Everyone stop putting your breakup venting and politics in the complusive lying tags challenge. Stop tagging shit about your ex cheating or politicians lying in a tag that should be for people with a highly stigmatized symptom of trauma and mental illness to find each other and talk about our own experiences.
Just for once I’d like to tell the gate agents and flight attendants that my folding wheelchair is going into the onboard closet and not have them tell me there’s “no room”. Bitch that’s a wheelchair closet, not a “your bags” closet. Move your damn bags where they belong.
Welcome to my blog. I'm Raven, he/him, and this blog is mostly about migraines, usually acute confusional migraines, and my experience with them. You will also find posts about migraine triggers, photosensitivity, and epilepsy. I will not most anything that flashes, strobes, uses bright colours, or anything with audio. I'm trying to make my blog as accessible as possible. If the background and text are an issue for others (they aren't for me, but I'm only one person,) I can change them.
Feel free to ask me about ACM, migraines in general, or photosensitivity for any reason, and I'll answer to the best of my ability. Remember that I am only one person, and I do not speak for everyone. I can only speak to my experiences.
What is an ACM?
An acute confusional migraine (ACM,) is basically a migraine that comes with the added bonus of rapid-onset confusion and other worrying symptoms, such as
Changes in vision and other senses
Memory loss
Anxiety
Moodiness
Agitation
Dizziness
Issues speaking in the way you normally do
Disorientation
Motor control difficulties
Comprehension issues
Many of these symptoms in a migraine are a medical emergency and require immediate emergency medical care. These types of migraines are more common in children and teens, but they can also occur in adults.
What is my experience?
For me, an ACM is triggered by a medium-to-loud high-pitched noise. I'm rarely exposed to this trigger but when I am, it almost always causes an ACM if I can't stop the migraine before it properly starts. The confusion state starts shortly after the headache, usually in under ten minutes, and progressively gets worse until I begin to lose time and can't properly remember what happens. I've got entire shifts at work I can't remember due to an ACM. What I can remember is rapidly-increasing emotional distress (anger, anxiety, irritation, etc,) difficulties with comprehension, disorientation, and my (admittedly already poor) speech skills and motor control abilities getting worse and worse.
ACM episodes usually happen at work for me, when I'm forcibly placed on one of the headsets (fast food,) which has a loud, sharp, high-pitched beep to alert me that there's a car in my lane. The constant exposure to the trigger makes the medications I take ineffective at preventing the migraine. I begin to mess up a lot, work far slower, struggle to communicate, and obviously struggle to do my job, which is handling money. Multiple managers have chosen spite and, despite my objections, put me on this lane. I've yet to find the nerve to put my foot down or ask to leave and go to the emergency room.
Don't be like me. If you have an ACM, unless instructed to do otherwise by a doctor, you should probably go to the ER or call an ambulance.
Gotta love it when our symptoms are a medical emergency, yeah?
Today's contribution for Disability Pride Month
Obligatory "I don't have this disorder. I'm raising awareness because I'm so fucking sick of women that drink while pregnant bitching about how hard it is being an 'autism mom'". (Autism mom in quotes because a) it's probably not autism and b) the phrase "autism mom" to describe "mom if an autistic kid" is stupid.)
(I'm going to use the term "women" instead of "uterus haver" not to be exclusionary or transphobic. But because I have a severe headache effecting my ability to find words. I am trans-masc. Don't cancel me. I'm not a FART.)
(This is not to demonize people that suffer from alcoholism. Addiction is a very real disability. This is to raise awareness for one of the only known preventable birth defects and hopefully seek help.)
Thank you for the people at @bfpnola discord for checking my post to make sure this doesn't sound eugenics-y.
