concept of “incorrect” mental functioning without inevitably creating alongside it a concept of what constitutes “correct” mental functioning.
In a world full of individuals with very diverse situations and therefore very different functioning needs, it really makes no sense to define the concept of mental “disorder” outside of what impedes them from meeting their most basic survival needs as living beings.
Not to mention the fact that in terms of social functioning, in a multicultural frontier, misunderstandings are better treated as the rule than the exception anyway.
It stands to reason that the concept of “mental disorder” having expanded as far as it has is really nothing more than an exercise in power.
That’s why the most important criteria for any mental disorder diagnosis is “does it affect your ability to function in day-to-day life.” It’s the only type of “normal” or “correct” that actually matters. You can end up wherever you like on a list of symptoms and if it isn’t fucking things up for you, it can just be weird or quirky or whatever. It’s not a disorder until it fucks things up.
But that needs to be worded very carefully. I’ve been given depression screening forms that seemed to imply that as long as it wasn’t impacting school or work there was no problem when that was definitely not the case, personal life and emotional impact need to be considered as well.
(Thankfully I’m not (usually as?) depressed anymore. (Yay for HRT! 🏳️⚧️))
It can change over time too. My Adhd flew under the radar for 36 years because I was *managing* and succeeding at it, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a problem, even if it wasn’t outright preventing me from doing the things I needed to do. I got stuff done, but experienced constant stress as a result. And then finally burnt out in my 30s after 3 decades of doing this and could no longer function.
Yeah it’s hard to pin down since brain disorders are basically all in the “cluster of symptoms” level of understanding rather than “we understand something of the mechanisms” as we do for, say, a heart attack. It’s why the labels don’t necessarily fit people well, it’s just a loose box around a grouping of common symptoms rather than a well defined biological process failure.
That goes for the impact on your life as well, that’s also not a clear cut idea, and yeah you can have serious dysfunction that doesn’t manifest as obviously, or as frequently. I suppose the line there is, is your current state sustainable, or that you would want to sustain it.
I have a lot of Thoughts ™ on this subject, it’s a hard maze to navigate, especially when it can be so easy to deceive yourself, let alone try to communicate honestly with a medical professional. Add in the unprofessionalism of some “professionals” and it’s a real mind bender, for sure.
Tl, Dr, I pretty much agree with Viktoria, the diagnosis is just a box drawn around a list of previously seen symptoms that exists to try to help you understand and find ways to live with the brain you’ve got.
I don’t think I fit neatly into any preexisting box at all.
It’s like, I have a unique combination of neurodivergent stripes I want to relate to others with and understand in myself, but I really just wish there were a way to describe them easily without getting blurred together with a million other things l don’t have and don’t want others to assume about me.
Best you can hope for is people that see you as just you, and try to understand that you. It’s a lot of work on both sides and you’ll probably never get there with very many people just due to the scale of the communication needed, but it’s the best thing going.
Also not a problem unique to neurodivergence, it’s hard to understand and be understood as an individual person. Smol monkey brain is just not good enough for that level of complex modeling. Much better at climb tree, get banana.
Golly some of the dialog will be awkward(cause there’s a whole minefield these college kids haven’t considered) but I hope Joyce comes to find power and happiness in being autistic, I know I have.
Something special about saying I’m an autistic that has really improved my life.
That double-edged sword went straight the other way for me, and caused me decades of physical and emotional abuse, humiliation, dehumanization and infantilization and endless debilitating micro-management at the hands of friends, family, teachers and so called “professionals” who acted like what they were doing was “compassion” and who were unable to or refused to discern my disability from my personality.
You’re not kidding about the minefield: it is very much worth noting that when two people say “autism”, they are more than likely not talking about the same thing.
I will really thank you NOT to call me “autistic”, but neurodivergent is fine.
Besides the fact that my body has seen some REALLY rough years in terms of physical disability, that really wasn’t the point I was trying to get at in my comment.
What humans call “”””autism””” is actually a very broad collection of conditions, neurodivergent stripes and for some reason even personalities that are all haphazardly lumped together into one overly generic category.
What’s true of one “autistic” person can never be assumed to be true of any other “autistic” person.
If some of them have food pickiness and trouble with eye contact, that doesn’t mean that they ALL do.
But nonetheless that doesn’t stop people from making hurtful assumptions based on that label. Not necessarily out of malice, but because of all the BAGGAGE ingrained into it, thanks to the media and the dreaded Autism Speaks (fucking CANCEL those motherfuckers already).
Okay, I won’t. I was tempted to throw out “Changeling” higher up thread, where you identified as an “alien parasite”. I’ve long held the theory that ASD was the source of much of those legends.
I don’t consider autism a “disability”. If anything can be accurately called “Differently abled”, it’s several different types of neurodivergence, including ASD.
Yeah, it’s rather disappointing that things like ASD don’t make life easier for the individuals who experience them, but things like sociopathy often do, at the expense of everyone around them.
Wellerman, I don’t know you and I will try my best to be as sensitive as possible.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging those fictional representations are…. well, fiction. Letting a stereotype control how we view ourselves is incredibly pessimistic and destructive. It’s also playing into what abelists want.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that our autism does, to a certain degree, shape our personality. Because that’s what autism IS. It affects how we interact with people. It affects how we process data. That knowledge about this thing that we live with is FUCKING POWER. Otherwise, yes, we look at those stereotypes and we see something wrong with US. If we refuse to understand ourselves, we’ll abuse ourselves.
No, I’m not talking about how those stereotypes shape how we view ourselves, but how they shape OTHERS’ view of us neurodivergents who choose (or are forced to) identify as “autistic” and what they come to expect of us.
“””Self-abuse””””?!?! Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Hai PTSD trigger.
I mean, speaking as someone who DOES claim autistic, and is also physically disabled and mentally ill semi-independently of the autism part? It’s both. It’s very much both. The same traits I love about being autistic can make my brain truly miserable to deal with sometimes, or send me into sensory overload because it’s fun to hear distinct parts of a favorite song but NIGHTMARISH to be hearing six distinct conversations at once. And even with the things I’m neutral on, I still live in a society that’s not designed to accommodate my brain and that causes issues. (Please consider stereotypical autistic traits, and then consider the standard job interview process. It’s a perfect storm of unintentional barriers.) Disability’s not a dirty word, and by any model, I qualify for autistic reasons as well as the other ones. Socially, a world built to accommodate my standards would significantly improve my life! But even on a deserted island, I’m still gonna run into problems if I struggle to eat due to texture aversions. I can take pride in my disabled, autistic existence while acknowledging that sometimes it’s a pain in the ass.
(The physical disabilities are of the invisible, chronic, and ABSOLUTELY DISABLING IN A MEDICAL SENSE variety. I will appreciate efforts to include me despite low energy due to chronic pain. I’d still prefer ‘not being in chronic pain’ if that’s on the table because that shit sucks. There is no upside to having a musculoskeletal system that’s spent so much effort keeping itself from dislocating a rib that we are now struggling to get it to physically relax. I still think I am a human being worthy of life and equal treatment under the law and reproductive autonomy and the right to participate in society, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend this is anything but disabling and that I don’t wish I had the body I spent the first twenty-some years assuming I had.)
Learning about the social model of disability was one of the more empowering concepts I’ve come across. Left to my own devices, setting my own rules, etc, I’m generally pretty happy and comfortable, but at the point of interacting with others, and within various societal contexts… less so.
Accommodations, modifications, and other strategies make it a lot better, but shit wasn’t designed with me/my brain in mind, so it’s still exhausting.
I understand you have an uncomfortable relationship with the word autism but I have a pride and happiness in it. I have respected your dynamic with it and would like the same when I’m posting how it gives me happiness
I love how it gives you pride and happiness like that.
Tell me Florence, just how is public perception of neurodivergence in Australia?
Also, would you say that the public definition of “autism” is at least a little different there too? What aspects of it does it really emphasize?
Also, just so I make sure not to make any hurtful assumptions about you, what does your neurodivergence look like according to this chart you showed me?
Australia seems to be bette than america at least but that’s mostly in the sense that people aren’t openly ableist. Job hunting is still hard to impossible, the government makes it difficult to access support and generally micro aggressions are still a thing. My childhood was still full of bullying and isolation.
Australia is a country that values having a kind “cool with everything” attitude that is great until you start caring or acting odd and then it gets tricky, mainly with work and supports.
We had a show called love on the spectrum, and the way that show presented autistics as cutesy pop with the music choices emphasing silliness when autistics were being themselves is pretty much it. Still very infantilising on the whole.
As for me, my autism manifests kind of all of them, but definitely fixations. Mixes with my mood swings(I have a whole bunch of other mental illness stuff(also adhd))
I had a very traumatic childhood due to bullying and isolation before finding some semblance of self in my 20s. Having just recently turned 30 and finding value in viewing myself as autistic and my life as a disabled life, I have some hope cause I’m not longer planning around neurotypical expectations.
I also feel much better talking about my life to others and not feeling shame for my life being where it is.
Just mention your problems in a way that don’t feel like a comparison in such a direct way. I understand bringing up person experiences when talking about anything(I do it too) but while doing that, understand that I know the hardships. Maybe not all of them, and from what I have read you have had a harsh experience, however I have experienced my own hardship.
I will add that I am American. I got bullied. I’m aware of the stigmas. I face April each year with dread because Autism FUCKING Speaks is STILL the best-known organization with the word autism in its name despite being a hate group. I recognize that unsupportive family trauma is very common and awful – the only reason I haven’t attended Disability Day of Mourning the last few years is that in a global pandemic where I’m aware we’re dying disproportionately to medical stigma, I just cannot emotionally muster myself virtually for a vigil held for disabled people killed by their caregivers and families. Your trauma with the word is your own and I respect that. People are allowed to use the labels they find valuable.
I still take pride in my own being autistic, because despite all the social stigmas I had supportive parents who said ‘this is a part of you, it makes you the person we love, and this diagnosis gives us a better sense of how to make the things that stress you out more bearable.” They helped me find social groups where I’d be accepted and people who’d support me. I know damn well how lucky I was for that. But for me, ‘autistic’ is the word that got me the help I needed instead of medication that stunted my growth for years and left some active scars on the rest of my family with how much it deadened my personality. (I don’t, because I don’t remember that time period. Like, at all really. Probably as much because I was still pretty young when it happened as the medication reaction, but people do start forming long-term memories around the 8-9 range and I have basically nothing from that year.) Even though I now claim ADHD too, it took years of looking at that community to come around to the idea that maybe it wasn’t a misdiagnosis after all, just a catastrophically bad reaction to a medicine that clearly worked too well and was probably dosed too high. Still never going on Adderall again! I probably would benefit from ADHD meds but we’ve only ever tried one other because we want to avoid another experience like that.
Your experiences are horrible and way, way too common. I’m sorry for your trauma, and you deserved better. I hope you’re now in a place where you’re safe and allowed to exist in a way that feels right for you, and if you aren’t yet then I hope you find it. But in spite of all the bullshit to slog through, there are people who find ‘autistic’ as a label of pride anyway. Because it’s the one that helped them recognize and work with the way their brains didn’t fit in, or because it helped them find a community of people who were FINALLY on their wavelength, or because fuck society, it may have tried to force them to conform but it didn’t fucking work and they will reclaim this with blood and spite. Sometimes it does seem like you want the term done away with entirely. You’re more than allowed not to use it for yourself, but the fact that it was traumatic for you does not mean it doesn’t have value to some of us. Even people living in the US. Even people who were bullied with it, or have trauma because of it. I want a world where we’re not stigmatized for it and society CAN produce untraumatized autistics. If that’s not the word used by that point for my specific subtype at large, then hey, whatever. (I already see ‘on the spectrum’ getting a ton of common use.) But it will probably be the word I use no matter what, because by now it’s the one I identify with more than anything else.
Amos told me about their horrendous treatment in Brazil, which i reckon is common in other countries as well
“fuck society”, you’re right, outside seeking government aid and asking for private accommodations at school, these kinds of problems regarding “autism”, regarding its stigmas, go really really deep and are surrounded by walls of money and are unlikely to get erased any time soon in our lives
Also, this general kind of problem is by no means exclusive to neurodivergence. I honestly think you humans, your society, are a sick twisted joke, where members of your species are punished, tormented, teased relentlessly for the random, uncontrollable circumstances of your birth. To get exposed to more and more of the ugliness of you Homo sapiens, your blood-stained history, the more I have peace with identifying as an Alien Parasite.
Now, for some wishes. Some wishes I really want to come true.
I wish there were a way of saying “autism” without saying “autism”.
I wish there were a way I can easily communicate my unique neurodivergent stripes without getting lumped in with a million other things I don’t want people to assume about me.
I wish there were a way of saying “autism” that just removed itself from all the BAGGAGE and ugly ugly history and perception and stereotypes of “autism”, and in effect just made everyone UNSEE all of that ugliness, just fucking ERASED IT ALL FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.
👁️👁️👁️ MAKE AUTISM SPEAKS FORGOTTEN FOREVER.
👁️👁️👁️ ERASE THEM.
If you mean societally the problem runs deeper than I think, you recognize that I attend a vigil most years that was started by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network after one too many publicized instances of autistic children killed by their parents,* yes? And recognizing the media narrative that sympathized, overwhelmingly, with the murderers.
Please do not presume I am not EXTREMELY aware of the societal stigma against being autistic, at all times, up to and including the worst case scenarios. I am actually involved in activism work when I can be (thanks, COVID,) which tends to mean I am also very aware of the challenges my community faces against the world and the issues we have as a community. This is the word I use anyway. This is the word I WANT to use anyway. This is the word that I would continue to use even if it goes out of fashion, the way older queer people will use self-identifiers that I personally am not comfortable typing but I respect their right to self-identification and wouldn’t tell them not to use it. Autistic is my word and I actively do not want to stop using it for myself, understanding DEEPLY how fucking hard society makes my existence. Right now, it is also the community as a whole’s word, by and large. The parts of it that needed reclaiming, we chose to reclaim. The underlying ableism extends far beyond the word, and for me it was a word that gave me tools and community I needed. I respect it is not yours, please respect it is mine and that I make that decision with full knowledge of how bad it can get for autistic people.
* It’s actually more commonly ‘abled spouse kills disabled/aging and ill spouse’ on the whole. ASAN is still one of the major drives behind keeping the list of victims’ names updated and holding Disability Day of Mourning, because of the community trauma that is That Story, different players, over and over and over.
Oh, Regalli, of course I respect your expertise on the issue, and I am grateful for your activism, for every time I learn about neurodivergents’ maltreatment like this, it just seems to be getting worse and worse. 😔
It is totally your right to use that word! If that’s how any neurodivergent wants to identify, I’ll respect that until the end of the universe!
It’s just that, there’s so much enthusiasm here, I feel so disconnected, so left out, so alone and isolated.
First it’s my neurodivergence that keeps me from the things I love, the things that would enrich my life, and now it’s my PTSD.
IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!! Why do we have to hurt all the time? Why do bad things happen to innocent people?? 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I’m not comparing experiences, but myself, my husband and my best friend have all been working through “oh holy shit autism” at about the same time. I’m 35, my husband 43, and my best friend 60 (just to give an idea of when we were each children). And I’ve actually said that, given the way kids with autism were treated when I was a child- 25-30 years ago- I’m honestly glad I wasn’t diagnosed then. It explains so much but I am glad. My husband is less so but my best friend feels similarly to me and has had to have that talk with his mother- “how could you know? What understanding was there back then?”
As soon as I read the word “decades”- I don’t know whether that’s two decades or fifty. But it definitely puts you talking from a time where neurodivergency wasn’t understood or treated with compassion (still struggling societally there but miles on from where we were). I am genuinely sorry for whatever you went through (you’ve only given a broad strokes picture but that’s more than enough to convey how painful your experiences were) and I wish that finding peace- possibly even joy- with how your brain is wired wasn’t something you were robbed of.
(Side note- all three of us find relief in our understanding. My best friend isn’t always comfortable referring to himself as autistic but I think that’s because he compares it to people who mask less or struggle more, which I don’t think is healthy but it’s his journey to make.)
I guess if I want people to understand where I’m coming from, I’ll have to be specific, won’t I? Oh god, here goes nothing!!! 😖😖😖
⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING: Mental Hospitals ⚠️
All my life I was told that if I continued doing the things that made me happy, that were called “autism”, that my “autism” would only get worse. My parents showed me videos about “autistic” people in mental institutions, people without the ability to think or hear their own thoughts. Tried to “scare me straight”.
😖😖😖😖 😭😭😭😭
I was made to fear and hate being myself, brought up to believe that my personality, the things that made me happy, were a gateway to mental deterioration, disease and disaster. I realize now that it’s much like Becky and Joyce’s religious hangups, actually. But even without the element of religion, I too was chained down to a paradigm where fear is love and pleasure is evil.
Outside of everything else, I’m so sorry your parents did that to you. Thank you for having patience in listening to my positive experience with something that has traumatised you
You didn’t have to share and I hope I didn’t make you feel pressured into doing so- that it had been traumatic was evident.
I wasn’t diagnosed or even suspected for having autism or ADHD as a child (it being so massively under diagnosed in “girls” back then)- but while the specifics are different I really felt a sense of understanding and sameness from your description of events. Especially with seeing parallels with the experiences of Becky’s and Joyce’s upbringing without the religion. I don’t want to take the conversation to what I went through (which is difficult to sum up anyway) but anything that I now can see was a flag of my neurodivergence (and queerness) was treated much like yours. It was bad, wrong, aberrant, to be stamped out as much as possible and the rest hidden. Fifteen years of therapy and I’m still putting the pieces together and finding peace with it- maybe I always will be on some level- but I’m getting there. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say, but- seeing and understanding the pain and trauma you describe- well, I wish the best for you going forward. You deserved so, so much better.
Well learning that I had autism may helped explained alot of my behavoir while growing up. Finding out I was autistic did not improve my situation in life. There is still alot of misunderstanding what autism is and people including close family and relatives who don’t understand and as the wellerman has said infantalize me which infuriates me which in turn makes me isolate myself rather then reach out for help when I need it.
It ruined my romantic relationships it really hurt my longest realtionship beacuse it was so hard to emphasize to my ex partner what I was feeling or trying really hard to show them that i empthaized with them even though my cadence was off. why being touched or touching was difficult or why I freaked out when i heard loud noises or someone become startled talking to me when I was focused on something or why I would get so focused on stuff. I made what I considered herculean efforts to modify my behavior and it still was not enough for them.
Also having to explain this behavior to my supervisors is always a loaded subject beacuse it feels to me like I am admitting I have a problem when I really don’t.
I don’t consider it a blessing it’s not a curse but hasn’t made my life easier and saying I am autistic doesn’t really empower me.
I am in therapy and it works, but that’s a recent development that’s not going to solve 30 years of insecurity about being neuro-divergent
I want to be clear that when I’m being positive about autism(especially today, family stuff happening) I don’t want to go through everyone’s negative relationship to autism. I don’t have the spoons.
I understand we all have our own experiences, please don’t feel like you can’t post them elsewhere
Yes to all day.
Yes to sandwich.
And yes to raw.
Do all three, and get it out of your system, since of course you two will never have another opportunity, even in fan fiction, to do this again, so you might as well go all out!
(Continues to encourage these fictional characters to bump uglies, or pretties depending on the eye of the beholder, as if they would and could listen.)
Great job, Yotomoe!
I’ve enjoyed following this ship (passing in the night) that I’ve wanted to see for a long time.
Cute! Love the ending joke.
Also, once again, relating to Billie hard here.
Me: “Wow. That was great. Wanna do it for another couple hours?”
Basically any Partner: “fucking hell please let me sleep”
Yeah. I used to find that women were mostly pretty pleased when a bout os sex lasted twenty minutes rather than two, but that after three hours they just wanted it to stop.
I don’t think I’d feel right accepting money for this. Honestly I’m just thankful Willis hasn’t told me off for making and posting it here in the first place. I think taking any money would be a step too far.
Hell yeah. She’s right, of course, that they may as well go all day. I said it the other night, but if you get to have a go with a gal like Billie, you better Make It Count.
Love the “what?! you know this isn’t canon” ending myself XD
And yeah i’m with Rose, when the chemistry is this good and you don’t absolutely have to be somewhere, of course you go all day. It’s the done thing!
Thank you for being so generous with your horny creativity Yoto!
