646

That bad
Posted on June 9, 2022 by David M Willis

646 thoughts on “That bad”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    white privilege amirite?

    ??

    (am I???)

    1. vlademir1

      I may well be speaking out of turn, being, ya know, white and male and therefore rather privileged… but yeah, I’d say you’re very right in this case.

    2. ThunderNight

      you may indeed be right

    3. Ray

      This white boy agrees… wish i could say otherwise…

    4. Z

      Frankly not really – this is Joyce getting insanely lucky. Most white people have to go through this as well although not the second language thing.

      We’re white and it took 2 years of doctors blowing us off before I happened to talk to a special needs mom who knew the right phone number to call to self refer. Then 5 years of people specialists insisting he’s not autistic. (but thank god starting occupational and speech therapy) Now about a year and a half ago theyre changing their tune and he’s now on the pathway for diagnosis but still no diagnosis.

      So 8 years so far. White boy. (Well white gender fluid but still white)

      1. Ari

        Autism diagnoses suck even for white people, but until recently it was borderline impossible for anyone who wasn’t white to get diagnosed. And because so few people will do adult diagnoses and because we are less likely to have access to healthcare in the first place, there is currently a massive backlog of autistic POC without diagnoses. Not to mention we don’t have the same access to informal social networks, support groups, family friends, etc that white people often leverage to get diagnoses and care. Basically, yes the process sucks for white autistic people too, but racism does impact how people move through the system.

        1. Bluesnake463

          Basically, the process sucks for everyone. But POC will be more negatively affected as is the way here. But almost everyone is going to have a rough time, especially for individuals with high functioning autism. Even here while Dina is clearly annoyed that Joyce is possible on her way to getting an “easy” diagnosis after she has had to fight all her life for one. It is still important to recognize that Joyce has gone completely under the radar for years with no one in any school, doctor’s office, or family ever suspecting or suggesting testing. Plus this can also be assumed that if Joyce does get a diagnosis it will be a subject that could lead to more discourse within her family. Because I am guessing her mother and possibly a few brothers will not accept this as something that Joyce has.

        2. thejeff

          Of course that was probably helped by her home-schooling. And possibly by minimal doctor’s visits – guessing by her apparently never having talked to one about her period pain, despite it being crippling.

        3. Meagan

          Good point about the homeschooling – even if schools do only catch/refer a tiny percentage, Joyce never was even in that pool.

        4. Ed Callahan

          I don’t think things can get much worse between Joyce and her mother. After all, she blames her mom and the church’s congregation for nearly getting her killed. Strictly speaking, she flat out said they tried to have her assassinated.
          Speaking of which, what is the church’s legal exposure here? They accepted money from Blaine to bail out Ross. That lead to two murders (one covered up), a mass kidnapping, a mass brawl and a vehicle chase. And I think it’s obvious the church expected Ross to continue to attempt to kidnap his daughter. Morally, the church’s position is terrible but legally?

        5. Johan

          Legally?

          Bail was allotted and bail was paid.

          If the judge thought he’d be a risk there would have been no bail.

        6. JBento

          Someone said that in Indiana the only way to have no bail is for it to be an actual murder, so I’m not sure the judge was legally able to decline bail.

        7. thejeff

          Yeah. Though he did set the bail way above what Ross should have been able to pay – or in fact was able to pay even with community help. Which is sort of the worst of both worlds. Denying bail, while still letting them out if unforeseen money shows up.

        8. temperaryobsessor

          The bail system is pretty messed up.

        9. Johan

          I also wanna mention moral and legal are not synonymous.

          It’s not illegal to be an asshole.

        10. JBento

          I’m not a lawyer, but I think their legally responsibility is none, other than forfeiting the bail money.

        11. FlyingFish

          That’s my understanding too, at least to the extent that they did nothing OTHER than pay his bail. Once a bail amount is set, paying it is legal by definition.

          Now, if anyone then assisted him in planning or executing all the crimes he did after release, THAT they can of course be busted for. And maybe that happened! But so far, that’s not been established in the comic. (And if it DID happen, you need to prove their involvement in a court of law.)

        12. ischemgeek

          Not to be a dick Ari but I’ll flag anyone who wasn’t a white boy.

          See also a big part of why I wasn’t diagnosed the first time my parents were referred for it was explicitly and into so many words, “It’s more of a boy thing. She’s just shy and introverted – encourage her to put herself out there!”

          I don’t ID as she anymore, btw, but I was AFAB and did get the sexism barrier to diagnosis.

          The second time, however, was stigma and wanting to avoid the terrible SpED system of 90s rural impoverished conservative province Canada.

