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It's clearly not a conscious one. Maybe the same part that managed my auditory hallucinations, when I was having those? If so, I've clearly mellowed out a little since high school, given that I rarely recite incoherent sentence fragments about dismemberment apocalypse bloodses at him.
The point is that I just realized that today, when he walks up to me, I've been reflexively saying, "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. WE HAVE A HATER."
He scratched my hand pretty bad last night, is probably what it is. (He didn't like the noise I was making on the keyboard while engaging with Mettaton, and he attempted to put a stop to it.)
He scratched my hand pretty bad last night, is probably what it is. (He didn't like the noise I was making on the keyboard while engaging with Mettaton, and he attempted to put a stop to it.)
The thermostat catches and the A/C hums to life; very clearly but muffled, as if it were my ringtone and my phone were on the other side of the house, I hear the opening of "Stronger Than You." At the words "back together," it fades back into the sound of the fan.
(* Is there actually much of a difference, causatively speaking?)
(* Is there actually much of a difference, causatively speaking?)
A thought about the autisms:
Jul. 3rd, 2015 12:20 pmPeople's reactions to me changed a lot during the ~2 years I spent in Japan - like, incidents in which I was treated badly because it was visible that I had brain issues became much less frequent.
I think I just figured out how to read people and do "normal" vocal intonation better during that period. To some extent that was a biological developmental thing - I was still having hormonal upheavals more common to thirteen-year-olds throughout college, and my hallucinations had only just died down for the final time when I moved to Okazaki - but part of it was probably the foreign language immersion.
It's kind of like I got to re-do part of the childhood language acquisition/socialization process, but with better control over my sensory bullshit. In a lot of situations my intonation and facial expressions come across more naturally when I'm speaking Japanese than English, but the connections I was making helped with English, too.
I think I just figured out how to read people and do "normal" vocal intonation better during that period. To some extent that was a biological developmental thing - I was still having hormonal upheavals more common to thirteen-year-olds throughout college, and my hallucinations had only just died down for the final time when I moved to Okazaki - but part of it was probably the foreign language immersion.
It's kind of like I got to re-do part of the childhood language acquisition/socialization process, but with better control over my sensory bullshit. In a lot of situations my intonation and facial expressions come across more naturally when I'm speaking Japanese than English, but the connections I was making helped with English, too.
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Jun. 28th, 2015 02:50 amIn between freakouts I attempted to play Brain Problem Detective on my family by interrogating Mom about my and my siblings' childhood illnesses. We all had cold/flu, a bunch of throat infections, and at least one ear infection, but there's no more-dramatic common denominator. thegeekgene and I both had mild pneumonia at one point, which is the sickest I remember being when I was little, but elongated_tito escaped, and she had problems the earliest. So, no tidily specific viral affliction which we can blame for adult depression.
Apparently 1) I had a very bad case of roseola as a toddler, and 2) I had repeated episodes of night terrors that Mom couldn't wake me from, where I screamed and thrashed around before eventually settling down without waking up entirely. She doesn't remember the timeline, but thinks that this may have come after the roseola. I am a genuine medical professional and I have decided to blame all my neuro problems on this case of roseola.
Apparently 1) I had a very bad case of roseola as a toddler, and 2) I had repeated episodes of night terrors that Mom couldn't wake me from, where I screamed and thrashed around before eventually settling down without waking up entirely. She doesn't remember the timeline, but thinks that this may have come after the roseola. I am a genuine medical professional and I have decided to blame all my neuro problems on this case of roseola.
I'm sorry, I am being weird and inconsistent about what I blog about.
1) When I mentioned a Thing that got taken out on prospitianescapee yesterday, I was talking about the meningioma I had removed a few years back. The pineal Thing is still in my head.
2) The pineal Thing is going to stay in my head. (I don't know how to feel about that yet!)
The appointment I had in Cleveland on Tuesday was me getting a second opinion about whether they wanted to try and get at the pineal Thing or not. The answer was "no" - it's too small and almost certainly just a cyst. The chiari/cerebellar ectopia thing was of even less concern to her, because the overreach is so tiny, and anyway the only treatment for it is removing part of your skull. Too drastic!
(I'd already seen a local neurosurgeon, who said the same thing, but I didn't trust it coming from him - he hadn't read my chart or looked at my records and seemed in general pretty out-of-it. My mom was with me in his office, and at one point I think he even forgot which of us was the patient. Cleveland Clinic's where I got the meningioma removed, so I went back there.)
What the Cleveland neuro advised is just yearly MRIs + battery of neuropsych tests to quantify my vision/hearing/motor issues. This doesn't solve the problem of me feeling cruddy all the time, but at least we have eliminated an explanation? Science. Next steps are hassling an endocrinologist and gynecologist about whether I have, like, endometriosis, or an earwig that crawled in my ear and made it all the way to my thyroid.