And huge kudos on sustaining your drive throughout such a long project, is this something of a first for you, at least in a while? I sure hope this helps you build up the confidence and motivation to breathe life into your own OCs =) you may already have a fanbase 🤩
This is the first time in a long while I tried my hand at a long form comic . This is probably the most successful I’ve ever been at it but that was mostly due to my decision to focus on completing the story more than getting it to look good. If you’ve seen my art over the years you’d know that this wasn’t really my full capability when it comes to drawing, but I decided to keep it loose and sketchy cuz the narrative was more important. I’m proud of myself for finishing though I do feel like the ending is. A bit abrupt and I may fix it if I ever get around to lining and maybe coloring it. There’s a lot id like to fix actually
Hey I’m autistic too! While I love that for Joyce, I do worry that her upbringing has taught her only bad stuff about autism. As much as I wish I knew as a kid, I’m lucky to be diagnosed now (well back in Feb). People are much more accepting about it, there’s a lot more positivity going around, and people are actually focusing research beyond cis boys.
I went through the same thing with ADHD (literally just diagnosed last month), growing up knowing only the hyperactive type, and only hearing/seeing negative portrayals of it. And having just been diagnosed (with the inattentive type I didn’t know existed before) it’s honestly been so cathartic.
So I think even if there’s an initial struggle of acceptance, as there often is with ANY disability (I have EDS and went through allll the stages of grief with that when I was diagnosed 6 years ago) I’m excited for this storyline and watching her slowly reach acceptance hopefully, eventually.
My wife is currently in the process of getting diagnosed. She brought home some worksheets and info for Autism and ADHD as they appear in females.
We looked over the Autism symptom list… and basically every one of them applied to her. And also me. Several of them were literally the core traits of our relationship.
The ADHD list didn’t fit me at all… but it fit her nearly as well as the Autism one did.
We’re both in our 40s.
She was supposed to get her official test results last week, but the doctor had to cancel due to catching COVID.
I hope it goes well for her and she gets some answers! I went through so many emotions when I first realized I might have Adhd and then when I was finally diagnosed. 36 years of thinking this stuff was just “personality quirks” and realizing that no, I’ve actually been living life on hard mode has been wild.
Yup.
Oh, almost forgot. The Autism symptom list also perfectly describes both of our kids. And my Mom.
The ADHD symptom list also fits my Dad.
I never felt most of these personality traits were unusual… they were just my life.
Autistic here, myself, and honestly, I’ll be surprised if it taught her much at all about autism. Like she doesn’t seem to be unaware of its existence or something, but I don’t know that her background would have really prepped her much given how sheltered she was on so many other topics.
Yup, plus I know when I asked him years ago about it, in addition to other people asking, naturally, that was definitely pre-time skip, so it’s possible Dina would have explored that during the break.
And if she hasn’t, maybe they can both go and become Diagnosis Buddies, maybe learn a lesson about how different people can be even when they have a similar brain composition, and/or how people with wildly different backgrounds can still have some important similarities.
This is gonna be a very interesting arc for me. I wasn’t diagnosed with ASD until I was 24 because my sister studied psychology in college and realized that I showed signs. Really sucks knowing I spent so much of my life not understanding why I just failed completely at socialization.
Hopefully this will be a lesson for Dorothy and Sarah to ask first, wait for a reply and not to assume. They just went out of their way to tell Joyce that they expect her to judge herself on a topic that wasn’t even her primary concern.
I’d like to hope so. But it would be very realistic if Joyce’s friends took her mental health diagnosis as a reason to disregard her agency and ignore her wishes even more. When people are used to patronising you and they learn that you have conditions affecting mental function, many of them patronise harder.
Based on what I know about autism with males vs females and how it is presented, yeah, I guess that makes sense. (I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot)
It’s happening? Are we actually going to get an answer to some “autism or crazy upbringing” questions? I guess we probably wont get those sorts of specifics, because it doesn’t really work that way, but I’m still surprised this conversation is happening and there is a possibility of a diagnosis or lack of diagnosis!
Are we actually going to get an answer to some “autism or crazy upbringing” questions?
Lots of them are probably *both*. Because your brain and how it works affects everything, including how you react to your upbringing (and, also, how your parents react to you.)
I didn’t expect that!! I’m really curious how this will go.
I think it’s cool in terms of representation, since Joyce might not register to some people as a having “typical” autistic traits (compared to, say, Dina).
It reminds me of my cousin, who also might not register that way, except maybe for her tendency to put things bluntly (more like Becky than Joyce)… but that’s also part of her humour, so I don’t want to be all “X Thing Is Particularly Autistic.” Anyway, I was surprised when she told me about her autism diagnosis (well, at first hers was called Asperger’s).
Lastly! I’m excited but a bit worried for Joyce, because of the possible stigma. When I got diagnosed with ADHD, age 23, I thought of it sort of as a children’s disease. Like chicken pox! (which adults can also get, incidentally).
A fun look into my thought process about this:
1) I wonder if Willis is actually autistic, and this is a result of him accidentally writing Joyce as autistic, like that thing in EGS (https://www.egscomics.com/comic/qa8-08)
2) I probably shouldn’t comment on that, though. Seems a mite rude to publicly speculate about.
3) Hold the fuck on, this is David Willis we’re talking about. He probably fully anticipated this EXACT kind of speculation when he wrote this, and is even now waiting in his lair, cackling gleefully and watching the chaos and controversy unfold.
4) *posts this*
Willis has said he’s wondered whether or not he’s autistic vs just had a fucked up upbringing, but (last I heard) he had never been diagnosed with anything.
I’m thinking maybe never, unless it was a doctor from her congregation, who doesn’t “believe” in any of the neurodivergent diagnoses.
And yes, there are doctors who think ND is just a fad. Not mine, but he’s an internist and doesn’t know what to do about people who are ND, or who have been depressed for more than 40 years.
Oh c’mon. If Joyce is autistic, is there anyone in the cast who isn’t autistic? Dorothy has perfectionist tendencies. Sarah has trouble maintaining friendships. Walky is obsessed with Monkey Master. For that matter, is there any human anywhere who isn’t autistic?
You know that Shortpacked! strip where Whitney McJorty or whatever his name was lost his shit because the staff were too diverse? That is how your comment reads.
Well, you’ve already got a bunch of “don’t be mean” so maybe a literal answer would help.
A lot of neurodivergence is when a normal human trait dominates to the point of getting in the way of life. Sad -> depression, need time to order thoughts-> autism, imagination -> schizophrenia, peripheral vision -> ADHD. The definitions grow once people find that the coping mechanisms for someone with an obvious diagnosis can help with people with similar traits, but not enough to get a diagnosis.
Is Dorothy autistic? Probably not, but if she would benefit from stemming I mean meditating than why not. Is Sarah autistic? She might have schizoid tendencies, but she willingly ate lunch with her sister so maybe not. Is Walky autistic? Near the top of the page is a huge discussion of ADHD and autism going together, plus he’s into computer science. Though he is a bit more manipulative than I associate with people on the spectrum. Is every human being autistic? I mean statistically we all have autistic ancestors so we’re all cousins at least.
I think it’s also, look. Joyce is autobiographical. Willis has increasingly in recent years been publicly identifying as autistic. A good writer, and Willis is one, can write experiences very different from their own and still have them feel true to life, but ultimately ALL these characters are reflections of David Willis. Most writers put traits of themselves or people they know well into their characters, at least the ones they care about. (Like, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a lot of Lester the Mob Cop’s inner life here.) Which means that, yeah, all the major characters might have a touch of autistic traits in them because they’re being written from the perspective of an autistic writer, putting his autistic traits in their personalities. Doesn’t mean they’re all written as autistic, but Dina and Joyce and Walky had all been characters where Willis would put some of the more neurodivergence-y experiences into comics, and that has made them come off VERY strongly neurodivergent to those of us who recognize ourselves in them. You do on some level write what you know. A neurodivergent writer’s going to tend to skew neurodivergent characters because that’s just what their brain is like.
Especially with older characters where many of those traits were attached to the characters long before Willis thought of them as autistic – in them or himself. Just bits of himself seeping into characters because that’s how writers write.
Another ‘real’ answer I suppose is that all human beings exist upon a spectrum of experiences and functioning, and will have varying degrees of all kinds of traits. Something is generally considered a ‘condition’ or ‘disorder’ or ‘disability’, mental or physical, when someone’s traits or experiences or functioning has a notable negative impact on their quality of life. Either by causing them distress, or otherwise impairing their ability to function ‘normally’ in society.
What is ‘normal’? Good question. What counts as a significant enough negative impact on quality of life? Another good question. These are the sorts of questions that are at the heart of the practice of medicine and medical ethics, and how they get answered is constantly changing and being argued over.
The lines here are all very fuzzy and more than a little arbitrary. But them being arbitrary doesn’t mean that they have no value at all. Sort of like gender, really, or ethics, or even religion, and a lot of other aspects of human life which are sort of inherently socially constructed.
It’s stuff we make up arbitrarily, but it’s a still a real thing that we definitely experience, because we are deeply social creatures that live rich social lives, and we need to try to have the words to talk about it. To not be totally overcome with frustration, you really need to embrace the fact that the nature of the thing is inexact and imprecise by necessity.
Tl;dr: People don’t fit easily into small, clear-cut boxes because that’s simply not how reality works. Nonetheless, we as a species are built to understand the world around us by using pattern recognition to try and shove everything into boxes anyway.
It’s never going to work perfectly, ever. But the process of trying to is inherently useful for us regardless, so we’re gonna keep doing it.
I repeat: if Joyce is autistic, “autism” has too broad a definition to be useful. I looked up “symptoms of autism” on the web and Joyce had 1 of 12 (specific food preferences). And even that was a strange list, I usually hear other symptoms listed. There’s no consensus on the list of symptoms even.
One way the author might go with this is, since autism is ill-defined yet often has available medical funding, it’s common for doctors to overdiagnose it. Which can be traumatic for patients and their families. Which is what I think today’s strip was about.
I agree trying to make measurements is useful, but long OR chains usually yield a “yes” measurement so aren’t very useful.
(“Lucky Winner” is what my email tells me I am every day. Congratulations, you are the Lucky Verified Winner of the Nigerian widowed barrister bucket-of-cash sweepstakes.)
In the interest of continuing the trend, I looked up “autism questionnaire” on Google and simulated responses for Joyce, Walky, Sarah, and Dina. Walky answered “C” (somewhat disagree) for everything without reading the questions, except “would you find it really hard to play imaginary games with children?” to which he answered A (definitely agree), because it’d be boring to answer C to everything. Sarah also answered C to most things, but honestly. Joyce and Dina, it was hard to gauge their self-appraisal … Joyce would have been easier last semester. I suspect I should have given Joyce more extremes, but she’s in a state where I don’t know which extreme she’d choose. At any rate, Walky got 10 (normal), Sarah 11 (normal), Joyce 14 (slight autistic tendencies) and Dina 25 (autistic).
Seeing how my approximation of them all is, um, not definitive, it would be good if someone else repeated the experiment. I don’t know what definition of autism that questionnaire was using.
It’s…really not? Look, it could certainly be MORE useful and more precise, to be certain. And in recognition of this, people are no longer being diagnosed with “Autism” and it has instead been changed to “Autism Spectrum Disorder” to reflect this reality at least slightly more accurately, and to my knowledge other diagnoses which used to be separate (such as Asperger’s) have since been absorbed into ASD to make it even MORE broad.
Now I’ll agree that it definitely is far too broad, at the moment, to be as useful as it could be. But as many, many people in the comments today demonstrate, even as it is, it still has plenty of utility, and there are reasons it’s still being used. Maybe that utility isn’t immediately evident to you, but it’s there. Maybe that utility has a lot of pretty serious drawbacks, too, I’ll also agree there, to the point that retiring the term “Autism” in favor of something else might be worthwhile.
But insisting that because it doesn’t make enough sense to you, it’s therefore basically useless, is kind of insulting and invalidating to a lot of people. You could very well make the same argument for the word “Queer”, and if you did, I’d get even more angry with you, because sometimes words with broad definitions exist specifically to have broad definitions, and their broadness is the utility of them.
Now I don’t think “Autistic” is analogous to “Queer” in any meaningful measures. (“Neurodivergent” would probably be the more analogous term.) But nonetheless, it’s a label that is important to many people in helping describe and identify with their own experiences, and therein lies its utility.
Also, Autism is by no means commonly overdiagnosed, lmfao. If you genuinely think that’s what this strip is about, my money is on you being sorely mistaken.
Even if it has utility, I myself really really wish for a word that doesn’t lump me in with a million other things I don’t want. While still being as widely recognized.
Or maybe a set of words. I have neurodivergents stripes that I guess you would call “””autistic””” depending on which definition you’re using, but I’m just…. more…. you know?
You realize that we spend literally our entire upbringings being taught, encouraged, and often forced to look and act as non-autistic as possible, right?
And despite that, for years know people who know first and second hand what it’s like to be autistic have noticed those traits in Joyce- both the traits of being autistic, and traits and beliefs about the self common in people who are taught that they are definitely not, and goddamn well better not be Or Else, autistic.
Have you considered, and I don’t even mean this as an insult, that maybe other people have a better idea what they’re talking about in this instance?
The A Word (co-starring Christopher Eccleston) has been spoken. Get this girl some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, a bucket, and at least six DVD box sets of assorted TV shows.
I have a vague, passing familiarity with whatever that video is, just enough to know that I don’t know enough not to get judged for not knowing more, by people whose familiarity with things with which I’m more familiar is similarly lacking but towards whom I withhold judgement for said unfamiliarity. The red guy was in a YTP I’ve watched several times.
Does that site really pull in that much traffic, 10,000 new people a day? I assume that’s some kind of numerical average based on overall engagement over a long period of time, including spikes.
Or maybe I’m fucking with you and know it’s a reference to an XKCD comic, and can’t afford an 8th active simultaneous archive binge to be inflicted upon this shattered psyche. (Special Interests care not if the stacks become disorderly, only that I stack)
It’s up for interpretation, but I do appreciate the link. I was actually under the assumption it was some sort of defunct YouTube series with probably half a million missing uploads, or spread across a dozen sites.
I don’t have Yu-Gi-Oh cards but I do have like thirty plush Pokemon, is that an acceptable substitute or will we be required to fight for dominance in accordance with tradition?
(I do actually like Yu-Gi-Oh. Also Digimon! Not quite to special interest levels for either but they fill me with nostalgic joy, whereas Pokemon is literally a serotonin generator and the trailer last week was a SIGNIFICANT mood booster I sorely needed. Just figured I’d joke about semi-dueling fandoms.)
But it’s the first time the doctor met Joyce, and probably saw her for 15 minutes. That time would be spent talking about Joyce’s immediate issue and likely an exam. It seems very unlikely that Joyce exhibited characteristics so obvious during that time as would lead to the assumption she needed that referral. From what we’ve seen in the strip, she has no social or communication issues, or other major issues that would be symptomatic of autism, especially ones that would obvious in a short doctor visit for a clear physical problem. The food issue could be a compulsive behavior, but there’s no reason for the doctor to be aware of it. The rest of her “issues” appear to be related to her upbringing in the church.
This isn’t to say that she might not have an issue, just that I find it unrealistic for a doctor to make the determination that she needs to be evaluated for it after such a brief encounter. Elementary school teachers (which I have had a lot of contact with) can conclude fairly quickly that a child has issues that should be evaluated, but short of cases that are fairly extreme, quickly means weeks of seeing the child 6 hours a day in situations where social and communication interactions are ubiquitous. I don’t think a doctor, presented no relevant symptoms going in and seeing a new patient briefly for other reasons, would do so.
Mind you – I am old(er), and judging from comments made by readers here, it may be that a large percentage of younger people are actually diagnosed with “conditions” over things that back in the day would have been considered just personality traits (or at most quirks). But to me, this revelation seems an out of nowhere action for dramatic reasons rather than something that flows organically.
We weren’t at all privy to how the appointment went after Jennifer left the examination room. And it’s not like the doctor immediately diagnosed Joyce as having autism, only a referral to see a specialist who would then help determine.
Joyce could have simply relayed certain frequent experiences she has and the school doctor said something like “Hm, those experiences sound common among people with autism. Are you interested in getting a referral?”
I wouldn’t necessarily call that a revelation. And in my experience at a university health center, those sorts of referrals are quick and convenient. Sometimes as easy as telling the doctor “I feel depressed” to which a quick response of “if you’d like I could refer you for an intake appointment with the school’s counseling and psychological services” isn’t an uncommon example.
Maybe one-on-one time with the doctor’s objective, sympathetic ear opened the floodgates and Joyce starting going off about all the recent changes in her life.
Probably narrative convenience is a factor, but this referral doesn’t seem *too* unlikely.
Possibly related story: I am very much not a doctor (studying linguistics, previous degree in English lit.), but I have ADHD and I suspected one of my tutoring students did too, just based on how he acted in a 2-hour online class (not fidgety, just distractable – wanting to look up interesting but off-topic stuff).
Now, I was wondering whether it was my place to bring it up at all, but in the next class he said himself he had ADHD.
I’m not saying that the doctor herself is autistic (she could be, of course) – or even that her suggestion is necessarily right – but it makes sense for someone to pick up on possible signs based on repeated experience, personal or otherwise.
Probably noticed some of her nervous behaviors while going through medical history and how she may have been acting in the office.
Really since the beginning of this comic Joyce has steadily shown signs of various mental conditions but nothing specific.
I was diagnosed as being autistic in I think 2003. And I can tell you, I’ve exhibited a lot of her shared traits
Organizing food and how to eat it.
Consistently sticking to certain styles of clothing
Having incredible difficulty adjusting to change in oneself or ones you associate with regularly.
Some would say that everyone can have issues with those things, but Joyce has usually taken it to slightly unnecessary extremes at her best state of control with all of that. It wouldn’t suprise me if some of that behavioral mindset popped up in the docs office.
“Any nausea?”
“Oh, yeah, way more than usual.”
“Oh? How is it usually?”
“Well, if the food is touching other food on the plate or has a squishy texture I usually get so nauseous I can’t eat it at all, but I’m really working on that. Yesterday I had sausage on a pizza, even!”
“Interesting. Can you tell me some more about how mixing foods affects you?”
There is no such thing as conversational progression or flow. Medical people are robots who spew body-status jargon and the names of big-brand pills and will incinerate you for straying off the beaten path.
Funny enough, my favorite diagnosis from a doctor was “You’re full of shit.”, followed by a prescription for some hardcore laxatives (I had a severe blockage and only went in because I was rolling on the floor wailing “Oh God, I’m dyiiiiing” and my friends got a little worried). That guy was awesome, you don’t get many doctors with a sense of humor ’round these parts.
Hear we go. When the docs first started looking into whether or not I was autistic, ain’t gonna lie it was scary. Having that knowledge of why you do some of the things you do and have them be mostly out of your control can get to you.
Been trying to get an official diagnosis of autism for a while now so I can qualify for certain aid programs and the like. Hopefully Joyce has an easier time of it than I have. There’s so many hoops to jump through…
Is that….is it a normal and cool thing for a gynecologist to have a patient come in with bad menstrual cramps and say the problem is that the patient is autistic?
That sounds like an odd thing but I’m not really an expert so it’s entirely possible I’m the fool here
Do you really think that’s what we’re supposed to think happened? Or do you think it’s more likely that the doctor gave that referral for reasons *other* than the cramps?
The doctor was actually a teenaged boy playing Counterstrike in disguise. After Joyce booted Jennifer, the rubber Scooby-Doo! mask came off and the doctor was like “Lmao nice period cramps! What are you, autistic, bro?” And then he shotgunned some Monster Energy drinks and said a slur.
I know this sounds fantastic, but there are some doctors who (a) take a thorough history whenever they take on a new patient, (b) sometimes notice things, and (c) ask “is there anything else that you’d like to ask me about?” after they have dealt with the presenting symptom. I know, because I have met some.
Dr Kaur picking up Joyce’s possible symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder during a consultation for severe menstrual pain does seem a bit abrupt, but that kind of thing is not bizarre. GPs are supposed to perform routine screenings and so on.
What makes you think that the Doctor said that problem is the autism? She gave Joyce the prescription and, I assume, during the questioning Joyce volunteered information that made the Doctor think “Hmm that sounds quite a bit like Autism, better send her along to a specialist just in case.”
Yeah, but that is insanely unrealistic, is the thing. An adult with clear autism, can easily see 30-40 psychologists/psychiatrists, and they are all just unwilling to even approach the idea of referring, let alone diagnosing, an adult with autism. As someone outside that field, I can’t say I understand why, but doctors treat adult autism diagnosis as a strange aberrant curiosity, which they simply could not possibly understand, and they will make no attempt to do anything but downplay those possible symptoms. The idea of a doctor doing that proactively? You might as well go find the actual Dr House, MD. He’s more common, and he’s not real.
And also conservation of detail is important. Sure, you could tell the exact same story with a different doctor drawn in every scene/panel, but having just a couple makes it feel more better.
I mean, I’m not very surprised, but given how much I identify with Joyce (apart from the whole religion thing, both ways), I’m probably more surprised than I should be.