          I’ve actually never been formally diagnosed autistic because by the time it was recognised that AFAB ppl can be autistic I’d aged out of being covered for psychoeducational assessment under the health system and $8K out of pocket is too much for what likely amounts to “Yep, you’re bad at people and executive function! We can do nothing to help you so keep up with what you’ve been doing.”

        13. ischemgeek

          Like I’m absolutely certain it would’ve been even harder if I was not white, but sexism is a real barrier to diagnosis too – autistic women are usually misdiagnosed with mental health issues they don’t have (e.g., personality disorders) which results in mistreatment. A big part of why Joyce made it to adulthood without ever being flagged is probably that she’s a girl.

        14. FlyingFish

          “…and $8K out of pocket is too much for what likely amounts to…”

          Just putting it out there: if your potential autism is interfering with your ability to hold or succeed at a job, or enjoy various rights, having a formal diagnosis might force others to provide reasonable accommodations. (I speak as someone who’s seeking a diagnosis in my 40s.)

        15. ischemgeek

          That assumes I’m in a jurisdiction where disability is a protected class.

          I’m not.

        16. Felis

          ischemgeek, where do you live now? IFAIK disability is supposed to be a protected class everywhere in Canada… Section 15 of the Charter of Rights explicitly says this, and also explicitly says “mental and physical disability”. I’m pretty sure that includes ASD.

          Given, how the different provinces are dealing with *accessibility*, including diagnosis of disability, is a different story… I think only 3 provinces actually have an Accessibility Act right now (Manitoba, Ontario and NS), and BC is in the process of developing one.

        17. Proxiehunter

          I’ve brought this up before, probably not here though, but I think one factor is that girls just have a wider range of things it’s socially acceptable for them to obsess over to the point where they don’t talk about anything else. She’s going through a “horse phase”, a “boy band phase”, she’s “really into fashion right now”.

          And of course like you said what’s seen as a huge problem in boys becomes “Oh, she’s just shy.” and can even be seen as cute.

      2. alakazam

        Okay: now picture how much longer that might have taken if you were also not white, and were being told – repeatedly, offensively and inaccurately – that it was just that you and your child were simply not proficient in your language. Not because you actually aren’t proficient, not because you were born abroad, not because you necessarily even speak another language, but purely because they took one look at the colour of your skin.

        White privilege does not mean you never face any difficulties. It means you are less likely to face those difficulties and that you never face increased difficulty because of your skin colour. It is invisible to you because you don’t experience it.

        1. Proxiehunter

          I mean, their point seems to have been that both were a factor. They even said that it likely would have been harder if they were non-white as well as being AFAB.

      3. Decidedly Orthogonal

        Just because white privilege doesn’t always benefit all white folks, doesn’t mean it’s not privilege originating from being white.

        Dina’s vs Joyce’s case is pretty clearly white privilege, as Joyce didn’t have to deal with latent racism resulting in her possible diagnosis being continually ignored.

    5. bleepbloop

      Yeah, underdiagnosis and even misdiagnosis are huge problems with the way doctors see children of color. Don’t even get me started on the way special ed programs treat kids who are ESL or (like in Dina’s case) presumed to be ESL.

      1. Z

        Yes but most white kids don’t have doctors recognize and refer this easily either. Especially white girls. Joyce’s experience is ironically more in line with divine intervention than societal privilege.

        1. Leorale

          You’re absolutely right that being white didn’t actually get Joyce this miraculous diagnosis. But it didn’t deny her the miracle, either, and that’s important. Joyce never has to wonder “if only I’d been white, would this have been way easier for me?” …and that in itself is a privilege, which Dina doesn’t have, because everyone was so racistly offbase with Dina that she couldn’t even get her chance for proper care after her years of grueling work (let alone a miracle like Joyce’s).

          Your eight years of grueling work before the diagnosis is terribly unfair! I’m so sorry that you and your kid experienced all that, it’s not OK, it must have been beyond frustrating! And I’m so grateful that you managed to get it for your kiddo!

          Also, Dina is at least 18, probably did similar grueling work, and has still not been able to access a diagnosis at all.

          Your kid definitely should’ve gotten diagnosed sooner, and I’m so sorry, AND, Dina is still having it even worse due to racism.

          … lack of care is just a mess, is what it is.

        2. Agemegos

          Joyce doesn’t yet have a diagnosis.

          What Joyce has (so far) is a referral to see a specialist, something that Dina has got to do several times. It is still altogether possible that Joyce will be denied as diagnosis as Dina has been.

    6. Barf "Textwalls for Justice" Ninjason

      Given that that sounds like a genuine question:

      I’d say that’s a textbook case of the problem the anarchist courtesan Maggie McNeill identified with using the word “privilege” to imply that being treated decently is some kind or bonus:

      “For example, using the phrase “white privilege”hi pardons the government for its systematic violations of the rights of minorities; if the way white people are preferentially treated in Western societies is a “privilege”, an “extra” thing conferred upon some but not others, the onus of guilt seems to fall upon those who are fortunate enough to have received this (undeserved) gift. But if we recognize the truth, that such treatment is the birthright of everyone, then the onus falls where it belongs: on those government actors who act independently or collectively to rob minorities of what is rightfully theirs by virtue of their humanity.”