FASD (previously known as fetal alcohol syndrome) is a disability that can range from mild to severe dependant on how much the mother drank while pregnant. It only takes one glass of wine while pregnant to cause this disorder
Because your only know about the severe cases diagnosed as fetal alcohol syndrome. You THINK you know what it is. But the reclassification has only come up in like... 2003? Fetal alcohol syndrome is like... the far end worst severity of FASD. And since the new information of it being a spectrum disorder, estimates have the disorder as high as 5% of the population (and I really think it's higher based on some information I'm about to share).
Very good! So this disorder is HIGHLY misdiagnosed as autism. So all those boomers bitching about "the rates of autism going up?" Yeah they probably caused it. Symptoms include low body weight, facial differences, poor coordination, difficulty maintaining attention, poor memory, poor emotional regulation, slower development, poor reasoning skills, issues with the heart, bones, and kidneys, shorter height, shorter head size,
That's kinda the issue. The only real way you can know is ask your mom if there's ANY possibility she's had a drink while she was pregnant. I can't stress this enough IT ONLY TAKES ONE DRINK. For instance I have a lot of those issues, but my mom was so paranoid she wouldn't even dye her hair or drink coffee. Like there's NO WAY.
Mostly get your accommodations met and raise awareness. Like people are still actively drinking while pregnant because they are still under the pre-2000 belief that just a couple of drinks are okay. It's really not. Not to mention most women don't know they're pregnant until 4-6 weeks in. So they shouldn't be drinking if they're actively trying to have a child. Because that increases the risk.
Each of these claims are linked.
30.3% of all women reported drinking alcohol at some time during pregnancy, of which 8.3% reported binge drinking (4+ drinks on one occasion)
According to the Center for Disease Control, one in 10 (10.2%) of pregnant women in the United States reports drinking alcohol in the past 30 days.
Despite clear evidence that primary prevention of FASD is possible if prenatal alcohol exposure is avoided, up to 80 % of women drink during pregnancy, many before pregnancy recognition
This is not to say people with FASD are lesser than.
But all of this "curing autism" when most of this "autism" is caused by a pregnant person's ability to stop fucking drinking for literally 5 minutes. THESE WOMEN THAT ARE DRINKING WHILE PREGNANT ARE THE ONES CAUSING ALL OF THIS GIVING "AUTISM". IF YOU DRANK WHILE PREGNANT. IF THERE'S EVEN A SLIVER OF A CHANCE THAT YOUR DRANK WHILE PREGNANT? ITS PROBABLY NOT AUTISM. ITS PROBABLY THIS DISORDER.
I'm just really fed up with all of these "autism moms" that also make "wine mom" jokes and making light of literal alcoholism bitching about how hard it is to be an "autism mom" because YOU'RE THE PROBLEM. STOP LAUGHING ABOUT YOUR ALCOHOLISM AND PUT THE DAMN GLASS DOWN.
So they don't really know the generational effect of FASD because the new knowledge is so new. But since FASD is literally genetic issues caused by alcohol while you're in the womb. It's assumed that it can cause issues that are passed down.
But like this diagnosis is SO NEW that we really don't know much.
-fae
"but you already made it this far without accomodations so it can't be that bad"
I am biting you.
Can you do an age of onset poll for phobias?
Yep!
*this does not mean when you first realized that they are symptoms. But rather in retrospect when you looking back, with the context of the disorder, remember symptoms starting.
Stop Making Psychosis A Villainous Trait Challenge
Me Giving a Pressed Conference: our advocacy for the disabled must include the addict, the imperfect victim, those we despise; the right to autonomy and life cannot devolve into a popularity contest
Reporter I Hate (Not Sexual Tension): Does that include all the attendees of the Bored Ape NFT event who went blind
Me: *Blood streaming from my nostrils and eyes* david, it includes everyone
Man, I’m going to have to put something like ‘lifters don’t interact’ on klepto things going forward, aren’t I? Like it really sucks, but they make actual!kleptos look shittier than we already are and I don’t want people to think the two are the same thing.
Raven, he/him, 20, multiple disabled (see pinned for more details.) This is my disability advocacy blog
282 posts