This is not where I thought this plot train was going and I am very pleased! I really want to see positive Dina x Joyce interactions that don’t revolve around Becky.
Plus I’m late-diagnosed Autistic and love love love love to see it being explored bc I’m having a hella rough time with managing uni and brain stuff rn
Someone called it back in one of the food preference discussions a while back, which made me realise it was likely too. I hope she now realises how badly she messed up with her snapping at Dina earlier.
I’m afraid tomorrow strip because Dorothy and Sarah and other Joyce’s friends, who always treat her like a child. I bet they will say ‘they never knew’, or they’ll treat Joyce now like a baby.
I hope I’m wrong.
You’re telling yourself you’re afraid. of the different person you’re becoming. But only because a change would be easier to swallow than to admitting she’s who you’ve been all along.
I’ve been exploring my own autism (along with my husband and best friend), and I had wondered about Joyce but I didn’t actually expect it to be raised in comic- at least, not here and now. I’m very curious about where this is going to go, especially with Joyce’s upbringing- she does go all-in in trying to learn about things and that could REALLY be helpful to her here as I imagine her upbringing didn’t provide a good look at what autism actually is. (I think very few do but I can definitely see hers being worse than most… if the existence of autism was even a thing!)
Speaking as an autistic person (high functioning thankfully–but not without difficulty): I thought Willis was setting this up for years. Fantastic job.
All the jokes about Joyce and picky eating made me suspicious, but I couldn’t rule out it just being a simple running joke. Maybe she’ll be made fun of for it less from now on, though… It’s like Dina said. Eating cereal every day is harmless and brings her joy, Joyce should be allowed to have deconstructed pizza if she wants.
Eating only cereal every day isn’t harmless though? Lots of sugar, not much fiber or vitamins or micronutrients, not much protein, not anywhere near a healthy diet. Sure, it’ll keep you alive, but you’re looking at creating or exacerbating potential health problems down the road.
And if Joyce is like the picky eaters I know in real life, she’s not getting adequate nutrition from her diet either. A multivitamin can cover a lot of dietary sins, but…
Who knows? Conversations go places. Overstimulation, for example- if it got worse on her period, but was always present to some degree, she may have mentioned that, which led to more discussion about general wellbeing, etc etc
If I had to guess I’d assume it’s from things she noticed about how Joyce reacted to/talked about her problem. And then presumably somewhat verified through follow-up conversation.
I just realized why i felt odd about the “for autism“ thing. It’s not that i think she isn’t autistic, she might well be…. but i realized i’m disappointed the referral isn’t for *psychotherapy* …
Joyce really, really needs to get into therapy to work through the changes in her life, and someone mentioned PTSD and that checks out, too… both for the shitshow with Toeface, and for her whole upbringing, cause that shit runs deeper than one would think. i’m still busy uncovering all the internalized christian bs.
Pleeeeaaase someone keep suggesting her a therapist until she’s ready to accept that.
My favorite thing about my autism I learned recently is about this study saying we are “less morally flexible” than neurotypicals. It’s true for me, it’s been a long road to learn to tolerate people lying, not doing things they know they should, forgiving, compromising, all that stuff society needs to keep functioning, in short, to tolerate the world not being perfect and fair.
But I’d like to think I’ve made some progress, and it’s only cost me every professional and romantic prospect I might ever have had and every friend except my cousin and my brother. Joyce who had moral absolutism fed to her with mother’s milk, I fear, will have more trouble.
Yeah, I read about that shitty fucking study too, and how it was built from the ground up to frame “less morally flexible, even without observation” as a bad thing. Because no matter what the behavior is, if it’s good for neurotypicals it’s a fuckin’ character failure in us, because we’re fundamentally broken and therefore inherently Wrong. Yeah that was a great study.
To clarify, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I just have a different relationship to the world than most people, maybe a more honest one, definitely a valuable one to society precisely because that variety gives us collectively a wider perspective. But you get very lonely.
Because if so I had my class pick it apart and they went ‘WTF’ at it appropriately. [I teach in a neuroscience program; students picked neuroethics in my student selected topics week, I picked this study as ‘so here we are doing neuroscience of ethics, but really unethically! It’s meta-neuroethics!’]
Aww, Joyce. I get it… I’m happy I get to see Joyce walking the same diagnosis journey I did earlier this year But, wow, I’m surprised — while LOTS of characteristics and mannerisms in Joyce in the past pointed to a possible neurodivergence, I wasn’t expecting it to be addressed so bluntly and sincerely in the comic! I honestly thought Dina was gonna be the only confirmed autistic, along with Walky being the only confirmed ADHDer… THIS makes me hopeful we might see some confirmation of ADHD Jennifer, perhaps? Anyway, hooray for being diagnosed instead of kept in the dark!
Well, this comic finally got too unrealistic for me. A doctor, giving an adult woman attention for possible presentation of autism? Yeah, that would literally never happen. x.x
Huh. Somehow I didn’t expect this turn, I was at the very least thinking about heading into OCD (since Joyce is Willis’ avatar and all), but this is….interesting, actually. I did not see this coming.
It depends entirely on who you share the information with. Keep in mind that many, many human beings are awful and are just itching for an excuse to harm you. #NotAllHumans #YesAllHumans
It can also help you solidify things in your own mind and form a sort of baseline or touchstone for yourself.
Basically it’s a crapshoot, like literally every single other aspect of life, and there’s no easy, objective, binary answer.
It’s helped me survive on disability benefits for 20 years now. You have to consign yourself to a life of enforced near-poverty, particularly in the US, but if you’re really unemployable it helps with the not dying on the street.
The enforced near poverty is somewhat alleviated if you can set up an ABLE Account and/or a Special Needs Trust. Allows you to accumulate savings, receive gifts, receive income from other sources, etc. Plus it’s got an amazing interest rate since it’s a pooled managed investment, so if you do accumulate savings, you can earn and keep and use investment income tax free, since it grows tax free and withdrawals and contributions are not taxed. You can accumulate up to $100,000 in an ABLE Account without affecting any means-tested benefits, such as SNAP, SSI, Medicaid, Section 8, Lifeline, etc. Plus you can spend the ABLE Account funds yourself on whatever you need. There are some limits but they are pretty broad.
Depends. If you can get a doctor to write a letter stating that you experienced significant impairment or limitations before age 26, you’re eligible, even if you were diagnosed later in life. A doctor could get information that from taking down your case/family history, from your own self-reporting, from school records, or even just by surmising that it was likely so, given that most neurodiverse ways of being and neurological/developmental conditions are lifelong. So even if you were diagnosed past 26, you can still get an ABLE Account.
And you can get a Special Needs Trust (also called a Supplemental Needs Trust) at any age.
Some states, such as Washington, also have specific professionally-managed Developmental Disabilities Pooled Trusts. A pooled trust can be helpful if you don’t want to manage the money yourself but don’t have a close friend or family member to help manage the funds or serve as a Trustee.
(A Representative Payee can help with money management, but they usually handle SSI/SSDI funds.)
Note for you and everybody else: There is pending legislation to increase the asset limits for people receiving disability in the USA. Everybody should definitely contact all their legislators to let them know how to vote.
It’s different than a lot of diagnoses because there’s not really treatment, though, right? Like, my Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis has helped because Prozac helps a little. And if I get an ADHD diagnosis (again) it opens up the chance to have insurance pay for a various drugs that help with that.
Are there tangible benefits to an Autism diagnosis if I don’t need disability benefits?
Are there treatment options that become available after an autism diagnosis?
(I know ABT is legally allowed as a treatment in many jurisdictions, but afaik that hasn’t been shown to improve quality of life for the autistic patient, just make them more likely to behave outwardly like allistic people)
I mean, it kinda sounds like you wanna talk yourself out of getting diagnosed. The only negatives I’ve experienced first-hand are all entirely interpersonal, like, it doesn’t (legally, probably) disqualify you from all that many things
It’s more like I’d already talked myself out of bothering to get diagnosed, but people in the comments here are so excited about Joyce getting a diagnosis that it made me wonder if I was missing some really cool benefit.
The really cool benefit is being able to be visible to other autistic people and compare notes, and potentially have the added awareness to recognise the signs in others and be able to help.
There are some medications and treatments and types of therapy that might be more helpful if the health care provider knows that they are treating a spectrum condition as opposed to a mood disorder, for example. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t list them and risk giving bad “advice”.
If you know you’re at risk for complications of COVID-19, as many people with neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions are, you can get bumped up on the waiting list for the therapeutic medicines like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir, for example, or a 2nd booster if one ever becomes available for the under-50 and non-immunocompromised crowd.
So… diagnosis is one tool among many. Not a must, but a potential help.
For the person that is diagnosed, it often feels like a relief in the end because a bunch of stuff you held against yourself? They’re symptoms you didn’t know how to better manage/control. You’re not just lazy/picky/sensitive about certain things.
Other people can be a nightmare though depending on the types of people around you.
I thought the referral would be something to do with the birth control medicine she needed. But as an autistic person, Joyce being autistic would not surprise me.
Now now, diagnosed or not, I don’t think either Dina or Joyce would appreciate the assumption that they’ll get along better just because of their unique neurodivergences which somehow seem like the “same” thing because both of them can some how be described with the same word.
They didn’t assume that Dina and Joyce would get along better because they might have neuro divergence in common, they simply suggested that the thought of them bonding over a area of common ground might be cute.
Between myself and my social circle(s), I sometimes find myself wondering what “neurotypical” actually is. I mean, I suppose they must exist? Somewhere? But when I look around, all I see is data points on a graph (or, if you prefer, a spectrum).
Right, and that makes it hard for me to determine whether (IMO) “no one is ‘normal’, everyone’s weird in different ways and/or degrees” is actually true or just a product of my own selection bias. 😛
But it does sometimes seem to me that “neurotypical” is as arbitrary as any other label, category, or statistical region; and I can’t be sure if any given person I’ve met might actually fit within that set, or is just better at pretending.
I for one welcome Joyce to the ASD fold. Welcome to the club deary. There’s plenty of us out here. You’ll feel alot better being diagnosed! Wish I had gotten diagnosed at an earlier age….
okay so i’ve been reading this comic for a couple years ago and honestly i wasn’t expecting this, but i welcome this development! i’m really interested to see how this affects the storyline from now on
That’s it! I knew there was SOME special need/non-normative/additionally “diverse” trait that hadn’t yet been tokenized in DofA, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it!
Oh, carp, I almost forgot to read my webcomics today.
And THIS happened.
Yeah, considering common stereotypes about people with autism, and the way Joyce treated Dina earlier… I guess she’s dealing with a few layers of weird feelings right now.
Joyce being autistic seems like bunk to me. She is social, outgoing, cares probably too much what people think, especially authority figures. But what do I know?
What do you know? Pretty much nothing, because you just suggested that autistic people can’t be social (we can), can’t be outgoing (we can), can’t care about what other people think (we do), and don’t particularly care what authority figures think (you are 0 for 4 here!).
Autism can manifest in many different ways. Yes some of us are unsocial people who don’t care what anyone else think. But others are quite adept at socialization, outgoing, and often over care what others think. Plus if person one has any care about someone else’s opinion it will probably be an authority figure.
It’s almost like it’s a spectrum
I’m now wondering if some of Joyce’s judgmental behavior towards Dina was rooted in self-loathing or resentment that Dina wasn’t masking/forcing herself to fit in.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I actually had thoughts about this since book 4? Maybe? I am on the spectrum and I noticed a few similarities. Such as how she doesn’t like mixing food. Her near encyclopedic knowledge of the bible. I thought the social awkwardness was just because she was homeschooled, but it could be autism. She also has/had a very black and white way of thinking. Which I also have. It may not be as obvious as Dina, but it’s still there.
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😳😳😳 😰😰😰
welp, that giant can of worms and BAGGAGE just opened up here
oh hai PTSD trigger😟 Oh Joyce, honey, you didn’t need to tell them that anything that specific about the referral, if anything at all.
Whatever comes of this, whatever Joyce decides to do with this referral and its HEAVY implications, my biggest hope is that her friends totally and completely respect her wishes.
I know exactly what Joyce is feeling right now, how hard she’s trying to repress it, that spiral of emotions. 😖😖😖
I know all too well how it feels to have the ability to decide for yourself who you are just RIPPED AWAY FROM YOU by the uncontrollable circumstances of your birth, and other humans, “professionals”, “friends” who act like what they’re doing is “compassion”.
IT’S FUCKING AWFUL!!!!! 😭😭😭
*plays “Rain” by the Seat Belts on hacked muzak*
She didn’t have to tell them anything, but it’s good that she did. Joyce is clearly having issues, and her friends(and Dina) are good people who have additional perspectives that she needs.
I’m sorry that this is a stress trigger for you! 🙁 Plus it sucks when people who are supposed to help don’t, or they assume what’s best for you and don’t get your input.
I had a doctor at a university clinic prescribe me an ADHD medication that had too many side effects at the dose where it actually worked – worsened anxiety and appetite loss (except for sugary stuff – I lost weight when I didn’t want to AND got like 4 cavities).
Not to knock the drug itself – I know at least two people who are doing great on Vyvanse – but different people react differently to the same stuff.
Anyway, he should have followed up better and listened to me about my symptoms. I was also annoyed because I assumed he was a psychiatrist and then found out he was a GP (in retrospect that’s understandable, because the school didn’t have infinite resources and my case wasn’t a life-or-death issue). When I did see a psychiatrist, she actually listened and was much more helpful…not that all psychiatrists are helpful, of course, but that one was!
A diagnosis is a mixed blessing. It puts you in a different drawer that might be a better place to work from. Similar to medication: in my case it increased productivity and decreased the already rather limited competency and patience I had dealing with people of perceived lower comprehension (essentially everybody). It was a net loss for being a productive member of society. Sometimes not being an asshole is important.
I once had a roommate I was randomly paired with in college bring in a bunch of her family (that I had never met) to “explain to me that I had Asperger’s Syndrome”. It almost felt like those interventions that you see on TV, except the only person I sort of knew was my roommate and they were going on about how it wasn’t a bad thing even though they were blaming my personality and reactions to some stuff on it. Considering I have a cousin that works scientifically on that syndrome and strongly said that I don’t have it, it was weird to say the least. After that, I really think that you have to be careful talking to someone about stuff like that even if you think that you are helping. Most people want someone to listen, and will let you know if they want your thoughts on the matter. I might not always be the best about it, but I try. I just know that your fifth paragraph really hits on the feelings that I had at the time. I know that some people find diagnoses like that helping as it can help explain things for them. That doesn’t mean that it’s that way for everyone. It can also sort of feel like they are saying that if it wasn’t for this condition you would be a better person. They might not mean it that way, but it can come across like that. Like a denial of the way you are being fine and normal, which can feel like a rejection of your very being, if that makes sense. Things like that are not something like a drug addiction, though it feels like it is treated like that with trying to train or use medication to get rid of it. Sorry if I am rambling, your comment just really struck me.
It sounds like your roommate was an asshole.
She used your supposed diagnosis as proof that the way she was is normal and the way you thought was weird.
Wellerman, you perfectly summed up what happened when my mom “diagnosed” me at 14. Yes, I did get a proper diagnosis and second opinion later, but by that point the scientific proof was comforting. That initial burn of my own mother taking solace in having an explanation for “what was wrong with me” completely took the foundation out from under a teenager. A foundation most kids question at that age anyway.
As awful as it is to be forced into outing yourself, the successive clarifications of her previous sentiments feels very on brand for many regions of the neuro-diversity spectrum. Over-sharing is a widely recognize trait within the community from what I have seen
This still autobiographical, Willis?
…what birth control did they prescribe you
*runs away*
A Transformers VHS. Didn’t work forever, though.
*scampers off*
Potato
I wish we could upvote comments.
Me too.
(Daaaamn.)
No. It worked so well he stills talk about nowadays.
If it worked so well, how’d he end up with TWO kids instead of ZERO
That’s infinity times more kids than intended. TWO infinities, even!
No birth control is 100%, not even my looks or personality…
I mean, nearly all the characters are Willis. Also, nearly all of them aren’t.
Aw. Well good for Joyce. Diagnosis is the first step! We proud for her!
…vaginal autism?
The worst sort.
Would the two necessarily connected? Unless being autistic also gives you hypersensitivity to pain/cramps, if I told a doctor I had menstrual pain, I wouldn’t expect them to also be like “Yeah, i think there’s something wrong with your mental state too/you’re definitely not neurotypical” or so (I mean i do also have social anxiety issues but that’s beside the point lol) But i know some women are more sensitive to cramps while one only get their period for like 3 days instead of the average full week as well
i’m assuming the doctor noticed some things about the way she acted and communicated
but who knows maybe she just has an autistic hoohah
Somehow, “vaginal autism” barely provoked a reaction from me, but “autistic hoo-hah” nearly made me spit out my drink. Congratulations.
does your vagina avoid eye contact?
It’s really late stop making me want to burst out laughing
Shor’s bones, I really hope so.
Does it have special interests?
Does it often engage in repetitive activities, sometimes known as “stimming”?
*To Hakuna matata*
Vagina Ocula
A terrifying phraaseeee
Vagina Ocula
the horriffyiiinggg gaaazeeee
it means no more sleep!
For the rest of your daaayyysss
(Oh damn gravitar roulette did me justice this time)
Cloyster
haha
idk if a doctor can ask about religious stuff but i wouldn’t think joyce’s family dynamic was too healthy growing up either but i never had religion forced upon me growing up
Medical personnel at the college should have access to a student’s personal records as well, right?
Before I’d dangle an autism eval, I think I’d first flip thru that report and take a moment to ask, “Are you seeing someone to help you deal with the kidnapping last fall?”
Yeah, I feel like regardless of how she presented, a referral to talk to someone about trauma is an obvious choice given her history, both recent and extended.
Hyper sensitivity to pain absolutely can be one of the sensory difficulties that can present if you’re autistic. So can insensitivity to pain. I don’t think we’ve seen Joyce exhibit either though.
That comment she made earlier about “talking sounds like a chainsaw to my spine” might be a tip-off. Like a kind of synesthesia. Like how a lightbulb’s hum can sound particularly shrill to the point of causing physical pain in some folks on the spectrum.
Obsessive and zealous adherence to the precise and predictable rituals of religious observance might have been a very familiar and comforting routine for a person with spectrum traits, too. Just thinking about family history.
Wondering how she reacted to being told what the appropriate medication was, and what sort of conversation that might’ve led to.
We (here meaning AFAB autistics) apparently have a high rate of menstrual disorders, on VERY brief Google Search. Now, granted, I didn’t look further to ‘how much higher compared to the general population,’ and it could just as easily be a ‘we’re more likely to get diagnosed because it’s harder to ignore the pain when your body CANNOT SHUT OFF ITS AWARENESS’ the way I suspect autistic people being queer and particularly trans is really more a reflection the rates are way higher but we’re way more likely to declare social rules silly and ignore them if they don’t make sense to us. But if the doctor was already aware of that statistic and getting pings of recognition at Joyce, I could see her bringing it up… and it is VERY easy to see Joyce failing to mask given the stress she’s under and the commentariat’s speculation for like, the last decade.
BUUUT, I should also note that there’s current research looking into a theory that endometriosis is in some way an autoimmune disorder, and that it has become increasingly obvious that Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is REALLY underdiagnosed because it was only formally codified in 2007 or so and doctors haven’t been trained to look for it. (MCAS being an autoimmune disorder that can have a WIDE variety of ripple effects throughout your body, and which is part of this cluster of frequently-connected conditions including Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome… both of which have VERY disproportionately high co-occurrence rates with autism, to the point where there apparently are in fact theories that there’s a causal link somewhere in there.) So like… there actually is a possibility the two are, in fact, actively connected, almost certainly through a third systemic condition that would be a massive pain in Joyce’s ass to manage whether it’s EDS, MCAS, or both. Having been on this particular journey the last several months… I admit I’d kind of like seeing Joyce’s freakout faces when she got some of the shit I’ve been dealing with, especially trying to manage the increasingly-troublesome dietary restrictions. I wouldn’t wish it on another human, but DAMN have I been relating to Joyce’s Handling Medically Necessary Life Changes Poorly crisis with glasses pretty hard the last few months.
It could also just be Willis introducing something for narrative convenience when a doctor’s appointment was already being set up to bring something autobiographical, which Willis has at least been increasingly publicly identifying with for a couple years now, into the comic and confirming a long-held fan-theory.