      Bit more political than social focus like in tbe comic, but apt enough; it’s not that Joyce shouldn’t have been diagnosed so easily, it’s that Dina should have been too, and the racism or cultural chauvinism that led to it not being so for her violates her rights or at least dignity.

      1. temperaryobsessor

        Yea half the time white privilege just means your rights are usually actually respected.
        And the problem isn’t that some people actually get there rights respected by default, the problem is that other people don’t.

      2. Meagan

        Yes. I agree with this framing and feel it is a healthier way to look at things.

    7. Ophidiophile

      I thought Dina was going to point out that a diagnosis of autism in 30 minutes seemed unrealistically fast. Especially given that Joyce is not used to doctors and would be understandably nervous and anxious. Doctors are just as prone to bias and misconceptions as anyone else, including thinking they are an expert at recognizing a complicated condition just because their child was diagnosed with that condition. Fortunately, Joyce is going to get a second opinion.

      1. Proxiehunter

        She wasn’t diagnosed, she was given a referral to someone who can make a diagnosis.

        1. Agemegos

          Right. Joyce is getting now an opportunity that Dina has had several times.

          Whether Joyce’s consultation with a specialist will do her any more good that Dina’s did is not yet in evidence.

        2. geno

          Technically speaking Dina was denied this referral several times. Her parents had to specifically go track down experts

        3. Lokitsu

          I’m fairly certain that the doctor won’t blame Joyce’s problem on “English 2nd language”. So yeah, she has a leg up on Dina- that’s white privilege.

      2. eh, whatever

        What Joyce got wasn’t a diagnosis. It’s a referral to someone who could diagnose her.

    8. Opus the Poet

      Nope, I’m white and was in one of the best medical systems available in the US at the time and in one of the most stable living situations I lived in until after I was married, and they still couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me except “too smart for his own good” from 1965. No kidding, that was the official diagnosis.

      Now I don’t know what would be the diagnosis now because there’s been too much trauma in my life since then which muddies the waters, psychologically. Who knows what’s under the depression and PTSD? Certainly not my brain doc, he’s got his hands full just treating what he can diagnose. That and the aphasia from when the drunk driving the truck hit me, and all the other “stuff” from the mild TBI.

      1. Laura

        I hear ya, Opus!

        That’s a hard ticket to ride.

      2. Kimi

        I have also seen doctors say “I don’t know anything about x but it can’t be caused by x”, which was ridiculous in context because you can’t refute any symptoms if you know nothing about it. Lately it seems like doctors have had trouble diagnosing anything that doesn’t fit a pre-set checklist, and rarely bother trying to figure out the problem. Historically, any brain related problems have been difficult to get doctors to even acknowledge, as even PTSD was said to be made up after WW1 if I recall right.

        1. Jon S.

          PTSD was added to the DSM with its third edition, in 1980. Previous to that, it was dismissed as “shell shock”, or even cowardice, and thought of as a moral failing.

    9. Dafydd

      I’m not really sure I’d call it white privilege in this case, as much as straight-up racism. (The issue isn’t really how quickly Joyce got her referral, but how long Dina was denied one thanks to assumptions based on her Asian ancestry.)

      1. Agemegos

        Dina wasn’t denied a referral. And Joyce hasn’t yet got a diagnosis.

        Dina got as far as Joyce has (so far) several times. And at a younger age.

        1. thejeff

          True, but it’s also generally easier to get diagnosed young, so that’s not really a counter.
          And Dina’s point is that actively worked, for years, to get what got dropped in Joyce’s lap with no effort at all. Sure, they both got referrals, but Joyce’s came out of nowhere.

        2. Kimi

          Some of it can be who you know unfortunately. I really think that the doctors that said that Dina had second language issues should have their license removed.

        3. Jon S.

          Apparently, Dina was denied referrals. What Joyce got in only half an hour, that Dina and her parents pursued for years, was an autism referral. (The available tests aren’t the sort of thing that’s easily dismissed with “just “ESL”.)

      2. Eldritchy

        To be perfectly honest, the only reason why Joyce got a referral was because she got lucky.

        1. Roborat

          And possibly the passage of time, with more awareness now than there was 10 or 20 years ago.