So, I do not actually need brain surgery again. Disappointingly? SHOULD I BE DISAPPOINTED OR NOT?????? I am disappointed that I do not need brain surgery, regardless of the rationality of this. I really wanted to cut the problem out and feel better again, that was pretty okay, that other time I did that! A validating experience.
1) When I mentioned a Thing that got taken out on prospitianescapee yesterday, I was talking about the meningioma I had removed a few years back. The pineal Thing is still in my head.
2) The pineal Thing is going to stay in my head. (I don't know how to feel about that yet!)
The appointment I had in Cleveland on Tuesday was me getting a second opinion about whether they wanted to try and get at the pineal Thing or not. The answer was "no" - it's too small and almost certainly just a cyst. The chiari/cerebellar ectopia thing was of even less concern to her, because the overreach is so tiny, and anyway the only treatment for it is removing part of your skull. Too drastic!
(I'd already seen a local neurosurgeon, who said the same thing, but I didn't trust it coming from him - he hadn't read my chart or looked at my records and seemed in general pretty out-of-it. My mom was with me in his office, and at one point I think he even forgot which of us was the patient. Cleveland Clinic's where I got the meningioma removed, so I went back there.)
What the Cleveland neuro advised is just yearly MRIs + battery of neuropsych tests to quantify my vision/hearing/motor issues. This doesn't solve the problem of me feeling cruddy all the time, but at least we have eliminated an explanation? Science. Next steps are hassling an endocrinologist and gynecologist about whether I have, like, endometriosis, or an earwig that crawled in my ear and made it all the way to my thyroid.
So, I do not actually need brain surgery again. Disappointingly? SHOULD I BE DISAPPOINTED OR NOT?????? I am disappointed that I do not need brain surgery, regardless of the rationality of this. I really wanted to cut the problem out and feel better again, that was pretty okay, that other time I did that! A validating experience.
Have felt unusually shitty even for me for the past few days, and am about to drive like sixteen hours round-trip for a physically- and emotionally-draining exercise in medical futility.
(Which is to say, to see someone in my neurosurgeon's office and plaintively request to be told why my brain doesn't work. Didn't the guy cut all of the bad spots out a few years back.)
(Which is to say, to see someone in my neurosurgeon's office and plaintively request to be told why my brain doesn't work. Didn't the guy cut all of the bad spots out a few years back.)
no subject
Apr. 13th, 2015 12:00 pmI was honestly kind of disappointed that I didn't need a shaved spot of significant size the first time I needed my head cut open. It would have given me an excuse to shave my head! One needs an excuse to do that, you understand.
But maybe I'll need surgery again, and maybe this time I'll have my chance! If so, I'm going to get several awful $8 anime wigs in varying unlikely colors and spikiness-levels. It's the only way.
But maybe I'll need surgery again, and maybe this time I'll have my chance! If so, I'm going to get several awful $8 anime wigs in varying unlikely colors and spikiness-levels. It's the only way.
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Apr. 9th, 2015 10:45 pmI need to get brain surgery so I can watch Steven Universe. It's very important.
All my dreams are coming true.
Apr. 6th, 2015 05:33 pmRemember the post where I said this?
Happy birthday to me, I have a tumor on my pineal gland! Plus a slight case of something called "cerebellar ectopia," which means basically my cerebellum is, uh, slouching?
I've been digging through medical sites for a few hours, and it doesn't seem like these problems are significantly harder to correct than the meningioma was. I will be seeing a neurologist from whom I will elicit more thorough explanations next week, and then will probably set up an appointment with the neurosurgeon who worked on me the first time.
I'm making plans to get upset about it tonight or tomorrow and start generating worst-case-scenarios, but I'm presently still in the "relief at getting a possible explanation that's not CFS/SEID" stage. And maybe they will do the surgery and the problem will mostly go away!
...This obviously makes me wonder what the fuck my head is up to. Why does it keep making tumors. Is it because I had too many dental x-rays as a kid? Do I have an unfortunate gene up in? Am I an intermediate step towards Jack the Bodiless.
I'm hoping more for something like a benign tumor on a gland. They cut me open and make the problem mostly go away again? ...I'm putting "benign tumor on a gland" on my birthday list.
Happy birthday to me, I have a tumor on my pineal gland! Plus a slight case of something called "cerebellar ectopia," which means basically my cerebellum is, uh, slouching?
I've been digging through medical sites for a few hours, and it doesn't seem like these problems are significantly harder to correct than the meningioma was. I will be seeing a neurologist from whom I will elicit more thorough explanations next week, and then will probably set up an appointment with the neurosurgeon who worked on me the first time.