Incidentally, Willis, if this IS your way of publicly stating you’re autistic, whether on-paper diagnosed or elsewise… congrats, if they’re something you’d appreciate? I know people have a wide spectrum of feelings on the subject, especially with formal diagnosis since it can open the door for some active discrimination in formal settings (bias against us as parents with adoption or custody hearings, struggles to get medical care while autistic and trans because how could we ACTUALLY know our own brains, perceived lower quality of life when talking about medical triage situations like organ donation or life support – and I urge anyone who wants to ask further questions THERE to Google ‘autism COVID deaths’ or something to that effect because I will NOT be doing that explanation tonight – point being, there are issues even beyond the standard assumed autism/‘weird’ discrimination,) but I also know you’ve been at least somewhat publicly identifying it on Twitter and such for a while now, so inasmuch as it’s a ‘figuring out your own identity and being public about it,’ that can be anxiety-provoking and I appreciate it being stated in the text of your work. This is rambling. Whatever.
… The spectrum pun in that last paragraph was not intentional. I so firmly claim ‘autistic’ as my identifier and have for years that I barely even THINK of the spectrum part anymore.
Unintentional and yet also perfectly applied puns seems to be a symptom of being on the spectrum too, I think
*slides in* EDSer with MCAS and POTS here! And yup this is spot on. Studies have shown both Autism and ADHD occur at high rates in people with EDS (and perhaps related conditions). I just got diagnosed with ADHD myself (which seems to have a decent amount of symptom overlap with Autism as well, curiously enough).
Technically I’m in a ‘we can’t diagnose it as hEDS because you don’t have the classic-type skin elasticity that distinguishes from HSD and any family member who COULD show a family history of hypermobility never got diagnosed before they developed arthritis even though there clearly IS familial hypermobility’ gray zone but hey, extremely similar hats. Internet gesture of solidarity.
Oof I’m sorry. Tbh that seems so much like it just depends on the doctor. I don’t have extreme skin elasticity either and my dr told me not all hEDS patients do (I have basically every other symptom including doughy skin texture, bruising, dislocations, easily tearing skin, etc) so he said the stretchy skin wasn’t necessary for dx. Some drs are still following outdated views though and thinking it’s mandatory for dx. :/
My doctor is actually quite good – she does think it’s EDS, just ‘yeah we can’t prove it until and unless they isolate that gene, and the diagnostic criteria are really specific now to the point they almost certainly have a few edge cases on either side in the wrong category, so we’re writing down HSD and treatment wouldn’t differ all that much anyway but you clearly have a connective tissue disorder.’ (I then got tested for other types.) I just like being specific and from what we can tell the connective tissue disorder may be ‘my immune system is attacking my collagen.’
My one grandma actually DID get diagnosed with hypermobility in her 40s (and didn’t tell us until I’d been diagnosed with hypermobility causing a repetitive stress injury,)… but she’s on the side of the family that isn’t where we have hypermobility, dysautonomia, balance, and GI issues all over the place, and none of her kids seem to have it. So we’re assuming it’s from the side where all my grandma’s siblings just cannot wrap their brains around the fact that it actually is unusual for one’s elbows to invert like that, because they can do it. What do you mean that’s not standard? (I love them all, they’re not being jerks about it, it’s simply so normalized that everyone in the family got growing pains that woke you in the night crying or can put their foot behind their head that the idea this ISN’T something everyone goes through does not compute. Fair enough, I missed the implication of my PTs telling me I hyperextended for years. A lot of weird genetic quirks on that side are now being reassessed.)
And yeah I sympathize on the lack of family history too. I’m lucky my dr overlooked that as I didn’t actually find out my grandma was hyper mobile until literally last month, 6 years after my diagnosis. Neither of my parents have really obvious symptoms (though my dad and I share some health issues) so it was a mystery where I got it from until then.
I kind of wonder if there’s another subtype division or if classifications will change again, as there seems to be a divide of some hEDS patients having stretchy skin (or maybe that’s more cEDS?) while tbh MOST of the ones I know don’t but just have extremely friable skin instead.
Wait wait wait
My hypermobility in my hips and knees could be due to my autism?
…The fuck is this disorder, the Blob?
It means we don’t understand what it is exactly, the disorder at present is closer to a loose grouping of symptoms rather than a traceable process failure. Because biochemistry and biology are really really really fucking complicated.
We’re not sure about the correlation, it may be the other way around, or they may just be conditions linked to the same genes. We’re not really sure! I know some of the theories about the prevalence of Adhd in EDS patients are that reduced blood flow to the brain due to POTS (caused by stretchy veins) may play a role, but that’s just a theory and doesn’t necessarily explain it all, or what the autism link might be.
tl;dr it’s all a big mystery so far!
Oh, yeah, definitely. There are a lot of things which all seem to present with one another, and various stages of connective tissue issues (the hypermobility) and autism are well-known to be very heavily comorbid with each other.
Note: Also very likely connected to the hypermobility, because it’s all *connective tissue problems* are the following, if you have them –
Weird fainting spells
Weird heart problems
Migraines, including migraines without the headache part
Weird digestive issues, including but not limited to frequent bouts of constipation AND diarrhea
Weird hives – I can get hives just by carrying a cold can of soda or by scrubbing too hard in the shower
Anything at all having to do with the joints
Weird circulation issues
(This list is almost certainly incomplete.)
Normal people don’t say “Gosh, I have migraines AND weird joint issues, I wonder if those are connected?” they say “Welp, my grandma had weird joint issues and my mom has migraines, guess it’s just one of those things yay”, but if everything’s an issue, think “connective tissue”.
^Can confirm all of the above Uly. All those things you describe are things I deal with. Definitely all part of the EDS/POTS/MCAS cluster.
hEDSer here as well. I’ve been suspicious about possible ADHD or ADD but my therapist ran me through a basic assessment and I wasn’t even close to borderline. Thankfully I don’t have POTS and no indication of MCAS, but I did get a weird “by the way you have ‘a little bit of’ endo” diagnosis during my fibroid surgery (he took the liberty of attacking the endo with lasers since he was already in there). UGH at all of the things.
There are so many of us here! Hello fellow zebras!
And yeah I don’t know what it is specifically (inflammation or what) but almost everyone I know with EDS and a uterus seems to have various uterus/pms-related problems. I’ve never been formally dxd with anything like endo but I do get bad ovarian cysts and my periods were a NIGHTMARE pre-IUD. Much how Joyce’s have been.
*waves*
what a day to check in on the comments section – while I was away I found out HSD exists *and* that I’d been misinterpreting the beighton score. I don’t get a diagnosis because canada is like “no diagnose, only treat” when it comes to hypermobility disorders 😛 but I’m halfway through doing Muldowney on my own anyways. I have a feeling I’ve ranted about my health when I was around here years ago.
I’m so glad I haven’t seen mcas or pots symptoms yet (or real period trouble)… having my muscles randomly try to tear themselves apart is quite disruptive enough 😛 and the brain fog still isn’t really gone… I’m not even sure if that’s from the muscle issues or something else, still.
sadly my brain is refusing to hyperfocus on the comments so I’m not likely to actually read all of this thread… er… I was actually supposed to be buying groceries online, lol
Forgot the rest of what I was gonna write (see there’s the ADHD): So much of what Joyce has been dealing with, both in terms of “quirks” that’re likely autism symptoms, and her PMS stuff, have been super relatable to me as someone with EDS/MCAS and ADHD so yeah there’s definitely a lot of overlap and similarity in all of this.
While I obviously don’t know what relationship there may be between autism and various conditions that have higher reported incidence among autistic people*, I think that at least some of it is because we are looking, not at the rate of incidence, but at the rate of diagnosis. If you have access to the kind of care and support that will get you tested for one, then they will likely also test for and diagnose the other stuff you have. Same thing with the correlation between being autistic and trans.**
* Oh my but there are a lot of them – oddly I don’t seem to have much of the stuff on the list besides anxiety and depression, and I hold that those, as with their correlation with being LGBT – are due to how people treat autistic and LGBT folks rather than a result of them being autistic or LGBT.
** I should reiterate that I am not saying “THIS is the cause,” because I find the idea of such things have a sole, identifiable cause to be ridiculous. It’s far more likely to be an amalgamation of factors, the the cause in question is just one of them.
My mother’s oncologist asked her if I was autistic, after meeting me (with my mother) a few times. Not because she’s a specialist in autism, she’s not, she’s a cancer doctor and I’m not even her patient – but because she has an autistic daughter.
(Story of my life. People who know about autism peg me within minutes. People who don’t go “Oh, but you don’t seem autistic!” Yeah, I do, and that statement is not polite but rude.)
Same. My immediate family can ping off walk/vocal cadence/general vibes pretty quickly because they know me. (They probably won’t bring it up unless you do first, though, because that quickly gets into rudeness territory. But if you do they’ll almost certainly say ‘oh cool, so’s my X, I thought that speech pattern sounded familiar.’) Neurotypicals with no frame of reference have been known to say things like that or ‘I never would have guessed!’ after asking me where my accent’s from. (The answer being: Right here. It’s the regional accent on an autistic vocal cadence. This is your accent on autism.) All depends on whether the observer’s tuned to the right signal.
Ah, autistic accent syndrome, I know it well, the very bane of my existence.
Though I have found that the further I get from NYC, the less likely it is that people will ask me where I’m from…. (Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn, and so’s my mom.)
I actually appreciate autistic accent syndrome because since my accent is kind of vague and odd people usually don’t peg me as being rural in my upbringing so I usually escape regional stigma (the regional accent I’d have without it is stereotyped as stupid and hyperconservative. The stupid stereotype is not with merit but the hyperconservative stereotype very much is – the riding I spent most of my childhood in recently broke a decades long trend of voting Conservative only because there was a more extremist right wing candidate on the ballot. People when they find out where I was brought up usually make assumptions about me that I don’t want made about me. Particularly as a bi non-cis person.
So the more I can obfuscate being from where I’m from the better.
I hate how socially acceptable it is to be explicitly prejudiced against people with certain regional dialects.
Your voice sounds slightly different than mine. We are enemies now.
Prejudice against a speech variety is a proxy for prejudice against that group of people.
The prejudice already exists. Mocking their speech is just how people express it.
I find the comments on mine funny more than anything but yeah, my accent and region aren’t particularly stigmatized and I don’t care who I tell I’m autistic. Sucks that it works out for you in that way because of the societal prejudice.
Oh man, did I ever have that. As a teen I have had kids who grew up in the same neighborhood as me ask “Is that accent from like, England or something?”
One of those kids, in high school, also point at my St. Patrick’s cross pendant and asked if it mean I was “Like, a Satanist or something?”
Lovely Ohio.
I can spot it right away in others, but do my best to mask it myself. I can usually fly under the radar…
…Wait, my accent is because I’m autistic?
Well that explains a lot.
Never once heard of this “accent” thing, but I get weird looks when I talk, so maybe people are too busy staring like I grew a third head to bring it up.
Yeah this is a thing too. Maybe Joyce’s doctor has autism or an autistic family member! I first got on the EDS path because I happened to see an ortho who had it and realized I was hypermobile where every other previous ortho had missed it.
“but you’re so normal”
Often stress, being sick or being in pain increases cognitive load on autistic people so we’re less able to mask. It actually tracks for me that Joyce’s doctor might not see signs of autism in previous checkups but now that Joyce has a lot on her plate and is sick and sore to boot she can’t put on the cult personality she was indoctrinated to display.
This 100%. My ADHD symptoms became less manageable the worse my chronic pain/illness got. If you have a condition that requires a lot of mental compensation (even if it’s subconscious), the more stress on your mind/body, the harder it’s gonna be to keep that up and continue to function.
As someone who is on the spectrum, sometimes I find that otherwise light contact or pressure can be overwhelming if I’m not expecting it, especially if I’m already stressed out
That said (and as a male I can only conjecture on this) I don’t think such a thing would necessarily apply to the regular pain of menstruation, especially since this only seems to happen to Joyce sometimes, and not every month
The previously stated theory that one of her ovaries is just very overactive is probably correct
The doctor most likely picked up on other signs of possible austism and, being a medical doctor and not a psychiatrist, referred her to someone who would actually be qualified to determine such a thing
I mean, it *can*. I’m hypersensitive to water and loud noises, and probably at least a third of the people I met at a local autism-spectrum support group had some kind of sensitivity too.
It’s Joyce, what kind did you expect her to have?
Srsly, just glad someone has recognized a problem that was shrowded by her getting homeschooled. With nobody to interact with except family who were used to her, her neurodivergence was probably just written off as “Joyce being Joyce”.
*shrouded*
I’ve been watching races on TV all day and I’m phonetically spelling everything now because I’m dealing in images now and not words?
Maybe her pediatrician subscribed to the “girls don’t get Autism or ADHD” nonsense theory, too.
Or the “autism isn’t real” nonsense. That is also popular with fundies.
So that’s why she’s so picky about food touching! It all makes sense now.
!!!!
Huh. That… actually makes sense. I’m very interested to see where this goes.
Yeah, there are indicators, at least to this layman. Particularly the food touching thing.
Yeah, this isn’t entirely surprising.
My mind is now racing to find other potential symptoms that I’ve been missing thus far. Like, oh yeah, remember when she binge-watched her friends’ favorite cartoon and immediately became a super-fan? And I guess her encyclopedic knowledge of the Bible scans with how autistic people tend to learn (as perhaps does her hyper-literal understanding of it.) Not to mention the, shall we say, intensity with which she approaches things like her comic. And while she doesn’t necessarily struggle socially, she definitely does have a pattern of failing to read the room properly. Oh, and there’s the way she performs certain habits and routines almost as ritual, like her morning wake-up calls. Man, now I feel like kind of an idiot for not seeing it before.
her extreme OCD towards food touching, her intensity of affection towards her friends as if she doesn’t understand social boundaries sometimes, her need to over correct herself anytime she finds out she is wrong
Well, it wouldn’t be OCD, let’s not get our neurodivergences mixed up.
Doesn’t really help that the “””official””” ways of describing neurodivergent stripes are an oligopoly of overgeneralizing categories. 😮💨
I don’t think my unique combination of neurodivergent stripes could at all be captured by such big, baggage filled brushstrokes.
Are they any other people who feel this way too? 🥺
For what it’s worth, I agree with some of what you said! The broad strokes that diagnostic criteria work in easily leave out a lot of people who share some symptoms, but not all.
Example? Me. I was diagnosed with ADHD as a kid, but now the only symptom
I really exhibit is executive dysfunction (which could just as easily be a product of my depression). So I don’t actively use the ADHD label, even though I’ve been officially diagnosed with it. It just does nothing for me now haha.
Not to mention, like. I was diagnosed in the 90s. Understanding of neurology and psychology has progressed a LOT since then. So I’m not sure if it’s even an accurate diagnosis…? To be fair I DID fit the criteria pretty well as a kid, though, I’m just pretty different now as an adult.
Yeah food aversions and pickiness seem to be a symptom of a LOT of different ND conditions.
It doesn’t help so MANY overlap!
I’ve known I was ADHD for most of my life. (Bless my parents for getting me tested early. And it helped my mom, too, b/c when she sat down and started reading ‘You mean I’m not lazy, stupid, or crazy?’ to understand what I’d have to deal with, she went “… WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE–“)
… I’ve only recently, in the past few years (around when I was 33-34), realized that I am ALMOST CERTAINLY also autistic.
Yeah I could see the gears turning in my dad’s head when I was describing the symptoms and my mom basically outright said “maybe we should get your dad tested too…” XD
Yup. When the psychologist met with my mom and dad to go over my diagnosis, dad was sitting there going “… shit!”
So at least we know where it comes from!
It’s not uncommon for autism and OCD to be comorbid, actually.
I mean it’s not necessarily not OCD (although that tends to be over applied in the common vernacular rather than diagnostically). OCD is one of those things more common in autistic people than in neurotypicals.
There’s also the food things. Not wanting things to touch or sticking to certain specific things. Having hangups about food (especially like, texturally) is a pretty common autistic trait.
I never even considered the food thing I mean I don’t care that my food is touching but I can’t stand certain textures of food. spaghetti was always a big one I hated the texture, but in my family spaghetti was a staple so my parents would make me rigatoni or boil macaroni shells.
OMG IT’S HAPPENING
I am gonna be living vicariously through Joyce for a while I think
If you’re an alien parasite like me, living vicariously is the only way you live 👾😛👾
…. so THAT explains the pope’s hat. It’s a fish-parasite that’s living vicar-iously.
…Somewhere there is an upvote button and I WILL find it!
A rather exasperated English literature professor exclaimed to his class “Has none of you ever had a vicarious experience with a novel?”
A young woman in the third row answered “No. But I once had a novel experience with a vicar!”
EVERYONE, INTO THE IT’S HAPPENING BUNKER SPECIFICALLY FOR THE AUTISTIC!
There better be a fucking PlayStation in this alleged “bunker”, or I’m gonna get really antsy and set off a chain reaction.
Original, 2, 3, 4, or 5?
Ya really can’t miss. Especially if it’s one of the ones that can play every Kingdom Hearts game released during its generation.
Dibs on Crash when we play Crash Team Racing.
Mmmm, Kingdpm Hearts 1 and 2…
Shame they never made a third main game.
See, I can tell you’re fuckin’ with me because everyone knows that Kingdom Hearts 2 is the third main game, plus it’s publicly available knowledge that the only proper spinoff/non-main game was a semi-obscure mobile game exclusive to V Cast phones.
Another fun public-knowledge fact (which we both of course know, but is nonetheless fun to mention in conversation) is that due to the convoluted nature of release (A different console every game after KH2? Come on, Square.), it got slightly messy figuring out which games went where until 2013, when the first “half” of the games got remastered and released together in a bundle on the PS3, followed a year later by the next half on that very same console, handily tying nearly the entire series together in an incredibly accessible way.
But of course everyone knows this and it’s just fun to make jokes about how wonky things were for a good number of years until that point.
Let me re-iterate, then.
Shame they never released a game called Kingdom Hearts III.
Well now, that’s just plain untrue. It released in January of 2019, concluding a nearly two-decade saga. Maybe some of the fans weren’t especially happy with some of the story events or gameplay elements in it, but—
Oh, I get the joke now. Very funny. Uproarious laughter. 😐
I will argue that KH III’s story is Pretty Good, Actually, though I get that the Disney worlds feel even more blatantly unattached to the plot than ever even with the ‘New Seven Hearts’ thing and it makes the whole game’s pacing feel weird. But I will argue for it thematically and go so far as to argue that KHI is the weird outlier for NOT touching on the existential question of what makes a human. (I won’t here in the interest of not TOTALLY derailing because that will in fact be THAT long, but like. I could and have.) I also maintain that while Days-BBS-Coded is the proper order to experience that chunk of games in playing Days before II is wrong and only happened to keep things even rather than putting two numbered titles and COM on the 1.5 disc and then one PSP game and two movies on 2.5. Release order is the proper order, these are the hills I will die on.
See, your problem, Emperor Norton II, is that you’re trying to be snide and sarcastic in a thread specifically for autistic people. Do you see where you went wrong? Also, https://www.dumbingofage.com/2016/comic/book-6/04-it-all-returns/ultracar/ (last panel)
Hey, uh, your thread seems pretty fun.
I’m a socially challenged neurodivergent and wanna join
😗 👉👈
But do I have to identify as “autistic” ?
Neurodivergence is just…. really fluid, as fluid as gender and sexuality, and I feel my stripes matter just as much, even though I can’t really put them under a nice, neat little word
It’s not that I don’t haven’t eschrewed some “””autistic””” elements (if you choose to count them as such) but i’m just….. more…. you know ?
Oh, shit.
Oh. Wow.
I mean, it’s not like the idea hasn’t been brought up numerous times in the comments, but to actually have it brought up in-strip was not something I was expecting, or at least not yet. This day has been a real double-whammy for Joyce.
Gotta wonder if Walky will finally get an opportunity to go get checked for that ADHD all of us and the comic too assume he has. That would be nice.
Oh I would love that. His school struggles have been so relatable (skating by/doing well until he actually has to study and suddenly grades drop because he lacks the ability to focus).
Oh, hE jUsT haS tO wOrK hArDeR!
/s
I mean… possibly, yes?
OCD is a thing. Not everybody who does poorly on university has it.
> skating by/doing well until he actually has to study and suddenly grades drop because he lacks the ability to focus
I didn’t realize that was an ADHD thing. Wow, my life makes more sense now.
Yeah I mean I’m definitely not an expert, I was literally diagnosed only last month, but I have always had a really hard time studying/making myself do any homework that I wasn’t SUPER excited about, and not out of laziness/lack of desire to succeed, but just…couldn’t do it. I could never explain it. I WANTED to do my hw and study and do well but then would procrastinate every time. Walky’s distress over his current math situation reminded me a lot of that.