    10. SJ

      took me 36 years to be diagnosed because in my case it’s paired with extreme ADHD and hidden by loads of childhood trauma and drama. Didn’t help that I was a twin, and both of us were pretty strange. Didn’t help that we were doing algebra by second grade and reading way beyond our grade level by the end of first grade. Really didn’t help that we couldn’t really get along with anyone our own ages for like… the first ten years because everyone our age was stupid and chaotic and impossible to comprehend. So we spent all our time talking to each other, or our older brother, or adults… because they were calmer and smarter. We wouldn’t even have been diagnosed with ADHD but our older brother was among the first generation to be diagnosed and that made our parents able to recognize the signs… and even then, several doctors were like “Girls don’t have ADD / ADS / ADHD”.

    11. Marrow

      Lots of people assumed English was my second language growing up. It actually made it easier for me to blend in with the exchange students in college. They just thought i was German or Viking or something because I’m blonde with blue eyes. So i can really see how this happens to someone who isn’t. People are awful.

      I’m autistic.

      1. Marrow

        And I know Viking isn’t a valid label but the people who called me this weren’t going to call me Scandinavian and probably couldn’t point to Denmark or Sweden on the map.

    12. Eldritchy

      Majority privilege

    13. Some Ed

      White privilege may be a factor, but it may also be who Dina saw versus who Joyce saw. My current PCP is awesome and would probably tag both Joyce and Dina as on spectrum in under 30 minutes. But prior doctors? None of the ones I asked about this would admit any possibility to me being on spectrum. “You’re just smart” according to the doctors I had from the time I heard about autism until I graduated from college. Many since also said that, but I had at least one at one point who said, “Oh, a lot of computer people are a bit like that it doesn’t mean anything.”

      I didn’t get dismissed for lacking white privilege, as I present as a white cis male. Prior to having my current PCP, I never admitted to any doctor that I had any gender fluidity.

    14. Izzie

      Being as not one doctor, from any specialty, ever, told me that my issues stemmed from my ancestors speaking Welsh/Cymraeg …yep. Pretty blatant.

  2. The Wellerman

    Oh, Dina…. ????

    DINAAAA!!!!!!! ????

    THIS IS AWFUL!!!! ????

    And to think, if it’s any consolation, you can get the label from a young age like me and countless others, and STILL suffer.

    ISN’T THAT SOMETHING?!?!?!

    If you can’t get the autism label because of BIGOTRY like this, you can’t get government aid or school accommodations or other help that can mean a world of difference when your life is set at maximum difficulty for doing the things you love. ???

    If you DO get the autism label, you face STIGMA,
    bullying,
    hurtful assumptions,
    having the internet make jokes at your expense,
    getting your uniqueness painted over,
    being dragged into pity parties,
    getting misrepresented by hate groups,
    people thinking they can or “just HAVE to” speak on your behalf,
    getting pinned down and having your BONES BROKEN by teachers and therapists,
    GAS-LIGHTING to make you doubt how valid your thoughts and memories are on account of your “mental disorder”,
    getting WHIPPED by self-proclaimed “exorcists”….

    ??? ???

    and to top it all off, having the people who do these things act like it’s “compassion”?!?!?!?! WHAT THE FUUUU- ??? ???

    It’s like YOU LOSE NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO.

    It’s a DOUBLE-BIND…..

    You’re punished for failing a test that was deliberately set up for you to only FAIL.

    ? The whole system is fucking BROKEN.?

    Not just with neurodivergence either….

    Be it on gender, race, sexual orientation, class, countless other factors….

    You HUMANS, your societies… punishing, teasing, TORMENTING members of your own species for the random, uncontrollable circumstances of their birth.

    It’s all a SICK, CRUEL TWISTED JOKE!!! ?

    AND I HAVE HAD ENOUGH.

    ? ?️?️?️?️?️?️?️ ?

    People of Earth, let it be known:

    From this day forward,

    I, The Parasite, vow to abolish this CRUEL, AWFUL WORLD that makes all you good people suffer…

    …by changing humans into something else….

    Something better….

    Something…… more human than human.

    1. Caro

      i feel like whatever’s going on in these comments is, like. not healthy

      1. Ed Callahan

        It’s a little intense sometimes but it’s fandom. I guess it doesn’t hurt to have a place where you can obsess with likeminded people.

    2. C.T. Phipps

      Yeah. Damn, that was a big revelation for why Dina was never diagnosed.

      Doctor: You just have problems speaking English instead of speaking your native language.

      Dina: I don’t speak a second language.

      Doctor: Oh, I dunno, I think your English is quite good!

      Dina: *stares normally but burns with unexpressed hate*

      I remember my own autistic diagnosis issues and I’m a white dude. The condescending compassion is the worst.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        To be clear, the above “joke” was something that happened to an actual friend of mine. He said his entire family had variants of it over the years, so much that it was a shared experience.

      2. Jamie

        …you know, I think I’m happier not knowing what went on between my mom and the doctor who was diagnosing me for ADD when I was a kid.