I'm making plans to get upset about it tonight or tomorrow and start generating worst-case-scenarios, but I'm presently still in the "relief at getting a possible explanation that's not CFS/SEID" stage. And maybe they will do the surgery and the problem will mostly go away!
...This obviously makes me wonder what the fuck my head is up to. Why does it keep making tumors. Is it because I had too many dental x-rays as a kid? Do I have an unfortunate gene up in? Am I an intermediate step towards Jack the Bodiless.
My motor control in summary
Mar. 11th, 2015 03:41 pmEven when I mess with Cave Story so the dude's got over 200 HP, I still can't make it through the Egg Corridor.
*teeters around like a sailboat manned by people who don't know how those work. my head is the sail*
no subject
Feb. 13th, 2015 04:19 pmmanyblinkinglights replied to your post: I wonder if it would solve many of my …
Somebody told me once that migraines are bad partly because of inflammation (presumably due to inappropriate bloodflow) of the whatever brainlayer outer ones, so it might, a little bit.
Can your medical knowledge tell me whether my head hurts because,
* leftover problems due to tumor pressing against my brain there for many years,
* they snipped out a little of my meninges when removing the tumor,
* there is a metal plate there now,
* the muscle tissue over top of where the surgery was done has atrophied leaving a little dent, so my head’s less-well-insulated there, and brain blood-flow doesn’t like temperature differentials,
* some combination of the above/some other thing?
I have been assuming the temperature differential thing is significant because I am most likely to get localized tumor-region headaches upon experiencing a fast change in body temperature, like going outside without a hat in winter, or taking a hot shower when the house is cold.
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Feb. 13th, 2015 03:41 pmI wonder if it would solve many of my head problems if I could sort of flexibly alter the size of my skull. Or would that make it worse.
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Feb. 12th, 2015 02:47 pmI bet if I were an incandescent cloud of gas floating in space I wouldn’t get these fucking headaches.
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Feb. 4th, 2015 05:15 pmI made myself go to the grocery and get mildly unhealthy food (macaroni and cheese) instead of aggressively healthy stuff like I have been, because I’m not really eating the healthy stuff. It’s on the stove now. I’m having a slow-gathering panic attack because of the oppressive weight and density of grocery stores, clouds, wind, me driving a car around, the sound of the water boiling and the kitchen fan, and other similar things that seem to be simultaneously inescapably real and mundane, and impossible to the point of incoherence. It is inappropriate that whatever set of forces comprise the entity which I identify as myself are capable of perceiving but not affecting the world. Were I to destroy the moon, it would then turn out retroactively never to have existed.
There is a pressure differential between my insides and outsides, and a high-pitched squeal like a leaking inflatable toy, but I am not sure which way the atmosphere is pushing, and whether it is leaving me or rushing in.
I have eaten the macaroni and cheese now.
#i'm having a problem and the problem is #the very small problem #probably #(the very small problem is the tag i use for the brain tumor and its symptoms) #(i am basically connected to reality right now i am just trying to express something that happens sometimes) #(less frequently now than it used to)
There is a pressure differential between my insides and outsides, and a high-pitched squeal like a leaking inflatable toy, but I am not sure which way the atmosphere is pushing, and whether it is leaving me or rushing in.
I have eaten the macaroni and cheese now.
#i'm having a problem and the problem is #the very small problem #probably #(the very small problem is the tag i use for the brain tumor and its symptoms) #(i am basically connected to reality right now i am just trying to express something that happens sometimes) #(less frequently now than it used to)
no subject
Jan. 31st, 2015 04:59 pmThe problem with having been intermittently psychotic for like a third of my life is that people do take the stupid bullshit I say seriously sometimes.
Once in college I went to the campus health center with a really bad throat infection. I could barely talk and sounded like Darth Vader when I did. When a nurse asked me “what seems to be the problem,” I said, feeling that what seemed to be the problem was obvious, “I guess I have, like, throat demons.”
Even had sarcasm been strictly necessary in this circumstance, I know there must have been a funnier way to phrase this. In my defense, I had a very high fever.
I then waited a long time in a daze, wondering idly what was going on, until a psychiatric nurse she’d summoned came in and said “so let’s talk about these demons.”
Once in college I went to the campus health center with a really bad throat infection. I could barely talk and sounded like Darth Vader when I did. When a nurse asked me “what seems to be the problem,” I said, feeling that what seemed to be the problem was obvious, “I guess I have, like, throat demons.”
Even had sarcasm been strictly necessary in this circumstance, I know there must have been a funnier way to phrase this. In my defense, I had a very high fever.
I then waited a long time in a daze, wondering idly what was going on, until a psychiatric nurse she’d summoned came in and said “so let’s talk about these demons.”