And like Walky, I did well in school generally, but my deep dark secret was I rarely ever studied. So the second I encountered a topic/test/etc. that I actually had to really buckle down and study for in a class I couldn’t focus on, I’d get a poor grade. And then panic and beg the teacher to let me do extra credit to bring my grade up. And round and round in a cycle like that. So I was literally doing MORE work in the end because I just…couldn’t study. 😐
Finally in my 30s I stopped being able to work entirely. It’s like my willpower just…broke. Like I’d been running at max power for 30+ years to compensate for my poor executive function and finally ran out of steam. That’s what finally led to my diagnosis.
Basically the way my psychiatrist explained it is that people who are smart but have ADHD (especially the inattentive type because it’s less behaviorally obvious) often fly under the radar because their academic skill is enough to compensate for their lack of focus, so their grades end up looking like a weird mix of fantastic and bad based on their enthusiasm for the subject or their focus at any given time. Like I graduated with honors from HS and college, but also got my fair share of Cs, Ds, and Fs, and missed assignments. It was chaos that I was always super ashamed of because I didn’t understand what my problem was.
I dunno if that’s where we’re going here with Walky but he definitely gives me some of those vibes.
And like with Walky, a major life change such as a harder subject, new life stressor, or just generally increasing difficulties and responsibilities with age may make the “staking by unnoticed” ability to compensate start to crumble. That’s definitely what happened with me.
Sorry for the 3 replies kept thinking of more stuff…I blame the Adhd XD
skating, not staking. He is not a stealthy vampire slayer (that we know of…)
I was diagnosed with Aspbergers sometime in 2000 (which pretty much explained alot about the nature of why I had [&have] so much trouble with social interactions.)
I became aware of the, somewhat extreme, likelihood that I have primarily inattentive ADHD (back when it was ^still^ known as ADD*) when I was first introduced to ‘You mean I’m lazy, stupid, or crazy?’*
〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️
*Not long before (what used to be) ADD became a subtype of (the new) ADHD with DSM-4
Yeah, I was not expecting today to have gotten that whammy of a line or I would not have checked until morning because I am excited but also really need sleep. Also, yeah, hope this also means Walky might be closer to getting a diagnosis and hopefully some medication and/or ADHD Hacks.
Congrats to the people who were more willing to say ‘autism, specifically’ than me for years and pinged on her WAAAY earlier than I did, btw. If I feel the exciting glow of Textual Representation in a comic that makes me feel seen I imagine you guys are too right now.
Dina’s now paying attention. Wonder where that will lead?
I think the fact that she heard Joyce from that distance with a lowered voice implies she was already paying attention. She was expecting to see Joyce freakout over birth control and is surprised with this turn of events.
I basically just assume Dina is always paying attention to everything happening around her; that’s kinda just how she works.
Yeah, it looks like she was listening the entire time, then the last panel is a “did I hear that right?” reaction.
Yeah, this is gonna be one hell of a story arc.
Oh yeah about time someone did that
God, I wish that going to the doctor for period pains had gotten me a possible autism diagnosis.
Same!
I’m honestly surprised she got a referral. What I got was a list of numbers to call none of which handled adult diagnosis.
I’m so impressed with this student clinic. I was impressed when I thought it was a referral for the Gyn/RE problems.
I’m curious if Joyce even actually knows what that is (and if not, what kind of wild misconceptions she has about it.) I’m also curious how the hell that came up in a visit about getting birth control meds, but I’m guessing I’m never getting an answer for that.
The “I don’t know you, lady!” might have something to do with it.
Maybe a strong aversion to being touched by unfamiliar instruments, such as a metal speculum. Like the pain she had with the air-puff test at the eye doctor. Intolerance of new touch sensations and textures can be one spectrumy trait.
Anyone notice how Joyce’s “sick” appearance vanished and her smile returned as soon as Jennifer brought her to the health center and started talking with her respectfully? Even though Jennifer’s comment about “I had lost the plot” was blunt and harsh, it shows respect not to sugarcoat one’s statements.
Jennifer treated Joyce like an adult, and showed her kindness and caring. Big difference from her closest friends, Sarah, Dorothy, and Becky, who treat her like a child (perhaps with reason).
Maybe having physical pain symptoms that improve in socially comfortable settings might also be a trait sometimes associated with certain neuroemotional ways of being? I don’t know, maybe that’s a reach.
Or maybe Dr. Kaur asked Joyce about her activities, and Joyce got to talking about her comic strip and went into detail on all the complex world building she had done. The whole “obsessive interests” angle.
Lotta things about Joyce might tip a person off in a medical interaction.
…
Oh, hey, speaking of going into detail, I’ve been thinking a lot recently about this classic comedy routine:
https://youtu.be/ZCqh5ROtQRg
“My name is Raymond James Johnson, Jr.”
That is so me. 100%.
Everything becomes a lecture. Everything becomes a bullet point list. Every possible option and permutation must be explored in detail, whether the listener asked or not. Every possible trigger becomes an infodump. Or an opportunity for personal exposition.
It can actually make communication quite difficult, and frustrating sometimes to my conversation partners.
…Maybe somewhat spectrum-adjacent myself. :-/
….huh.
Are GPs actually licensed to give referrals for autism diagnosis? Like, I can see it, but it also feels like a very blurry area.
I mean, I guess that’s half the point of sending someone to get diagnosed in the first place, but Joyce must have been really triggered for the doctor to suggest it in one checkup session.
Yup. Most on the spectrum I know were referred by a GP. Typically a GP has to refer you to see any specialist at all.
Practically speaking, since Joyce is an adult, the hard part will be more “Finding someone who can actually diagnose her in the next fifty years”. A referral is fine but it doesn’t make the wait lists go away.
Most likely it’s a generic “talk to a shrink” referral and the shrink can decide what to diagnose her with, but it’s not an unusual issue to expect.
I’m mostly impressed the doc did anything beyond the bare minimum. Campus doc is probably overworked and underpaid, so taking the extra time to spot Joyce’s issues is very nice.
She did have walk-in slots, so maybe the overwork isn’t too bad?
Indiana University has one of best medical schools in the US. Its related hospital system is cutting edge and staffed with outstanding doctors and nurses. My spouse has a medical issue being treated through IU and her physician for that is literally the world expert on the condition.
Out of all of DoA’s mildly fantastic elements (Joyce and Dina’s teleportation powers, kidnappings, car chases, Amazi-Girl’s feats, etc), who would’ve guessed “timely visits with competent medical professionals” would be the most unbelievable.
From personal experience a college clinic is the only place that seems plausible to be for a GP or nurse practitioner to be this thoughtful. I act like a terrified animal at the doctor and college clinics were always the most understanding
Why wouldn’t GPs be able to give referrals for autism diagnosis?
GPs are on the front line of medical care… Not experts on everything but hopefully able to send patients to specialists where necessary. If the GP cannot refer them who can?
It’s a referral, why wouldn’t they be allowed to give it out?
I think you just have to be a doctor to refer someone to another doctor.
It varies, perhaps. Here in Australia my psychiatrist figured out that I have haemochromatosis, but she couldn’t refer me to a haematologist. She had to send a report to my GP, who then referred me (to a gastroenterologist, but that’s another story).
Could also be an insurance type thing state side. I’ve had insurance who wanted any specialist to be referred by gp, I’ve had some that requires no referrals ever and others that require a 10 step song and dance routine to make it into a follow up because the last time I was there was a previous billing cycle.
I’m pretty sure a GP can give a referral for almost anything. After all, that’s mostly just, “I think you might have [X] condition, talk to this specialist about it”.
GPs are licensed to give you a referral for anything right? Like, isn’t that the whole point of a General practitioner? The one you see when Something’s wrong and that something turns out to be a whole lot more serious or specific than you thought so you see a specialist when you otherwise never would have
That’s how it’s always worked for me. Sometimes they’ll send you off to various different specialists one after the other as they try to figure out what’s wrong.
Wait, I see Dina looking their way in panel 4.
Is this how Dina and Joyce finally bond?
This might be how Joyce seriously freaks. She clearly sees Dina as weird. A robot girl. Joyce doesn’t want to be a robot girl.
Check the tweet pic. I don’t think you have too much to worry about.
I expected more of a apology from Joyce now that she’s in Dinas shoes.
I wouldn’t say she is exactly in Dina’s shoes.
We Ven if both are autistic, Joyce’s symptoms seem to be easier to hide (I e. They often seem like Run of the mill foibles). On the other hand, Dina’s issues are more noticable… Non-typical speech patterns, more trouble handling crowds, etc
I’d be willing to bet big part of that lies in their upbringing. Dina’s parents both seem like they might be autistic themselves, and likely never forced her to adhere to societal social standards.
Joyce’s upbringing was probably the opposite. With what we know of her family and the church, any “weird” behavior was probably stamped out pretty fast.
Basically, Joyce is pretty good at masking(her autistic traits) and Dina is not.
Basically, Joyce is pretty good at masking(her autistic traits) and Dina is not.
Indeed, although it should be noted that this in no way makes Joyce more functional than Dina in any real sense.
It’s also, you know, a spectrum. To put it too bluntly, Dina may be more affected than Joyce, even if they fall into the same broad categoty.
And to refine this further without negating too much of the bluntness, Dina may be more affected in certain areas than Joyce, and vice versa.
Yeah, this is something I think they can connect over. I do think that’s going to be real damn interesting.
I kind of doubt it. Joyce is almost certainly towards the bottom, if not actually the bottom, of Dina’s list of favorite people, and is also included in the list of ‘people Dina has threatened to bite’. Dina tolerates Joyce because Becky, that’s it.
Again, check the Twitter plug-in in the sidebar.
And here’s the strip that panel came from:
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2014/comic/book-4/03-up-all-night-to-get-vengeance/assimilation/
Oh. Thank you. I thought it was an upcoming one.
Dina and Joyce don’t like each other now, but that’s something that could probably change. I don’t think either of them outright hates the other
Maybe, and maybe very not.
I’m deeply neuroatypical. Not in ways that show up as autism spectrum, it’s a long story and I’m not going to get into details, but, I’ve been through that diagnosis process and none of it lines up. But I talk to humans pretty well, even if it’s taken a lot – a lot – of work. Like Joyce, I pass well. Better, arguably, since I don’t have the food issues.
A writer you’ve likely heard of is friends with most of my friends. We used to show up at the same parties before the plague, stuff like that. They are also deeply neuroatypical, and talk about that in public, but I won’t speak to their neuroatypicality since the specifics of that are not my story to tell.
We have fairly similar politics, we have a lot of opportunity to bond over various life experiences, we share a lot of interests and enthusiasms without so much overlap that it would just be boring. By all rights, we should get on like gangbusters.
Instead, we can barely handle being in the same room together because we’ve both built extensive translation systems for dealing with neurotypicals and none of them work between us. In fact, it’s worse than that: in person, we pretty much continually set off each other’s RED ALERT buttons.
It is so. goddamn. frustrating.
Not long before the plague we both figured this out kind of independently and managed to have a brief but constructive talk about it, so that we both knew what was going on, and after that, we’ve been able to coexist peacefully and even navigate brief conversations during chance encounters. But particularly in my case it’s all like, “goddamn, we should be like best buds and we are so not and never will be” and it’s like
well
fuck.
So I’ll be curious as to whether this happens here. It very well might.
It’s worth bringing up the mantra, “If you’ve met one autistic person, you’ve met ONE autistic person.” Joyce and Dina may share a diagnosis, but they’re still very different people whose specific experience of autism likely varies greatly. This won’t magically make the history of conflict between them go away – nor will it make what friendship they’ve managed to develop despite that vanish.
☝️☝️☝️ THIS!!!!! This human GETS it!
Thank you thakoru, this was very much called for. 🙏
Yeah, this. Both Joyce and Dina may be autistic, but that doesn’t mean they’re gonna get along or react the same way towards things.
Or they react the same way towards things but for whatever reason that particular tic is VERY GRATING from other people rather than experienced internally towards yourself. (Especially if it’s a thing you find frustrating ABOUT yourself, which it often is.)
Wow, that wasn’t expected. I’d like to see how this goes.
I just took some internet test that says I might be neurodivergent. I don’t know how seriously to take it.
Speaking as someone who spent a loooong time ignoring signs (Adhd in my case, not autism), I’d say it’s definitely worth exploring. I score borderline on online autism tests (like close to the cutoff but not enough to be diagnosed) and just had full mental health testing done that confirmed I don’t have it but clarified a TON of other stuff (like learning I have dyscalculia) so I am definitely a big advocate of doing it if you can.
It was incredibly helpful to get this clear picture of what is going on in my head and I feel much better equipped to deal with things now.
Yeah, ADHD and autism have a great deal in common, so I can see why that’d have got you on the right track after a bit.
Yeah it’s really fascinating how much symptom overlap there is with a lot of various conditions. I identify SO MUCH with some autistic traits but not at all with others so discovering I have ADHD and a learning disability clarified so much. I also spent my life assuming I probably had OCD and now know I don’t, and that it was likely ADHD/anxiety mimicking some of the symptoms.
It’s really so helpful to get a thorough professional analysis. I like understanding my brain better.
Also amusingly enough I share a lot of Joyce’s quirks (food aversions, some social issues, etc) so yet another example of how the symptoms can overlap.
Okay, here’s the thing: After the last 5 years, I doubt anyone is mentally normal. While the test may or may not be accurate, just taking it is a sign you probably think you have issues. Without a formal diagnosis, just identifying your symptoms can lead to some useful possibilities for improving your life.
How happy are you with the way your mind works? If it’s not impacting your life, then good. Maybe look up online advice or talk to friends/online groups with similar issues to see if there’s good coping mechanisms you’ve missed, but don’t worry a lot.
If you are having issues with how your mind works that you think need fixing, the question is how. There’s three basic options IMO. First is accommodations, second is therapy, third is medicine.
Accommodations can be anything from “less visual noise in the house” to “headphones at work” to plenty of other things. Online will have suggestions. You may need a doctor’s note for some of them, but there’s a lot you can just do on your own you haven’t thought of yet.
Therapy doesn’t need to mean a psychologist, but those are the most reliable option. This is how you get a formal diagnosis and a specific set of advice and treatment options for your actual problem. The downsides are first, money, and second, there’s a reasonable fear that having a formal diagnosis on file could cause legal problems in 5-10 years. I’m not saying don’t go, but think things through before you do.
Third is medicine. Some issues have a lot of pharmaceutical solutions, others don’t, but popping a pill every day can definitely make things easier. Definitely requires a formal diagnosis, but it’s a solid option.
TL:DR? Don’t trust the test, but you know your brain. If you’re having issues with it, whether or not you have any specific problem, there’s probably solutions to your symptoms. Take a further look, and whatever the test told you is a starting point.
And, good luck.
I concur Viktoria. 👍
In fact these points stated really get to why I really dispise what has become of the very concept of “mental disorder”.
You cannot create a concept of “incorrect” mental functioning without inevitably creating alongside it a concept of what constitutes “correct” mental functioning.
In a world full of individuals with very diverse situations and therefore very different functioning needs, it really makes no sense to define the concept of mental “disorder” outside of what impedes them from meeting their most basic survival needs as living beings.
Not to mention the fact that in terms of social functioning, in a multicultural frontier, misunderstandings are better treated as the rule than the exception anyway.
It stands to reason that the concept of “mental disorder” having expanded as far as it has is really nothing more than an exercise in power.
That’s why the most important criteria for any mental disorder diagnosis is “does it affect your ability to function in day-to-day life.” It’s the only type of “normal” or “correct” that actually matters. You can end up wherever you like on a list of symptoms and if it isn’t fucking things up for you, it can just be weird or quirky or whatever. It’s not a disorder until it fucks things up.
But that needs to be worded very carefully. I’ve been given depression screening forms that seemed to imply that as long as it wasn’t impacting school or work there was no problem when that was definitely not the case, personal life and emotional impact need to be considered as well.
(Thankfully I’m not (usually as?) depressed anymore. (Yay for HRT! 🏳️⚧️))
It can change over time too. My Adhd flew under the radar for 36 years because I was *managing* and succeeding at it, but it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a problem, even if it wasn’t outright preventing me from doing the things I needed to do. I got stuff done, but experienced constant stress as a result. And then finally burnt out in my 30s after 3 decades of doing this and could no longer function.
Thanks for sharing easrng!!! 😊
Also, welcome to the comments section!!!! 🥳
Just a heads up, discussion around here usually isn’t this deep.
But you’ll love it here! We’re a diverse bunch of people always cooking up lovable nonsense and the occasional batch of unbirthday stew!
Also, great music!!!! 😁
Yeah it’s hard to pin down since brain disorders are basically all in the “cluster of symptoms” level of understanding rather than “we understand something of the mechanisms” as we do for, say, a heart attack. It’s why the labels don’t necessarily fit people well, it’s just a loose box around a grouping of common symptoms rather than a well defined biological process failure.
That goes for the impact on your life as well, that’s also not a clear cut idea, and yeah you can have serious dysfunction that doesn’t manifest as obviously, or as frequently. I suppose the line there is, is your current state sustainable, or that you would want to sustain it.
I have a lot of Thoughts ™ on this subject, it’s a hard maze to navigate, especially when it can be so easy to deceive yourself, let alone try to communicate honestly with a medical professional. Add in the unprofessionalism of some “professionals” and it’s a real mind bender, for sure.
Tl, Dr, I pretty much agree with Viktoria, the diagnosis is just a box drawn around a list of previously seen symptoms that exists to try to help you understand and find ways to live with the brain you’ve got.
🥹🥹🥹 Yes to this, thank you.
I don’t think I fit neatly into any preexisting box at all.
It’s like, I have a unique combination of neurodivergent stripes I want to relate to others with and understand in myself, but I really just wish there were a way to describe them easily without getting blurred together with a million other things l don’t have and don’t want others to assume about me.
Best you can hope for is people that see you as just you, and try to understand that you. It’s a lot of work on both sides and you’ll probably never get there with very many people just due to the scale of the communication needed, but it’s the best thing going.
Also not a problem unique to neurodivergence, it’s hard to understand and be understood as an individual person. Smol monkey brain is just not good enough for that level of complex modeling. Much better at climb tree, get banana.
Wise words. Thanks.
It is not lost on me that Joyce suddenly has Dina’s attention in that last panel.
I was curious why she was lurking in the background and then it all clicked together at the end.
She’s waiting for Becky, but she sure caught the word “autism.”
Yeah. I’m very curious how she’s going to factor into this arc.
Yesss. I noticed/wondered the same.
Ahh the emotional whiplash of realizing you’re ND as an adult.
*opens eyes as they start glowing*
Finally
Golly some of the dialog will be awkward(cause there’s a whole minefield these college kids haven’t considered) but I hope Joyce comes to find power and happiness in being autistic, I know I have.
Something special about saying I’m an autistic that has really improved my life.
You have no idea how lucky you are Florence.
That double-edged sword went straight the other way for me, and caused me decades of physical and emotional abuse, humiliation, dehumanization and infantilization and endless debilitating micro-management at the hands of friends, family, teachers and so called “professionals” who acted like what they were doing was “compassion” and who were unable to or refused to discern my disability from my personality.
You’re not kidding about the minefield: it is very much worth noting that when two people say “autism”, they are more than likely not talking about the same thing.
You have autism and a disability? How do they interact? I’m morbidly curious.
I will really thank you NOT to call me “autistic”, but neurodivergent is fine.
Besides the fact that my body has seen some REALLY rough years in terms of physical disability, that really wasn’t the point I was trying to get at in my comment.
What humans call “”””autism””” is actually a very broad collection of conditions, neurodivergent stripes and for some reason even personalities that are all haphazardly lumped together into one overly generic category.
What’s true of one “autistic” person can never be assumed to be true of any other “autistic” person.
If some of them have food pickiness and trouble with eye contact, that doesn’t mean that they ALL do.
But nonetheless that doesn’t stop people from making hurtful assumptions based on that label. Not necessarily out of malice, but because of all the BAGGAGE ingrained into it, thanks to the media and the dreaded Autism Speaks (fucking CANCEL those motherfuckers already).
Okay, I won’t. I was tempted to throw out “Changeling” higher up thread, where you identified as an “alien parasite”. I’ve long held the theory that ASD was the source of much of those legends.
I don’t consider autism a “disability”. If anything can be accurately called “Differently abled”, it’s several different types of neurodivergence, including ASD.
“functioning differently”, that is good.
but like, I know I have challenges with some stuff and need some accommodations here and there,
but, like, lumping that with my PERSONALITY?
my intellect?
the things that make me unique, my quirks, painted over by a single brushstroke
that lumps me in with offensive stereotypes like Rain Man and Sheldon Cooper?
FUCK NO
Yeah, it’s rather disappointing that things like ASD don’t make life easier for the individuals who experience them, but things like sociopathy often do, at the expense of everyone around them.
Wellerman, I don’t know you and I will try my best to be as sensitive as possible.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging those fictional representations are…. well, fiction. Letting a stereotype control how we view ourselves is incredibly pessimistic and destructive. It’s also playing into what abelists want.