        Which means I should probably ask about it.

      3. Needfuldoer

        “condescending compassion”

        This is a good turn of phrase. I’m stealing it.

        1. Kimi

          It’s actually a tv trope. Has a webpage there.

    3. Proxiehunter

      Coming from someone who wasn’t diagnosed until they were an adult, you get the stigma anyway even if you weren’t diagnosed. Just because they don’t know you’re autistic doesn’t mean they don’t notice you’re weird and call you the r-slur and other nasty things.

      It doesn’t keep them from thinking you’re rude because you don’t react the way they think you should or because you can’t properly control your tone.

      It doesn’t keep your teachers from being frustrated because this should be so simple for you. It must be because you aren’t trying or weren’t paying attention. It doesn’t keep them from being pissed because you’re disrupting class by fidgeting or making weird noises or getting up because you can’t stay seated.

      The stigma is something like 90% about what you are not what label you’re given and if they don’t know the right thing to treat you like shit for they’ll say it’s for a different reason that boils down to your autistic traits.

      1. The Wellerman

        When i was pinned down by family members and teachers, they would always use the label as a way to gaslight me, to deny the validity of my memory, my perceptions of injustice,

        Same went for alleged “professionals”, therapists too.

        It’s like even when I could hide my traits would have led to that, the label just gave it all away, along with a million other things they assumed about me.

        Because HUMANS and their SMOL BRAINS extrapolating from what they think they know by watching media garbage, pop psych bullshit, hurting us and acting like it’s “compassion”, like this is how we’re “supposed” to be treated based on the label.

        ?️?️?️ Human brain. ERASE bigotry heuristics. ERAAAAAAAASE!!!!!

        1. Some Ed

          People who suck will generally suck regardless. If they didn’t have that label to use, they’d come up with labels to use on their own.

          I was at least fortunate in that I was able to observe that they also sucked to each other – that they existed in a Hobbesian state of nature and were at war with everyone outside of their little cliches. Even within their cliches, they’re prone to conflicts.

          However, they’re especially aggressive towards anyone they feel they can attack without consequences. That is anyone who is at least a little weird or already outcast.

          I recall one kid in junior high school “properly” identified every transgirl even before they figured it out for themselves. Except it wasn’t really like that. He’d just call every guy a “girl” and noted who reacted to it in a way that made him feel less insignificant.

          I’m not sure smol means what you seem to think it does. Either that, or we have very different ideas about what is cute.

          I do think the world needs fixing. But it’s important to realize that humans are very resistant to direct confrontation. If you attack them, they will see it as justification for their dwelling in a Hobbesian state of nature. I don’t have a scalable solution to that issue. I just try to help enlighten those who seem open to it and hope for the best.

        2. The Wellerman

          Re: Direct confrontation and attack, isn’t that obvious.

          If you ACTUALLY want to change the world, you gotta master the art of subtlety, you gotta inform and influence for the better in a way that doesn’t seem so obvious, like hiding vegetables in a brownie, hiding a parasite in the wrinkle of a brain, hiding an important message in a webcomic.

      2. Keulen

        Yeah, I only recently got diagnosed a few months ago at the age of 33, and I was bullied plenty by other kids in school without knowing why. Thinking back on it now I’m sure I must have acted different from them and probably displayed some autistic traits, but without a diagnosis they probably just saw me as weird and bullied me for that.

        1. The Wellerman

          I’m really sorry to hear that bullying you went through, I got bullied too. A lot.

          Not only by other kids, either. I was abused by teachers, my parents, professionals, who used my “autism” as a justification for it under the premise that “this is just how we’re SUPPOSED to be treated”. In a way that’s LEGALLY JUSTIFIED, too.

          Without the label, I could have hidden my weirdness well enough to minimize bullying, but my label just seemed to give it all away, to out me in an instant, in addition to people assuming a million other things about me that weren’t even true.

          Bullying is one thing, but my “autism” label was used as justification by my parents to scare me straight by showing me “autistics” in mental institutions that had no ability to think or hear their own thoughts. They used my label as a justification to make me mortally fear doing what I loved, under the premise that it would deteriorate my mind. And it just about fucking broke me.

          Bullying is one thing, that’s horrible. But legally protected ABUSE? That’s fucked.

    4. Deathjavu

      Yes, the problem with all human systems is the humans in them. You’re only ever a few clicks away from a story so disgusting you could never hope to encompass and comprehend the pain involved. Definitely the type of thing that’s kept me awake before.

      Personally it helps me to remember that it’s all chaotic random fluctuations, so chaos is the norm, not the exception. Nature is also cruel as hell and we’re not even all that spectacular in that regard. Even small bits of success we have in creating kind systems is against the norm.

      So take up your sword when you feel up to it, and try not to feel guilty about setting it down when you can’t, because we’re not gods and we can’t snap our fingers and take the evil out of human minds. No matter how many times I’ve wished for it.

      1. Proxiehunter

        All things are chaos, order is only the most prevalent form of chaos.

        1. Jamie

          This is also a fantastic description of entropy.

        2. The Wellerman

          (a STEM major who cringes when people get entropy wrong, but go figure)

      2. The Wellerman

        Sword?

        Ah, senseless violence: the cause of and solution to all of humanity’s problems!

        [SARCASM SELF CHECK COMPLETE]

        No seriously, if you ACTUALLY want to make change, you don’t make it THAT obvious.

        And that’s besides the fact.

        The point of a Parasite is, by the time you realize we’ve started to change you, to change your whole world, it’s already TOO LATE. ?️?️?️

        1. Deathjavu

          “Take up your sword” as metaphorical speak for girding yourself for a fight, because it has always been a fight, and will always be a fight, for all the reasons I listed.

          Don’t know if you’ve read any of Iain M. Banks “Culture” series but I think that’s about the best end goal utopia we could hope for. We’re pretty damn far away though. And even that world has its cruel messes.

        2. The Wellerman

          Only if they are still human, mind you.

          This messiness is only a rule because of the ways you humans work on a fundamental, biological level.

          But what if….

          What if our bodies, our memories and our instincts, were like clothing we could take on and off as we please, to fit what we feel like?

          What if childhood didn’t just happen once?

          When these truths hold, a New Age will be upon us.

          ?️?️?️?️?️?️

        3. eh, whatever

          Don’t know about you, but I am my body.

        4. The Wellerman

          Human, if there is any one thing you could change about your body to make life that much better for you, what would it be?

        5. Taffy

          Question wasn’t aimed at me, but…. Big ol’ titties. With built-in rocket launchers and a wireless charging unit for my phone.

        6. Agemegos

          Good teeth.

        7. Deadjolras

          I want to be 5cm taller.

        8. Deathjavu

          I wish I was a little bit taller, I wish I was a baller, I wish I had a girl who looks good I would call her, I wish I had a rabbit in a hat with a bat and a ‘6-4 Impala

          (“I Wish”, Skee-Lo)

        9. Annamal

          Becky Chambers’ Monk and Robot series also has an appealing utopia
          (all AIs left and humans tried to make up for enslaving them by being better). Plus it introduces the concept of Tea Monks whose entire purpose is supplying people with a calm space, a listening ear and the right tea blend.

    5. the illerman

      hey The Parasite i’m sensing like, just the tiniest little practically-homeopathic amount of resentment toward The Entirety of The Human Race (perhaps minus one or two other beings in the comments sections of this Webbed Comic), and i’m just thinking it would be totally cash money for you to maybe try something enjoyable, like a hobby, or think about learning more about topics like “what is all-or-nothing thinking” or “what are examples of cognitive distortions”

      i learned about ^that stuff^ thru CBT and DBT (Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy) and personally it’s helped me be able to first recognize and then change the thinking patterns that kept me believing that “i am alone and unlovable” into patterns that make me think that “hey maybe killing myself would be a bad idea” because, whoa, it turned out that actually there’s things worth living for haha “wild if true” right??? but yeah it was pretty poggers for me js

      idk if CBT/DBT have been double-blind tested with uncategorizable entities such as yourself tho so YMMV

      anyway i hope things change for the better in your life and that living in this Fallen World doesn’t seem so bleak and hopeless and completely irredeemable for too much longer

    6. it's early

      Yo, Wellerman. I’m really sorry about all the prejudice and pain you’ve faced, the difficulties you repeatedly mention. I’ve been there too, albeit more mildly, and trying to sort out the symptoms of my various traumas from each other more or less feels like a pointless task.

      However, only since you’ve mentioned nor being a master of unspoken social cues, I kind of feel I should let you know that your pain- relief rant comments have started to feel just a *liiiittle* mass-shooter-y. I’m also ND evidently in different ways and I’ve begun to feel rather uncomfortable with just how much anger you’re expressing time after time on an internet forum.

      If I may offer some emotional & health advice – go to the woods, or get out planting in the garden by yourself, if you can. Nature is incredibly healing and it will never judge you or make you feel unwelcome. (Caveat that even one other human can easily make this not the case, especially if you happen to not be white).

      1. Laura

        I agree. The references to “you humans” in particular— it can feel very absolute. And quite frankly, there are a number of things about online forums that feel unsafe, so it’s really important that we take extra care for each other in those safer spaces that we can try to carve out together.

        I know you enjoy beautiful music — you always have such lovely recommendations. So maybe something musical might help you unwind and self soothe?