There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the fact that our autism does, to a certain degree, shape our personality. Because that’s what autism IS. It affects how we interact with people. It affects how we process data. That knowledge about this thing that we live with is FUCKING POWER. Otherwise, yes, we look at those stereotypes and we see something wrong with US. If we refuse to understand ourselves, we’ll abuse ourselves.
No, I’m not talking about how those stereotypes shape how we view ourselves, but how they shape OTHERS’ view of us neurodivergents who choose (or are forced to) identify as “autistic” and what they come to expect of us.
“””Self-abuse””””?!?! Yeah, I’ve heard that one. Hai PTSD trigger.
I mean, speaking as someone who DOES claim autistic, and is also physically disabled and mentally ill semi-independently of the autism part? It’s both. It’s very much both. The same traits I love about being autistic can make my brain truly miserable to deal with sometimes, or send me into sensory overload because it’s fun to hear distinct parts of a favorite song but NIGHTMARISH to be hearing six distinct conversations at once. And even with the things I’m neutral on, I still live in a society that’s not designed to accommodate my brain and that causes issues. (Please consider stereotypical autistic traits, and then consider the standard job interview process. It’s a perfect storm of unintentional barriers.) Disability’s not a dirty word, and by any model, I qualify for autistic reasons as well as the other ones. Socially, a world built to accommodate my standards would significantly improve my life! But even on a deserted island, I’m still gonna run into problems if I struggle to eat due to texture aversions. I can take pride in my disabled, autistic existence while acknowledging that sometimes it’s a pain in the ass.
(The physical disabilities are of the invisible, chronic, and ABSOLUTELY DISABLING IN A MEDICAL SENSE variety. I will appreciate efforts to include me despite low energy due to chronic pain. I’d still prefer ‘not being in chronic pain’ if that’s on the table because that shit sucks. There is no upside to having a musculoskeletal system that’s spent so much effort keeping itself from dislocating a rib that we are now struggling to get it to physically relax. I still think I am a human being worthy of life and equal treatment under the law and reproductive autonomy and the right to participate in society, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to pretend this is anything but disabling and that I don’t wish I had the body I spent the first twenty-some years assuming I had.)
“Disability’s not a dirty word” – so much yes!
(ADHD here…)
Learning about the social model of disability was one of the more empowering concepts I’ve come across. Left to my own devices, setting my own rules, etc, I’m generally pretty happy and comfortable, but at the point of interacting with others, and within various societal contexts… less so.
Accommodations, modifications, and other strategies make it a lot better, but shit wasn’t designed with me/my brain in mind, so it’s still exhausting.
I understand you have an uncomfortable relationship with the word autism but I have a pride and happiness in it. I have respected your dynamic with it and would like the same when I’m posting how it gives me happiness
I mean no offence, to be clear
None taken. ❤️
I love how it gives you pride and happiness like that.
Tell me Florence, just how is public perception of neurodivergence in Australia?
Also, would you say that the public definition of “autism” is at least a little different there too? What aspects of it does it really emphasize?
Also, just so I make sure not to make any hurtful assumptions about you, what does your neurodivergence look like according to this chart you showed me?
Oh good
Australia seems to be bette than america at least but that’s mostly in the sense that people aren’t openly ableist. Job hunting is still hard to impossible, the government makes it difficult to access support and generally micro aggressions are still a thing. My childhood was still full of bullying and isolation.
Australia is a country that values having a kind “cool with everything” attitude that is great until you start caring or acting odd and then it gets tricky, mainly with work and supports.
We had a show called love on the spectrum, and the way that show presented autistics as cutesy pop with the music choices emphasing silliness when autistics were being themselves is pretty much it. Still very infantilising on the whole.
As for me, my autism manifests kind of all of them, but definitely fixations. Mixes with my mood swings(I have a whole bunch of other mental illness stuff(also adhd))
I had a very traumatic childhood due to bullying and isolation before finding some semblance of self in my 20s. Having just recently turned 30 and finding value in viewing myself as autistic and my life as a disabled life, I have some hope cause I’m not longer planning around neurotypical expectations.
I also feel much better talking about my life to others and not feeling shame for my life being where it is.
Just mention your problems in a way that don’t feel like a comparison in such a direct way. I understand bringing up person experiences when talking about anything(I do it too) but while doing that, understand that I know the hardships. Maybe not all of them, and from what I have read you have had a harsh experience, however I have experienced my own hardship.
That was a word jumble, I’m especially sensitive today with nan stuff happening at home that I don’t want to get into. Sorry for being messy
I will add that I am American. I got bullied. I’m aware of the stigmas. I face April each year with dread because Autism FUCKING Speaks is STILL the best-known organization with the word autism in its name despite being a hate group. I recognize that unsupportive family trauma is very common and awful – the only reason I haven’t attended Disability Day of Mourning the last few years is that in a global pandemic where I’m aware we’re dying disproportionately to medical stigma, I just cannot emotionally muster myself virtually for a vigil held for disabled people killed by their caregivers and families. Your trauma with the word is your own and I respect that. People are allowed to use the labels they find valuable.
I still take pride in my own being autistic, because despite all the social stigmas I had supportive parents who said ‘this is a part of you, it makes you the person we love, and this diagnosis gives us a better sense of how to make the things that stress you out more bearable.” They helped me find social groups where I’d be accepted and people who’d support me. I know damn well how lucky I was for that. But for me, ‘autistic’ is the word that got me the help I needed instead of medication that stunted my growth for years and left some active scars on the rest of my family with how much it deadened my personality. (I don’t, because I don’t remember that time period. Like, at all really. Probably as much because I was still pretty young when it happened as the medication reaction, but people do start forming long-term memories around the 8-9 range and I have basically nothing from that year.) Even though I now claim ADHD too, it took years of looking at that community to come around to the idea that maybe it wasn’t a misdiagnosis after all, just a catastrophically bad reaction to a medicine that clearly worked too well and was probably dosed too high. Still never going on Adderall again! I probably would benefit from ADHD meds but we’ve only ever tried one other because we want to avoid another experience like that.
Your experiences are horrible and way, way too common. I’m sorry for your trauma, and you deserved better. I hope you’re now in a place where you’re safe and allowed to exist in a way that feels right for you, and if you aren’t yet then I hope you find it. But in spite of all the bullshit to slog through, there are people who find ‘autistic’ as a label of pride anyway. Because it’s the one that helped them recognize and work with the way their brains didn’t fit in, or because it helped them find a community of people who were FINALLY on their wavelength, or because fuck society, it may have tried to force them to conform but it didn’t fucking work and they will reclaim this with blood and spite. Sometimes it does seem like you want the term done away with entirely. You’re more than allowed not to use it for yourself, but the fact that it was traumatic for you does not mean it doesn’t have value to some of us. Even people living in the US. Even people who were bullied with it, or have trauma because of it. I want a world where we’re not stigmatized for it and society CAN produce untraumatized autistics. If that’s not the word used by that point for my specific subtype at large, then hey, whatever. (I already see ‘on the spectrum’ getting a ton of common use.) But it will probably be the word I use no matter what, because by now it’s the one I identify with more than anything else.
The problem goes much deeper than you think.
Amos told me about their horrendous treatment in Brazil, which i reckon is common in other countries as well
“fuck society”, you’re right, outside seeking government aid and asking for private accommodations at school, these kinds of problems regarding “autism”, regarding its stigmas, go really really deep and are surrounded by walls of money and are unlikely to get erased any time soon in our lives
Also, this general kind of problem is by no means exclusive to neurodivergence. I honestly think you humans, your society, are a sick twisted joke, where members of your species are punished, tormented, teased relentlessly for the random, uncontrollable circumstances of your birth. To get exposed to more and more of the ugliness of you Homo sapiens, your blood-stained history, the more I have peace with identifying as an Alien Parasite.
Now, for some wishes. Some wishes I really want to come true.
I wish there were a way of saying “autism” without saying “autism”.
I wish there were a way I can easily communicate my unique neurodivergent stripes without getting lumped in with a million other things I don’t want people to assume about me.
I wish there were a way of saying “autism” that just removed itself from all the BAGGAGE and ugly ugly history and perception and stereotypes of “autism”, and in effect just made everyone UNSEE all of that ugliness, just fucking ERASED IT ALL FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.
👁️👁️👁️ MAKE AUTISM SPEAKS FORGOTTEN FOREVER.
👁️👁️👁️ ERASE THEM.
If you mean societally the problem runs deeper than I think, you recognize that I attend a vigil most years that was started by the Autistic Self-Advocacy Network after one too many publicized instances of autistic children killed by their parents,* yes? And recognizing the media narrative that sympathized, overwhelmingly, with the murderers.
Please do not presume I am not EXTREMELY aware of the societal stigma against being autistic, at all times, up to and including the worst case scenarios. I am actually involved in activism work when I can be (thanks, COVID,) which tends to mean I am also very aware of the challenges my community faces against the world and the issues we have as a community. This is the word I use anyway. This is the word I WANT to use anyway. This is the word that I would continue to use even if it goes out of fashion, the way older queer people will use self-identifiers that I personally am not comfortable typing but I respect their right to self-identification and wouldn’t tell them not to use it. Autistic is my word and I actively do not want to stop using it for myself, understanding DEEPLY how fucking hard society makes my existence. Right now, it is also the community as a whole’s word, by and large. The parts of it that needed reclaiming, we chose to reclaim. The underlying ableism extends far beyond the word, and for me it was a word that gave me tools and community I needed. I respect it is not yours, please respect it is mine and that I make that decision with full knowledge of how bad it can get for autistic people.
* It’s actually more commonly ‘abled spouse kills disabled/aging and ill spouse’ on the whole. ASAN is still one of the major drives behind keeping the list of victims’ names updated and holding Disability Day of Mourning, because of the community trauma that is That Story, different players, over and over and over.
Oh, Regalli, of course I respect your expertise on the issue, and I am grateful for your activism, for every time I learn about neurodivergents’ maltreatment like this, it just seems to be getting worse and worse. 😔
It is totally your right to use that word! If that’s how any neurodivergent wants to identify, I’ll respect that until the end of the universe!
It’s just that, there’s so much enthusiasm here, I feel so disconnected, so left out, so alone and isolated.
First it’s my neurodivergence that keeps me from the things I love, the things that would enrich my life, and now it’s my PTSD.
IT’S JUST NOT FAIR!!!! Why do we have to hurt all the time? Why do bad things happen to innocent people?? 😭😭😭😭😭😭
I’m not comparing experiences, but myself, my husband and my best friend have all been working through “oh holy shit autism” at about the same time. I’m 35, my husband 43, and my best friend 60 (just to give an idea of when we were each children). And I’ve actually said that, given the way kids with autism were treated when I was a child- 25-30 years ago- I’m honestly glad I wasn’t diagnosed then. It explains so much but I am glad. My husband is less so but my best friend feels similarly to me and has had to have that talk with his mother- “how could you know? What understanding was there back then?”
As soon as I read the word “decades”- I don’t know whether that’s two decades or fifty. But it definitely puts you talking from a time where neurodivergency wasn’t understood or treated with compassion (still struggling societally there but miles on from where we were). I am genuinely sorry for whatever you went through (you’ve only given a broad strokes picture but that’s more than enough to convey how painful your experiences were) and I wish that finding peace- possibly even joy- with how your brain is wired wasn’t something you were robbed of.
(Side note- all three of us find relief in our understanding. My best friend isn’t always comfortable referring to himself as autistic but I think that’s because he compares it to people who mask less or struggle more, which I don’t think is healthy but it’s his journey to make.)
I guess if I want people to understand where I’m coming from, I’ll have to be specific, won’t I? Oh god, here goes nothing!!! 😖😖😖
⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING: Mental Hospitals ⚠️
All my life I was told that if I continued doing the things that made me happy, that were called “autism”, that my “autism” would only get worse. My parents showed me videos about “autistic” people in mental institutions, people without the ability to think or hear their own thoughts. Tried to “scare me straight”.
😖😖😖😖 😭😭😭😭
I was made to fear and hate being myself, brought up to believe that my personality, the things that made me happy, were a gateway to mental deterioration, disease and disaster. I realize now that it’s much like Becky and Joyce’s religious hangups, actually. But even without the element of religion, I too was chained down to a paradigm where fear is love and pleasure is evil.
Isn’t human life just fucking wonderful?
Outside of everything else, I’m so sorry your parents did that to you. Thank you for having patience in listening to my positive experience with something that has traumatised you
💜
You didn’t have to share and I hope I didn’t make you feel pressured into doing so- that it had been traumatic was evident.
I wasn’t diagnosed or even suspected for having autism or ADHD as a child (it being so massively under diagnosed in “girls” back then)- but while the specifics are different I really felt a sense of understanding and sameness from your description of events. Especially with seeing parallels with the experiences of Becky’s and Joyce’s upbringing without the religion. I don’t want to take the conversation to what I went through (which is difficult to sum up anyway) but anything that I now can see was a flag of my neurodivergence (and queerness) was treated much like yours. It was bad, wrong, aberrant, to be stamped out as much as possible and the rest hidden. Fifteen years of therapy and I’m still putting the pieces together and finding peace with it- maybe I always will be on some level- but I’m getting there. I don’t know if it’s appropriate to say, but- seeing and understanding the pain and trauma you describe- well, I wish the best for you going forward. You deserved so, so much better.
I’m so very sorry that happened to you.
Yeah same, it gave a name to all my weird. It made it manageable. just another thing to put in a neat box, like things should be.
Well learning that I had autism may helped explained alot of my behavoir while growing up. Finding out I was autistic did not improve my situation in life. There is still alot of misunderstanding what autism is and people including close family and relatives who don’t understand and as the wellerman has said infantalize me which infuriates me which in turn makes me isolate myself rather then reach out for help when I need it.
It ruined my romantic relationships it really hurt my longest realtionship beacuse it was so hard to emphasize to my ex partner what I was feeling or trying really hard to show them that i empthaized with them even though my cadence was off. why being touched or touching was difficult or why I freaked out when i heard loud noises or someone become startled talking to me when I was focused on something or why I would get so focused on stuff. I made what I considered herculean efforts to modify my behavior and it still was not enough for them.
Also having to explain this behavior to my supervisors is always a loaded subject beacuse it feels to me like I am admitting I have a problem when I really don’t.
I don’t consider it a blessing it’s not a curse but hasn’t made my life easier and saying I am autistic doesn’t really empower me.
I am in therapy and it works, but that’s a recent development that’s not going to solve 30 years of insecurity about being neuro-divergent
I want to be clear that when I’m being positive about autism(especially today, family stuff happening) I don’t want to go through everyone’s negative relationship to autism. I don’t have the spoons.
I understand we all have our own experiences, please don’t feel like you can’t post them elsewhere
Oh, sorry about your spoons! 😟
Also really sorry if I caused you any stress!!!! 🙏
I didn’t want to make you feel bad if knowing yourself makes you happy and proud more power to you.
Broooo…
That’s great.
she just like me fr !!
*stares at this strip with my autistic eyes* o_o
https://i.imgur.com/rm4Cm3J.png(NSFW)
https://i.imgur.com/vNQv0AF.png(NSFW)
https://i.imgur.com/OOSJoro.png(NSFW)
The grand finale. What a ride. I hope y’all enjoyed. I don’t know if I’ll ever ink it but I didn’t expect this to be such an undertaking when I started. But I don’t regret it.
Dang messed up the links
https://i.imgur.com/rm4Cm3J.png (NSFW)
https://i.imgur.com/vNQv0AF.png (NSFW)
https://i.imgur.com/OOSJoro.png (NSFW)
https://imgur.com/a/MqoLFHq (NSFW)
Also here’s some Alternate endings
Story Completed
https://imgur.com/a/9Ob1cy3 (NSFW)
And that’s a round of applause for You.
Ha! I like the Sal one best, I think.
Me too!!!!
🤣🤣🤣🤣
All these strips are perfection, really!!!! 🥰
NGL, The Walkerton twins both being effortlessly hot makes me think a lot of people are just like…”damn, if only”.
Pretty sure the thought ran across most of minds atleast once or twice.
Yay, congratulations!
I’m not even into porn but I thought this was really cute. Nice story. 😀
Yes to all day.
Yes to sandwich.
And yes to raw.
Do all three, and get it out of your system, since of course you two will never have another opportunity, even in fan fiction, to do this again, so you might as well go all out!
(Continues to encourage these fictional characters to bump uglies, or pretties depending on the eye of the beholder, as if they would and could listen.)
Great job, Yotomoe!
I’ve enjoyed following this ship (passing in the night) that I’ve wanted to see for a long time.
Cute! Love the ending joke.
Also, once again, relating to Billie hard here.
Me: “Wow. That was great. Wanna do it for another couple hours?”
Basically any Partner: “fucking hell please let me sleep”
Yeah. I used to find that women were mostly pretty pleased when a bout os sex lasted twenty minutes rather than two, but that after three hours they just wanted it to stop.
Some anti-depressants suck.
“What a ride”
…Pun intended?
I think you should ink it, just based on how good the first panel that you inked looks!
Oh I mean. I’d love to. That’d just be really time consuming.
I would fund this project. No joke. Please bless us someday with the fully completed version of this, it’s incredible.
I don’t think I’d feel right accepting money for this. Honestly I’m just thankful Willis hasn’t told me off for making and posting it here in the first place. I think taking any money would be a step too far.
definitely
That a long one! Nice to see it end to end
Absolute legend.
Hell yeah. She’s right, of course, that they may as well go all day. I said it the other night, but if you get to have a go with a gal like Billie, you better Make It Count.
This is absolutely amazing. Thanks so much for gifting us this wonderful piece.
Thank you very much Yoto, you wonderful human.
Yotomoe, I just loved all your work. Congratulations.
And I don’t know, but the last pages you got even better and confident in the draw. Very nice.
I think Walky enjoyed the ride the most =D
Love the “what?! you know this isn’t canon” ending myself XD
And yeah i’m with Rose, when the chemistry is this good and you don’t absolutely have to be somewhere, of course you go all day. It’s the done thing!
Thank you for being so generous with your horny creativity Yoto!
And huge kudos on sustaining your drive throughout such a long project, is this something of a first for you, at least in a while? I sure hope this helps you build up the confidence and motivation to breathe life into your own OCs =) you may already have a fanbase 🤩
This is the first time in a long while I tried my hand at a long form comic . This is probably the most successful I’ve ever been at it but that was mostly due to my decision to focus on completing the story more than getting it to look good. If you’ve seen my art over the years you’d know that this wasn’t really my full capability when it comes to drawing, but I decided to keep it loose and sketchy cuz the narrative was more important. I’m proud of myself for finishing though I do feel like the ending is. A bit abrupt and I may fix it if I ever get around to lining and maybe coloring it. There’s a lot id like to fix actually
Hey I’m autistic too! While I love that for Joyce, I do worry that her upbringing has taught her only bad stuff about autism. As much as I wish I knew as a kid, I’m lucky to be diagnosed now (well back in Feb). People are much more accepting about it, there’s a lot more positivity going around, and people are actually focusing research beyond cis boys.
I went through the same thing with ADHD (literally just diagnosed last month), growing up knowing only the hyperactive type, and only hearing/seeing negative portrayals of it. And having just been diagnosed (with the inattentive type I didn’t know existed before) it’s honestly been so cathartic.
So I think even if there’s an initial struggle of acceptance, as there often is with ANY disability (I have EDS and went through allll the stages of grief with that when I was diagnosed 6 years ago) I’m excited for this storyline and watching her slowly reach acceptance hopefully, eventually.
My wife is currently in the process of getting diagnosed. She brought home some worksheets and info for Autism and ADHD as they appear in females.
We looked over the Autism symptom list… and basically every one of them applied to her. And also me. Several of them were literally the core traits of our relationship.
The ADHD list didn’t fit me at all… but it fit her nearly as well as the Autism one did.
We’re both in our 40s.
She was supposed to get her official test results last week, but the doctor had to cancel due to catching COVID.
I hope it goes well for her and she gets some answers! I went through so many emotions when I first realized I might have Adhd and then when I was finally diagnosed. 36 years of thinking this stuff was just “personality quirks” and realizing that no, I’ve actually been living life on hard mode has been wild.
Yup.
Oh, almost forgot. The Autism symptom list also perfectly describes both of our kids. And my Mom.
The ADHD symptom list also fits my Dad.
I never felt most of these personality traits were unusual… they were just my life.
Autistic here, myself, and honestly, I’ll be surprised if it taught her much at all about autism. Like she doesn’t seem to be unaware of its existence or something, but I don’t know that her background would have really prepped her much given how sheltered she was on so many other topics.