      2. Phantom

        I also agree. I pretty much just lurk the comments section (hi) but these comments are really uncomfortable to read over and over again especially with the added aggression. I’m also ND and understand this is a sore spot but this doesn’t feel like an appropriate (or healthy) outlet.

      3. junesky

        Thank you for saying this. I don’t really post but these posts have been making me really uncomfortable as of late.

      4. The Wellerman

        @it’s early, Laura, Phantom, junesky,

        ? Oh, honey, no, I don’t mean it to be an attack on ANYONE, and I am SO SO SORRY if I caused any of you any stress!!!!

        ??? ???

        Maybe I’m just really bad at expressing myself.

        I understand you all mean well by saying some of this stuff, but telling me to calm down like, as if I’m just having a tantrum, that is not really validating or helpful.

        A lot of people here agree that the system is broken.

        More than anything, all I want is to see a world where all can be free express their uniqueness, where we can live in bodies that feel right to us, where we’re free from being punished for being born in the wrong body, the wrong place, the wrong time.

        ???

        Do you not want to see that too?

        I want to see that better world happen, even if it means we become something that can no longer call itself a human, a Homo sapien, even if it means we become something else entirely.

        Advancements in computing technology, in bioengineering, may very well make this possible in the near future. I do believe this is called “the singularity”?

        I know taking the time to calm down is healthy, but like, I feel guilty for the time I don’t spend helping out people somehow, someway l, who would otherwise suffer even more. In this messed up world controlled by horrible bigots, insidious institutions, I don’t want to feel complacent and submissive as though I were livestock.

        Not to mention it reminds me of the parts of my trauma where my objection to my abuse and the abuse of others in all kinds of places was invalidated under the premise that I was just having another “autistic tantrum”.

        If only there were a way I could help this world and escape from it at the same time.

        1. Joyfulldreams

          No one is telling you to calm down and stop talking about it, and we’re not insinuating that you’re having a tantrum. We agree with you about all of those things, but regardless the way you talk about it in this comment section can be very intense and is making people uncomfortable, and they’re asking you to try and refrain from making those sorts of posts in this comment section.

          They’re giving you suggestions of something else you can do other than post in the comment section, because they like you and want you to feel better, but also don’t want to continue to be made to feel uncomfortable.

          Also, please don’t totally dismiss people who try to politely tell you that you’re making them uncomfortable. We understand you’re upset and passionate about this, but going ‘Oh I’m so sorry, I just suck, but actually you even telling me that is triggering and I’m not going to listen.’ is….not nice!

        2. Joyfulldreams

          It occurs to me that you may have just been trying to explain yourself, but I’m just letting you know how this comment comes across as very dismissive.

        3. junesky

          ^ Everything Joyfulldreams just said, yes. That reply felt really dismissive.

          No one said they feel attacked or that you’re having a tantrum Wellerman. You don’t need to be having a tantrum for the level of intensity, oversharing of personal details and negativity/anger in your comments to be uncomfortable.

        4. The Wellerman

          Did you not see the part where I told you I achknowledge you mean well by this stuff!?!?

          Regardless of the result of your effort to help me, at least you tried, and I guess that’s what matters, is what I wanted to express.

          But it looks like at least a few of you missed that, but oh well.

          All my life I have been misunderstood, many times even deliberately.

          Admist insidious ableism out there, toxicity of the majority of the internet, the people who just don’t want to see me, to see US, because we remind them of just how unfair and ugly the world is, the people out there who just won’t listen,

          All I wanted was a way to tell others what Ive been through, to relate my struggle to others on a fundamental longing for justice and fairness, and to have cathartic release all at the same time.

          I’m really sorry if I came across as being dismissive of your attempts to help me feel better, and/or if I caused any of you any stress, I REALLY REALLY DIDNT MEAN ANY OF IT, PROMISE.

          I just don’t want so feel so INVISIBLE.
          I just don’t want to feel so left out.
          I just don’t want to feel so ALONE in my struggle.

          ???

        5. junesky

          It’s completely okay if the advice people have given you doesn’t work for you, Wellerman. But several people have politely said they feel uncomfortable with the constant intensity/anger and that’s what it feels like you’re dismissing.

          The comments section of a webcomic isn’t really an appropriate or healthy place to repeatedly talk about the details of intense personal trauma, especially when replying to other people’s neutral or positive comments. Whilst I don’t personally find your comments triggering, they could be for someone else.

        6. The Wellerman

          I admire your compassion you display here for others, it gives me a little splash of hope, so thank you.

          If it’s any consolation, i don’t intend on making anything THAT cathartic around here.

          I achknowledge it may have triggered a few readers, but at the same time, I know there are a lot of people who are also as pissed of at and understand the truth about the a Kafka-esque system that has permeated human existence for centuries.