Do we know if Dina has actually been diagnosed? Maybe she could help Joyce through this
Per Willis, she has not, although Willis reserves the right to change his mind on things that have not been explicitly stated in the strip itself.
Yup, plus I know when I asked him years ago about it, in addition to other people asking, naturally, that was definitely pre-time skip, so it’s possible Dina would have explored that during the break.
And if she hasn’t, maybe they can both go and become Diagnosis Buddies, maybe learn a lesson about how different people can be even when they have a similar brain composition, and/or how people with wildly different backgrounds can still have some important similarities.
WOW that was a perfectly executed bait-and-switch
Well that caught me off gaurd.
Nice use of Dina in the background.
I…did not expect that at all but it actually totally makes sense now that I think about it.
This makes me happy. I hope this plays out for her with a minimum of drama.
… then again there’s not really much precedent in this comic for small or no amounts of drama.
This is gonna be a very interesting arc for me. I wasn’t diagnosed with ASD until I was 24 because my sister studied psychology in college and realized that I showed signs. Really sucks knowing I spent so much of my life not understanding why I just failed completely at socialization.
Yeah, that got my attention too Dina. Probably for the same reason.
Hopefully this will be a lesson for Dorothy and Sarah to ask first, wait for a reply and not to assume. They just went out of their way to tell Joyce that they expect her to judge herself on a topic that wasn’t even her primary concern.
I’d like to hope so. But it would be very realistic if Joyce’s friends took her mental health diagnosis as a reason to disregard her agency and ignore her wishes even more. When people are used to patronising you and they learn that you have conditions affecting mental function, many of them patronise harder.
Oh yes. In the workplace too.
Yeah. It goes from “you’re wrong” to “you are incapable of being right”. Even when you are right.
Disclosing neurodivergence to an employer is a good way to not get a job.
Not disclosing neurodivergence to an employer is a good way to lose a job.
ah ;_;
also dina like https://hips.hearstapps.com/digitalspyuk.cdnds.net/17/28/1499884847-raptor.gif
I was officially diagnosed in April 2019, after 35 years of misdiagnoses.
I’m glad you finally have the answer
If it’s any consolation, you could have been diagnosed at a young age and still suffered anyway.
Or maybe I’m just the unluckiest little duck in the world.
You’re not alone, The Wellerman. It’s OK to feel how you feel, and to express how life circumstances have shaped your influences.
I was diagnosed in February this year, after thinking I was just a quiet, nerdy, introverted weirdo for most of the past 33 years of my life.
Based on what I know about autism with males vs females and how it is presented, yeah, I guess that makes sense. (I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know a lot)
Admitting to not being an expert? A rare quality.
Oooh, neat! Wonder how that’ll go.
YOOOOOOOOOOOOO
LETS FUCKING GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
I’m so hype
I always headcanoned Joyce with autism because of her sensitivity to food but I don’t have to headcanon it anymore.
depending on if she follows up on the referral and gets a diagnosis
It’s happening? Are we actually going to get an answer to some “autism or crazy upbringing” questions? I guess we probably wont get those sorts of specifics, because it doesn’t really work that way, but I’m still surprised this conversation is happening and there is a possibility of a diagnosis or lack of diagnosis!
Are we actually going to get an answer to some “autism or crazy upbringing” questions?
Lots of them are probably *both*. Because your brain and how it works affects everything, including how you react to your upbringing (and, also, how your parents react to you.)
now this is a storyline i can get behind
I didn’t expect that!! I’m really curious how this will go.
I think it’s cool in terms of representation, since Joyce might not register to some people as a having “typical” autistic traits (compared to, say, Dina).
It reminds me of my cousin, who also might not register that way, except maybe for her tendency to put things bluntly (more like Becky than Joyce)… but that’s also part of her humour, so I don’t want to be all “X Thing Is Particularly Autistic.” Anyway, I was surprised when she told me about her autism diagnosis (well, at first hers was called Asperger’s).
Lastly! I’m excited but a bit worried for Joyce, because of the possible stigma. When I got diagnosed with ADHD, age 23, I thought of it sort of as a children’s disease. Like chicken pox! (which adults can also get, incidentally).
I appreciate your concern a lot. The stigma and its insidious influences can cause troubles for one that are nearly impossible to undo. 😖
A fun look into my thought process about this:
1) I wonder if Willis is actually autistic, and this is a result of him accidentally writing Joyce as autistic, like that thing in EGS (https://www.egscomics.com/comic/qa8-08)
2) I probably shouldn’t comment on that, though. Seems a mite rude to publicly speculate about.
3) Hold the fuck on, this is David Willis we’re talking about. He probably fully anticipated this EXACT kind of speculation when he wrote this, and is even now waiting in his lair, cackling gleefully and watching the chaos and controversy unfold.
4) *posts this*
Willis has said he’s wondered whether or not he’s autistic vs just had a fucked up upbringing, but (last I heard) he had never been diagnosed with anything.
we be getting on the spectrum .
hopefully Joyce can get some comfort from the diagnosis.
Hot DANG! (Tentatively) welcome to the club, Joyce!
Now this is some good ol classic DOA. Just when you think Willis is going to zig, he zags!
Um… what? When’s the last time she saw a doctor?
She was just at one earlier this storyline
I’m thinking maybe never, unless it was a doctor from her congregation, who doesn’t “believe” in any of the neurodivergent diagnoses.
And yes, there are doctors who think ND is just a fad. Not mine, but he’s an internist and doesn’t know what to do about people who are ND, or who have been depressed for more than 40 years.
Like five minutes ago
Oh c’mon. If Joyce is autistic, is there anyone in the cast who isn’t autistic? Dorothy has perfectionist tendencies. Sarah has trouble maintaining friendships. Walky is obsessed with Monkey Master. For that matter, is there any human anywhere who isn’t autistic?
I hope you’re just telling a joke that doesn’t land.
Wait hold on, there’s a Star Wars for this one:
“This is getting out of hand. Now there are two of them!”
Yikes. This aint it, Lucky. This really aint it.
The name is truly ironic.
ok, and…?
You know that Shortpacked! strip where Whitney McJorty or whatever his name was lost his shit because the staff were too diverse? That is how your comment reads.
this ain’t it chief
There’s only been one before this, calm down
One heavily suspected but never confirmed on-panel, at that. The stereotyping and ignorance are strong with his one.
*this one, even.
Well, you’ve already got a bunch of “don’t be mean” so maybe a literal answer would help.
A lot of neurodivergence is when a normal human trait dominates to the point of getting in the way of life. Sad -> depression, need time to order thoughts-> autism, imagination -> schizophrenia, peripheral vision -> ADHD. The definitions grow once people find that the coping mechanisms for someone with an obvious diagnosis can help with people with similar traits, but not enough to get a diagnosis.
Is Dorothy autistic? Probably not, but if she would benefit from stemming I mean meditating than why not. Is Sarah autistic? She might have schizoid tendencies, but she willingly ate lunch with her sister so maybe not. Is Walky autistic? Near the top of the page is a huge discussion of ADHD and autism going together, plus he’s into computer science. Though he is a bit more manipulative than I associate with people on the spectrum. Is every human being autistic? I mean statistically we all have autistic ancestors so we’re all cousins at least.
I think it’s also, look. Joyce is autobiographical. Willis has increasingly in recent years been publicly identifying as autistic. A good writer, and Willis is one, can write experiences very different from their own and still have them feel true to life, but ultimately ALL these characters are reflections of David Willis. Most writers put traits of themselves or people they know well into their characters, at least the ones they care about. (Like, I don’t think we’ll be seeing a lot of Lester the Mob Cop’s inner life here.) Which means that, yeah, all the major characters might have a touch of autistic traits in them because they’re being written from the perspective of an autistic writer, putting his autistic traits in their personalities. Doesn’t mean they’re all written as autistic, but Dina and Joyce and Walky had all been characters where Willis would put some of the more neurodivergence-y experiences into comics, and that has made them come off VERY strongly neurodivergent to those of us who recognize ourselves in them. You do on some level write what you know. A neurodivergent writer’s going to tend to skew neurodivergent characters because that’s just what their brain is like.
Especially with older characters where many of those traits were attached to the characters long before Willis thought of them as autistic – in them or himself. Just bits of himself seeping into characters because that’s how writers write.
Another ‘real’ answer I suppose is that all human beings exist upon a spectrum of experiences and functioning, and will have varying degrees of all kinds of traits. Something is generally considered a ‘condition’ or ‘disorder’ or ‘disability’, mental or physical, when someone’s traits or experiences or functioning has a notable negative impact on their quality of life. Either by causing them distress, or otherwise impairing their ability to function ‘normally’ in society.
What is ‘normal’? Good question. What counts as a significant enough negative impact on quality of life? Another good question. These are the sorts of questions that are at the heart of the practice of medicine and medical ethics, and how they get answered is constantly changing and being argued over.
The lines here are all very fuzzy and more than a little arbitrary. But them being arbitrary doesn’t mean that they have no value at all. Sort of like gender, really, or ethics, or even religion, and a lot of other aspects of human life which are sort of inherently socially constructed.
It’s stuff we make up arbitrarily, but it’s a still a real thing that we definitely experience, because we are deeply social creatures that live rich social lives, and we need to try to have the words to talk about it. To not be totally overcome with frustration, you really need to embrace the fact that the nature of the thing is inexact and imprecise by necessity.
Tl;dr: People don’t fit easily into small, clear-cut boxes because that’s simply not how reality works. Nonetheless, we as a species are built to understand the world around us by using pattern recognition to try and shove everything into boxes anyway.
It’s never going to work perfectly, ever. But the process of trying to is inherently useful for us regardless, so we’re gonna keep doing it.
I repeat: if Joyce is autistic, “autism” has too broad a definition to be useful. I looked up “symptoms of autism” on the web and Joyce had 1 of 12 (specific food preferences). And even that was a strange list, I usually hear other symptoms listed. There’s no consensus on the list of symptoms even.
One way the author might go with this is, since autism is ill-defined yet often has available medical funding, it’s common for doctors to overdiagnose it. Which can be traumatic for patients and their families. Which is what I think today’s strip was about.
I agree trying to make measurements is useful, but long OR chains usually yield a “yes” measurement so aren’t very useful.
(“Lucky Winner” is what my email tells me I am every day. Congratulations, you are the Lucky Verified Winner of the Nigerian widowed barrister bucket-of-cash sweepstakes.)
I admire your commitment to sucking.
Thank you! (abbreviated bow)
In the interest of continuing the trend, I looked up “autism questionnaire” on Google and simulated responses for Joyce, Walky, Sarah, and Dina. Walky answered “C” (somewhat disagree) for everything without reading the questions, except “would you find it really hard to play imaginary games with children?” to which he answered A (definitely agree), because it’d be boring to answer C to everything. Sarah also answered C to most things, but honestly. Joyce and Dina, it was hard to gauge their self-appraisal … Joyce would have been easier last semester. I suspect I should have given Joyce more extremes, but she’s in a state where I don’t know which extreme she’d choose. At any rate, Walky got 10 (normal), Sarah 11 (normal), Joyce 14 (slight autistic tendencies) and Dina 25 (autistic).
Seeing how my approximation of them all is, um, not definitive, it would be good if someone else repeated the experiment. I don’t know what definition of autism that questionnaire was using.
Wow, are you really this abelist that you get triggered into an “Autism doesn’t exist” rant because a FICTIONAL CHARACTER has it?
And yes, “everyone has autism” is an abelist concept meant to erase disabled experience from the public consciousness.
It’s…really not? Look, it could certainly be MORE useful and more precise, to be certain. And in recognition of this, people are no longer being diagnosed with “Autism” and it has instead been changed to “Autism Spectrum Disorder” to reflect this reality at least slightly more accurately, and to my knowledge other diagnoses which used to be separate (such as Asperger’s) have since been absorbed into ASD to make it even MORE broad.
Now I’ll agree that it definitely is far too broad, at the moment, to be as useful as it could be. But as many, many people in the comments today demonstrate, even as it is, it still has plenty of utility, and there are reasons it’s still being used. Maybe that utility isn’t immediately evident to you, but it’s there. Maybe that utility has a lot of pretty serious drawbacks, too, I’ll also agree there, to the point that retiring the term “Autism” in favor of something else might be worthwhile.
But insisting that because it doesn’t make enough sense to you, it’s therefore basically useless, is kind of insulting and invalidating to a lot of people. You could very well make the same argument for the word “Queer”, and if you did, I’d get even more angry with you, because sometimes words with broad definitions exist specifically to have broad definitions, and their broadness is the utility of them.
Now I don’t think “Autistic” is analogous to “Queer” in any meaningful measures. (“Neurodivergent” would probably be the more analogous term.) But nonetheless, it’s a label that is important to many people in helping describe and identify with their own experiences, and therein lies its utility.
Also, Autism is by no means commonly overdiagnosed, lmfao. If you genuinely think that’s what this strip is about, my money is on you being sorely mistaken.
Even if it has utility, I myself really really wish for a word that doesn’t lump me in with a million other things I don’t want. While still being as widely recognized.
Or maybe a set of words. I have neurodivergents stripes that I guess you would call “””autistic””” depending on which definition you’re using, but I’m just…. more…. you know?
Please stop.
You realize that we spend literally our entire upbringings being taught, encouraged, and often forced to look and act as non-autistic as possible, right?
And despite that, for years know people who know first and second hand what it’s like to be autistic have noticed those traits in Joyce- both the traits of being autistic, and traits and beliefs about the self common in people who are taught that they are definitely not, and goddamn well better not be Or Else, autistic.
Have you considered, and I don’t even mean this as an insult, that maybe other people have a better idea what they’re talking about in this instance?
*years now
The A Word (co-starring Christopher Eccleston) has been spoken. Get this girl some Yu-Gi-Oh! cards, a bucket, and at least six DVD box sets of assorted TV shows.
… I get everything else in that list (a little too well), but…
Why the bucket?
You know. For dumpin’ oatmeal on stuff, or washing The Cheat…
I have a vague, passing familiarity with whatever that video is, just enough to know that I don’t know enough not to get judged for not knowing more, by people whose familiarity with things with which I’m more familiar is similarly lacking but towards whom I withhold judgement for said unfamiliarity. The red guy was in a YTP I’ve watched several times.
No judgement, you’re just one of today’s lucky 10,000.
http://www.homestarrunner.com
Does that site really pull in that much traffic, 10,000 new people a day? I assume that’s some kind of numerical average based on overall engagement over a long period of time, including spikes.
Or maybe I’m fucking with you and know it’s a reference to an XKCD comic, and can’t afford an 8th active simultaneous archive binge to be inflicted upon this shattered psyche. (Special Interests care not if the stacks become disorderly, only that I stack)
It’s up for interpretation, but I do appreciate the link. I was actually under the assumption it was some sort of defunct YouTube series with probably half a million missing uploads, or spread across a dozen sites.
I can’t say I blame you. H*R is an iceberg of lore and in-jokes.
Sometimes you wanna hold stuff for a short period of time, for various reasons, and other containers aren’t quite right.
I don’t have Yu-Gi-Oh cards but I do have like thirty plush Pokemon, is that an acceptable substitute or will we be required to fight for dominance in accordance with tradition?
(I do actually like Yu-Gi-Oh. Also Digimon! Not quite to special interest levels for either but they fill me with nostalgic joy, whereas Pokemon is literally a serotonin generator and the trailer last week was a SIGNIFICANT mood booster I sorely needed. Just figured I’d joke about semi-dueling fandoms.)
I’m so glad you have a consistent serotonin generator like that, and that it seems to have restored your spoons. 🧠🥹
I used to have them, but there’s these days there seems to be nothing that consistently does it for me. 😔
Hopefully I’ll find one again, one day. Like finding love, passion, in the middle of a neurological labyrinth.
*plays “Girl in the Mysterious Labyrinth” from Pokemon Heroes CD*
But it’s the first time the doctor met Joyce, and probably saw her for 15 minutes. That time would be spent talking about Joyce’s immediate issue and likely an exam. It seems very unlikely that Joyce exhibited characteristics so obvious during that time as would lead to the assumption she needed that referral. From what we’ve seen in the strip, she has no social or communication issues, or other major issues that would be symptomatic of autism, especially ones that would obvious in a short doctor visit for a clear physical problem. The food issue could be a compulsive behavior, but there’s no reason for the doctor to be aware of it. The rest of her “issues” appear to be related to her upbringing in the church.
This isn’t to say that she might not have an issue, just that I find it unrealistic for a doctor to make the determination that she needs to be evaluated for it after such a brief encounter. Elementary school teachers (which I have had a lot of contact with) can conclude fairly quickly that a child has issues that should be evaluated, but short of cases that are fairly extreme, quickly means weeks of seeing the child 6 hours a day in situations where social and communication interactions are ubiquitous. I don’t think a doctor, presented no relevant symptoms going in and seeing a new patient briefly for other reasons, would do so.
Mind you – I am old(er), and judging from comments made by readers here, it may be that a large percentage of younger people are actually diagnosed with “conditions” over things that back in the day would have been considered just personality traits (or at most quirks). But to me, this revelation seems an out of nowhere action for dramatic reasons rather than something that flows organically.
Everyone’s a brain doctor when it’s time to make excuses.
We weren’t at all privy to how the appointment went after Jennifer left the examination room. And it’s not like the doctor immediately diagnosed Joyce as having autism, only a referral to see a specialist who would then help determine.
Joyce could have simply relayed certain frequent experiences she has and the school doctor said something like “Hm, those experiences sound common among people with autism. Are you interested in getting a referral?”
I wouldn’t necessarily call that a revelation. And in my experience at a university health center, those sorts of referrals are quick and convenient. Sometimes as easy as telling the doctor “I feel depressed” to which a quick response of “if you’d like I could refer you for an intake appointment with the school’s counseling and psychological services” isn’t an uncommon example.
Shhhh, not allowed to notice things while other things are happening. Only singular laser focus on one thing allowed, no matter what.
From what we’ve seen in the strip, she has no social or communication issues
Yes, she does. They’re not as dramatically visible as Dina’s, but that does not mean they’re not there.
It’s called a Spectrum after all.
Maybe one-on-one time with the doctor’s objective, sympathetic ear opened the floodgates and Joyce starting going off about all the recent changes in her life.
Probably narrative convenience is a factor, but this referral doesn’t seem *too* unlikely.
Possibly related story: I am very much not a doctor (studying linguistics, previous degree in English lit.), but I have ADHD and I suspected one of my tutoring students did too, just based on how he acted in a 2-hour online class (not fidgety, just distractable – wanting to look up interesting but off-topic stuff).
Now, I was wondering whether it was my place to bring it up at all, but in the next class he said himself he had ADHD.
I’m not saying that the doctor herself is autistic (she could be, of course) – or even that her suggestion is necessarily right – but it makes sense for someone to pick up on possible signs based on repeated experience, personal or otherwise.
HOW THE HELL DID THEY GO FROM “i have cramps” to “i have autism”
That doctor was paying attention to the wrong thing
Lol suffer
Honestly I’m stunned, it’s pretty hard to get diagnosed with Autism or ADHD as a woman
And here I thought her traits were just exaggerated for comedic effect. No wonder I can relate to her (I’m Autistic myself)
Probably noticed some of her nervous behaviors while going through medical history and how she may have been acting in the office.
Really since the beginning of this comic Joyce has steadily shown signs of various mental conditions but nothing specific.
I was diagnosed as being autistic in I think 2003. And I can tell you, I’ve exhibited a lot of her shared traits
Organizing food and how to eat it.
Consistently sticking to certain styles of clothing
Having incredible difficulty adjusting to change in oneself or ones you associate with regularly.
Some would say that everyone can have issues with those things, but Joyce has usually taken it to slightly unnecessary extremes at her best state of control with all of that. It wouldn’t suprise me if some of that behavioral mindset popped up in the docs office.
One way it might go:
“Any nausea?”
“Oh, yeah, way more than usual.”
“Oh? How is it usually?”
“Well, if the food is touching other food on the plate or has a squishy texture I usually get so nauseous I can’t eat it at all, but I’m really working on that. Yesterday I had sausage on a pizza, even!”
“Interesting. Can you tell me some more about how mixing foods affects you?”
…and on from there.
There is no such thing as conversational progression or flow. Medical people are robots who spew body-status jargon and the names of big-brand pills and will incinerate you for straying off the beaten path.
You’ve had some awful doctors
Well, yes. Comes with the territory.
Funny enough, my favorite diagnosis from a doctor was “You’re full of shit.”, followed by a prescription for some hardcore laxatives (I had a severe blockage and only went in because I was rolling on the floor wailing “Oh God, I’m dyiiiiing” and my friends got a little worried). That guy was awesome, you don’t get many doctors with a sense of humor ’round these parts.
That story turned out way better than the first half led me to believe it would.
“Had us in the first half, not gonna lie.”
This very strip you’re commenting on explains how the conversation went.
Hear we go. When the docs first started looking into whether or not I was autistic, ain’t gonna lie it was scary. Having that knowledge of why you do some of the things you do and have them be mostly out of your control can get to you.
Been trying to get an official diagnosis of autism for a while now so I can qualify for certain aid programs and the like. Hopefully Joyce has an easier time of it than I have. There’s so many hoops to jump through…
What’s going on here? Dina is clearly visible in the background. Is there a disturbance in the Force?
No, there’s a clever author in complete control.
Is that….is it a normal and cool thing for a gynecologist to have a patient come in with bad menstrual cramps and say the problem is that the patient is autistic?
That sounds like an odd thing but I’m not really an expert so it’s entirely possible I’m the fool here
Ya know, somehow I don’t think that’s quite how the visit went.
Do you really think that’s what we’re supposed to think happened? Or do you think it’s more likely that the doctor gave that referral for reasons *other* than the cramps?
The doctor was actually a teenaged boy playing Counterstrike in disguise. After Joyce booted Jennifer, the rubber Scooby-Doo! mask came off and the doctor was like “Lmao nice period cramps! What are you, autistic, bro?” And then he shotgunned some Monster Energy drinks and said a slur.
It could happen. 😐
I know this sounds fantastic, but there are some doctors who (a) take a thorough history whenever they take on a new patient, (b) sometimes notice things, and (c) ask “is there anything else that you’d like to ask me about?” after they have dealt with the presenting symptom. I know, because I have met some.
Dr Kaur picking up Joyce’s possible symptoms of an autism spectrum disorder during a consultation for severe menstrual pain does seem a bit abrupt, but that kind of thing is not bizarre. GPs are supposed to perform routine screenings and so on.
And by the way: Dr Kaur is not a gynaecologist.
What makes you think that the Doctor said that problem is the autism? She gave Joyce the prescription and, I assume, during the questioning Joyce volunteered information that made the Doctor think “Hmm that sounds quite a bit like Autism, better send her along to a specialist just in case.”
Yeah, but that is insanely unrealistic, is the thing. An adult with clear autism, can easily see 30-40 psychologists/psychiatrists, and they are all just unwilling to even approach the idea of referring, let alone diagnosing, an adult with autism. As someone outside that field, I can’t say I understand why, but doctors treat adult autism diagnosis as a strange aberrant curiosity, which they simply could not possibly understand, and they will make no attempt to do anything but downplay those possible symptoms. The idea of a doctor doing that proactively? You might as well go find the actual Dr House, MD. He’s more common, and he’s not real.
Interesting stories are dictated by likelihood and statistics, I agree.
To be fair, Joyce bouncing from a doctor to doctor would make for a pretty boring story.
And also conservation of detail is important. Sure, you could tell the exact same story with a different doctor drawn in every scene/panel, but having just a couple makes it feel more better.
Yeah, that tracks.
Hm, yeah. Not a *huge* surprise there.
Hell yeah.
I mean, I’m not very surprised, but given how much I identify with Joyce (apart from the whole religion thing, both ways), I’m probably more surprised than I should be.
the next words outta Joyce’s mouth are going to be…………….interesting.
This is not where I thought this plot train was going and I am very pleased! I really want to see positive Dina x Joyce interactions that don’t revolve around Becky.
Plus I’m late-diagnosed Autistic and love love love love to see it being explored bc I’m having a hella rough time with managing uni and brain stuff rn
agh, not Jason again, let’s roll again
There we go, that’s acceptable
Oh.
Yup.
Well!
Someone called it back in one of the food preference discussions a while back, which made me realise it was likely too. I hope she now realises how badly she messed up with her snapping at Dina earlier.
Why? She doesnt know that Dina is autistic…
She should’ve realized it before, too.
I’m afraid tomorrow strip because Dorothy and Sarah and other Joyce’s friends, who always treat her like a child. I bet they will say ‘they never knew’, or they’ll treat Joyce now like a baby.
I hope I’m wrong.
Which might lead to Dina stepping in and defending her. An unexpected twist it would be. Dina Was treated like a child by them a while ago.
uuuuuuuuuugh. The infantilization of the freshly diagnosed. Yech. No bueno.
You’re telling yourself you’re afraid. of the different person you’re becoming. But only because a change would be easier to swallow than to admitting she’s who you’ve been all along.
I’ve been exploring my own autism (along with my husband and best friend), and I had wondered about Joyce but I didn’t actually expect it to be raised in comic- at least, not here and now. I’m very curious about where this is going to go, especially with Joyce’s upbringing- she does go all-in in trying to learn about things and that could REALLY be helpful to her here as I imagine her upbringing didn’t provide a good look at what autism actually is. (I think very few do but I can definitely see hers being worse than most… if the existence of autism was even a thing!)
Took 40 years to get my diagnosis
By the way, it’s nice to see Joyce worried about real issues instead of fake morals.
Ok, that got Dina’s attention (nice background Dina).
Now, things a twist! Joyce is rightfully confused, but I’m more interested in how her friends (and Dina) will react. The situation is VERY delicate.
Speaking as an autistic person (high functioning thankfully–but not without difficulty): I thought Willis was setting this up for years. Fantastic job.
All the jokes about Joyce and picky eating made me suspicious, but I couldn’t rule out it just being a simple running joke. Maybe she’ll be made fun of for it less from now on, though… It’s like Dina said. Eating cereal every day is harmless and brings her joy, Joyce should be allowed to have deconstructed pizza if she wants.
It makes a lot of the mockery she suffered all the harsher in hindsight.
Eating only cereal every day isn’t harmless though? Lots of sugar, not much fiber or vitamins or micronutrients, not much protein, not anywhere near a healthy diet. Sure, it’ll keep you alive, but you’re looking at creating or exacerbating potential health problems down the road.
And if Joyce is like the picky eaters I know in real life, she’s not getting adequate nutrition from her diet either. A multivitamin can cover a lot of dietary sins, but…
There probably are cereals you cold do okay with – but those probably aren’t the cereals available at the dorm cafeteria.
How did an appointment about *menstruation* lead to a referral about *autism*? Does the health center doctor have really good autdar or something?
But also: yeah that makes sense lol.
Who knows? Conversations go places. Overstimulation, for example- if it got worse on her period, but was always present to some degree, she may have mentioned that, which led to more discussion about general wellbeing, etc etc
If I had to guess I’d assume it’s from things she noticed about how Joyce reacted to/talked about her problem. And then presumably somewhat verified through follow-up conversation.
Dina has amazing hearing
Joyce: I can call you a robot now! It’s our word.
Dina: No.
Dina, quietly, in the background: “ᵖᵒᵍ”
I just realized why i felt odd about the “for autism“ thing. It’s not that i think she isn’t autistic, she might well be…. but i realized i’m disappointed the referral isn’t for *psychotherapy* …
Joyce really, really needs to get into therapy to work through the changes in her life, and someone mentioned PTSD and that checks out, too… both for the shitshow with Toeface, and for her whole upbringing, cause that shit runs deeper than one would think. i’m still busy uncovering all the internalized christian bs.
Pleeeeaaase someone keep suggesting her a therapist until she’s ready to accept that.
That’s probably going to come up at the appointment for the diagnosis. And “fun” fact, there’s evidence that autistic people are more prone to PTSD.
My favorite thing about my autism I learned recently is about this study saying we are “less morally flexible” than neurotypicals. It’s true for me, it’s been a long road to learn to tolerate people lying, not doing things they know they should, forgiving, compromising, all that stuff society needs to keep functioning, in short, to tolerate the world not being perfect and fair.
But I’d like to think I’ve made some progress, and it’s only cost me every professional and romantic prospect I might ever have had and every friend except my cousin and my brother. Joyce who had moral absolutism fed to her with mother’s milk, I fear, will have more trouble.
Yeah, I read about that shitty fucking study too, and how it was built from the ground up to frame “less morally flexible, even without observation” as a bad thing. Because no matter what the behavior is, if it’s good for neurotypicals it’s a fuckin’ character failure in us, because we’re fundamentally broken and therefore inherently Wrong. Yeah that was a great study.
To clarify, I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I just have a different relationship to the world than most people, maybe a more honest one, definitely a valuable one to society precisely because that variety gives us collectively a wider perspective. But you get very lonely.
Oh was it this terrible study? https://www.jneurosci.org/content/41/8/1699?
Because if so I had my class pick it apart and they went ‘WTF’ at it appropriately. [I teach in a neuroscience program; students picked neuroethics in my student selected topics week, I picked this study as ‘so here we are doing neuroscience of ethics, but really unethically! It’s meta-neuroethics!’]
just when i thought i couldn’t love joyce any more… you and me both gurl
Okay nice twist, Willis. I did not see that coming in THIS storyline.
After finishing the last panel, did anyone else immediately play the 🎶Dun Dun Duuuuun🎶 organ sound in their head?
Welp
Aww, Joyce. I get it… I’m happy I get to see Joyce walking the same diagnosis journey I did earlier this year But, wow, I’m surprised — while LOTS of characteristics and mannerisms in Joyce in the past pointed to a possible neurodivergence, I wasn’t expecting it to be addressed so bluntly and sincerely in the comic! I honestly thought Dina was gonna be the only confirmed autistic, along with Walky being the only confirmed ADHDer… THIS makes me hopeful we might see some confirmation of ADHD Jennifer, perhaps? Anyway, hooray for being diagnosed instead of kept in the dark!
Well, this comic finally got too unrealistic for me. A doctor, giving an adult woman attention for possible presentation of autism? Yeah, that would literally never happen. x.x
Huh. Somehow I didn’t expect this turn, I was at the very least thinking about heading into OCD (since Joyce is Willis’ avatar and all), but this is….interesting, actually. I did not see this coming.
Does having an autism diagnosis actually help anything?
It depends entirely on who you share the information with. Keep in mind that many, many human beings are awful and are just itching for an excuse to harm you. #NotAllHumans #YesAllHumans
It can also help you solidify things in your own mind and form a sort of baseline or touchstone for yourself.
Basically it’s a crapshoot, like literally every single other aspect of life, and there’s no easy, objective, binary answer.
It’s helped me survive on disability benefits for 20 years now. You have to consign yourself to a life of enforced near-poverty, particularly in the US, but if you’re really unemployable it helps with the not dying on the street.
That’s a tangible benefit I hadn’t considered. Thank you!
The enforced near poverty is somewhat alleviated if you can set up an ABLE Account and/or a Special Needs Trust. Allows you to accumulate savings, receive gifts, receive income from other sources, etc. Plus it’s got an amazing interest rate since it’s a pooled managed investment, so if you do accumulate savings, you can earn and keep and use investment income tax free, since it grows tax free and withdrawals and contributions are not taxed. You can accumulate up to $100,000 in an ABLE Account without affecting any means-tested benefits, such as SNAP, SSI, Medicaid, Section 8, Lifeline, etc. Plus you can spend the ABLE Account funds yourself on whatever you need. There are some limits but they are pretty broad.
Nice thing about the Special Needs Trust is it allows you to inherit or to own property without affecting benefits.
But to my knowledge they’re only available for those diagnosed young enough.
Depends. If you can get a doctor to write a letter stating that you experienced significant impairment or limitations before age 26, you’re eligible, even if you were diagnosed later in life. A doctor could get information that from taking down your case/family history, from your own self-reporting, from school records, or even just by surmising that it was likely so, given that most neurodiverse ways of being and neurological/developmental conditions are lifelong. So even if you were diagnosed past 26, you can still get an ABLE Account.
And you can get a Special Needs Trust (also called a Supplemental Needs Trust) at any age.
Some states, such as Washington, also have specific professionally-managed Developmental Disabilities Pooled Trusts. A pooled trust can be helpful if you don’t want to manage the money yourself but don’t have a close friend or family member to help manage the funds or serve as a Trustee.
(A Representative Payee can help with money management, but they usually handle SSI/SSDI funds.)
The ARC ( https://thearc.org/ ) or your local Center for Independent Living ( https://acl.gov/programs/centers-independent-living/list-cils-and-spils ) may be able to refer you to adult-advocacy resources to help you get diagnosed and get medical letters of support for whatever financial plan you need.
More info:
https://www.ablenrc.org/get-started/am-i-eligible/
Hands-down THE best website for learning more about the application process for SSI and other disability-related benefits:
https://www.disabilitysecrets.com/
Note for you and everybody else: There is pending legislation to increase the asset limits for people receiving disability in the USA. Everybody should definitely contact all their legislators to let them know how to vote.
Thanks, Uly!
Info on that:
https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/policymakers-should-expand-and-simplify-supplemental-security-income
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/05/02/senate-bill-seeks-to-update-supplemental-security-income-asset-rules.html
https://www.disabilityscoop.com/2022/05/05/senators-want-to-raise-ssi-asset-limits/29838/
(That last website’s a bit of a mixed bag.)
I would imagine as much as any other diagnosis would help with a permanent condition, since it’s more about what you do after the diagnosis.
It’s different than a lot of diagnoses because there’s not really treatment, though, right? Like, my Generalized Anxiety Disorder diagnosis has helped because Prozac helps a little. And if I get an ADHD diagnosis (again) it opens up the chance to have insurance pay for a various drugs that help with that.
Are there tangible benefits to an Autism diagnosis if I don’t need disability benefits?
Are there treatment options that become available after an autism diagnosis?
(I know ABT is legally allowed as a treatment in many jurisdictions, but afaik that hasn’t been shown to improve quality of life for the autistic patient, just make them more likely to behave outwardly like allistic people)
I mean, it kinda sounds like you wanna talk yourself out of getting diagnosed. The only negatives I’ve experienced first-hand are all entirely interpersonal, like, it doesn’t (legally, probably) disqualify you from all that many things
It’s more like I’d already talked myself out of bothering to get diagnosed, but people in the comments here are so excited about Joyce getting a diagnosis that it made me wonder if I was missing some really cool benefit.
The really cool benefit is being able to be visible to other autistic people and compare notes, and potentially have the added awareness to recognise the signs in others and be able to help.
Some people believe that transcranial magnetic stimulation might be useful to help improve quality of life for folks with developmental and neurological differences. (See, e.g. https://jerobison.blogspot.com/p/use-of-tms-transcranial-magnetic.html or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4519010/ )
There are some medications and treatments and types of therapy that might be more helpful if the health care provider knows that they are treating a spectrum condition as opposed to a mood disorder, for example. I’m not a doctor, so I won’t list them and risk giving bad “advice”.
If you know you’re at risk for complications of COVID-19, as many people with neurological and neurodevelopmental conditions are, you can get bumped up on the waiting list for the therapeutic medicines like Paxlovid and Molnupiravir, for example, or a 2nd booster if one ever becomes available for the under-50 and non-immunocompromised crowd.
So… diagnosis is one tool among many. Not a must, but a potential help.
It depends on your individual circumstances.
For the person that is diagnosed, it often feels like a relief in the end because a bunch of stuff you held against yourself? They’re symptoms you didn’t know how to better manage/control. You’re not just lazy/picky/sensitive about certain things.
Other people can be a nightmare though depending on the types of people around you.
A diagnosis can also get you accommodations at work or school that you wouldn’t have without it.
Yeah, assuming it doesn’t get you fired or excluded outright.
Yes.
It helps you better understand yourself and your limits.
I thought the referral would be something to do with the birth control medicine she needed. But as an autistic person, Joyce being autistic would not surprise me.
Good for her. An autism diagnosis opened up a whole can for me – but it was a can of self-knowledge and validation, instead of worms.
Lucky you were. Or maybe I was just unlucky. Regardless, glad it worked out for you in the end, Nami.
BTW mind if I call you Squid Game? 😛
Ever since you made that one tweet about how you look like a player from the show, I couldn’t get it out of my head!
How knows? I might even make a parody game featuring DOA cast members one day!
Maybe they should give Sarah a referral for “being very rude” syndrome.
This actually seems less rude than usual. A few strips ago she mentioned “inflicting” Walky on people she disliked, in front of Walky.
awww, are dina and joyce gonna have a bonding moment ?
Now now, diagnosed or not, I don’t think either Dina or Joyce would appreciate the assumption that they’ll get along better just because of their unique neurodivergences which somehow seem like the “same” thing because both of them can some how be described with the same word.
I know I wouldn’t appreciate it. 😬
They didn’t assume that Dina and Joyce would get along better because they might have neuro divergence in common, they simply suggested that the thought of them bonding over a area of common ground might be cute.
yes ! that is exactly what i meant. thank you, reaver
I want them to make out and touch boobies, so… Hopefully?
I was going to say that becky wpuldnt be okay with that but no. she would.
Between myself and my social circle(s), I sometimes find myself wondering what “neurotypical” actually is. I mean, I suppose they must exist? Somewhere? But when I look around, all I see is data points on a graph (or, if you prefer, a spectrum).
There is a nonzero chance you have unintentionally picked out a social circle that’s all neurodiverse.
Yeah, “autistic” or not, us neurodivergents are like Stand Users — we seem to have this bizarre and wonderful way of being drawn towards each other.
Right, and that makes it hard for me to determine whether (IMO) “no one is ‘normal’, everyone’s weird in different ways and/or degrees” is actually true or just a product of my own selection bias. 😛
But it does sometimes seem to me that “neurotypical” is as arbitrary as any other label, category, or statistical region; and I can’t be sure if any given person I’ve met might actually fit within that set, or is just better at pretending.
I for one welcome Joyce to the ASD fold. Welcome to the club deary. There’s plenty of us out here. You’ll feel alot better being diagnosed! Wish I had gotten diagnosed at an earlier age….
Okay I absolutely did not see this coming, despite what people have said in the comments previously.
Oh?
Also I see that Dina look over as it’s mentioned
okay so i’ve been reading this comic for a couple years ago and honestly i wasn’t expecting this, but i welcome this development! i’m really interested to see how this affects the storyline from now on
Fuckin CALLED IT
… oh NOT what I was expecting at all .
That’s it! I knew there was SOME special need/non-normative/additionally “diverse” trait that hadn’t yet been tokenized in DofA, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it!
=/
Tokenized? huh?
DoA characters are non-fungible. They’re all stored on the Fazcoin chain.
Non-Fazible Tokens
In case you’re confused by the term, “tokenism” is what bigots call it when a story has even one character who’s not a white cishet neurotypical man.
Tokenism is what adults call it when an author blatantly panders .
I’m trying to decide which part of your comment to say “what the fuck” to first.
Drink deep from the pool of sorrow and wade into its waters.
Hey, I recognize that guy! He was in shortpacked!
https://www.shortpacked.com/comic/progressive
is it “Tokenized” if it’s the main character of the comic that’s semi autobiographic.?
As a high functioner myself, allow me to welcome Joyce to the club. It comes at a price, but it can also be a superpower.
Oh, carp, I almost forgot to read my webcomics today.
And THIS happened.
Yeah, considering common stereotypes about people with autism, and the way Joyce treated Dina earlier… I guess she’s dealing with a few layers of weird feelings right now.
Amusingly, it means Dina has been abusing Joyce for her own issues.
😀 😀 😀
Not even remotely surprised, to be honest.
What does it say about Joyce’s peers that out of her whole home school group her pastor thought that Joyce was the best socialized?
Joyce being autistic seems like bunk to me. She is social, outgoing, cares probably too much what people think, especially authority figures. But what do I know?
What do you know? Pretty much nothing, because you just suggested that autistic people can’t be social (we can), can’t be outgoing (we can), can’t care about what other people think (we do), and don’t particularly care what authority figures think (you are 0 for 4 here!).
Lmao this is why y’all get shushed out of the room
Autism can manifest in many different ways. Yes some of us are unsocial people who don’t care what anyone else think. But others are quite adept at socialization, outgoing, and often over care what others think. Plus if person one has any care about someone else’s opinion it will probably be an authority figure.
It’s almost like it’s a spectrum
Do you think people on the spectrum/ neuro divergent are all introverts or something?
It’s not a hive mind or a collective, people are unique beings even if they have a diagnosis of the same name.
I’m now wondering if some of Joyce’s judgmental behavior towards Dina was rooted in self-loathing or resentment that Dina wasn’t masking/forcing herself to fit in.
…Also I guess we can now say Becky has a type.
No, pretty sure that had something to do with Dina always snarling at her for being religious/ sitting on her.
This makes a lot of sense to me. I actually had thoughts about this since book 4? Maybe? I am on the spectrum and I noticed a few similarities. Such as how she doesn’t like mixing food. Her near encyclopedic knowledge of the bible. I thought the social awkwardness was just because she was homeschooled, but it could be autism. She also has/had a very black and white way of thinking. Which I also have. It may not be as obvious as Dina, but it’s still there.