          Having expressed my intense frustration, to have others respond, to see at least a few of them who feel just as badly as I do and at the same time just want to ERASE some of the ugliest aspects of human existence, that would make me feel all the better.

        7. Joyfulldreams

          I didn’t say we’re being dismissive of our attempts to help you feel better, I said you were being dismissive of other people’s discomfort. I didn’t miss the part where you acknowledge that we mean well. It’s just that your acknowledgement was then completely undermined by the rest of what you said, and rings hollow.

          An apology that is immediately followed by continuing to do the thing people asked you to try not to do, making excuses for it, and throwing various accusations and guilt-trips at the people who tried to ask you to stop (‘dont you agree with me’, ‘actually you’re triggering me right now by asking me this’) is not actually an apology, and is just dodging around actually discussing the issue at hand, which is other people being uncomfortable.

        8. Joyfulldreams

          *didn’t say YOU WERE blargh

        9. The Wellerman

          Look, I’m REALLY sorry about insinuating all this. ?

          As impenetrable as this place can be sometimes, as impenetrable as most humans and human societies can be, I am still very grateful to have found a place like this in the entire world that comes this close to understanding me, and THANK ALL OF YOU SO SO MUCH for your patience as I work through finding ways to process my trauma, finding ways to face this bitter aspect of myself, my life, in a digestible way, and finding others who I can relate to in my struggle.

          To those who read my comments and were triggered: I’m really really sorry!!!! ???

          If it’s any consolation, in response to this moving forward, I’ll make an effort to make my comments less intense.

        10. Joyfulldreams

          Thanks! Thats all I think anyone was asking for. Appreciate the effort.

          Just please understand that using a public forum like this as a way to process your trauma is bound to make plenty of people uncomfortable, regardless of whether they actually have a trauma trigger response. It’s just going to step on people’s toes and cross a lot of boundaries, because as nice as I’m sure it is, as other people have stated, a webcomic comment section is really not the appropriate place for that sort of thing.

          Wellerman, I highly recommend maybe trying to find other progressive communities on the web where you’ll be able to talk to other like-minded people in settings that are more appropriate for that. (Not on Twitter. Like…Discord or something?)

        11. Rose by Any Other Name

          Late, but I can second Discord as a good option. Found one particularly supportive community there that I greatly value. Not really appropriate for your specific needs, I don’t think, but for mine.

          But yeah, Discord has lots of communities, and many of them are awesome.

        12. The Wellerman

          Thank you Rose ????

          Thank you SO SO much!!!!

          Out of all the humans here, you are one of the few I absolutely ADMIRE the most, between your approachability, your openness and knowlege about sexuality, your incredible skills as a writer. ??? ???

          I actually use Discord all the time, albeit I’ve never joined any communities, I actually have some really good friends there I talk to.

          Also I talk to collaborators for a Dumbing of Age Fan Game I’m making, one that I think you’d REALLY like, one with funny sexy times, also NUDE 3D models,

          Care to drop your Discord handle? ? because I might just wanna meet in your community too!!!!! ?

  3. Nono

    Ooooh, so we’ve swerved from mental issue stigma to white privilege. Well played, Willis.

    1. newlland(Henryvolt)

      That’s two things he’s blind sided us with within in a week, damn.

      1. Doctor_Who

        Yes, this has been a rollercoaster.

      2. SmartAlec105

        Blind sided? Guess we’re gonna go with physical disability next.

  4. Thag Simmons

    I was not expecting angry Dina here

    1. True Survivor

      Nor was I.

    2. RassilonTDavros

      No, but in hindsight I feel like I should have seen it coming.

    3. DailyBrad

      I wasn’t, but it also makes perfect sense. Frankly, Joyce got lucky and met with a doctor who was familiar with autism, truly familiar with it, and thus escaped a lot of the hurdles.

      When I got tested, I was initially told I couldn’t be autistic because “you have a sense of humor”, and that’s without facing racism in it like Dina appears to be dealing with. Way too many doctors are complete neophytes to understanding anything neurodivergent, unfortunately, even if things are getting better on that front over time.

      1. Doctor_Who

        That’s incredibly stupid. Dan Aykroyd is on the spectrum, and he wrote Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and was on SNL for 4 years.

        And that’s just off the top of my head, I’m sure there are other noteworthy examples.

        1. Raen

          Isn’t there supposed to be something about autism and sarcasm, though?

        2. Ladymissfit

          Sort of. Autism can make figuring sarcasm out difficult but that’s cause we often take thibgs literally and don’t catch intended meaning that isn’t. It’s not sarcasm specifically, but any veiled meanings that aren’t told explicitly. Alaso, all autistic people are different so it’s not a sweeping, clear thing.

        3. Switchchris24

          While it is a common trait, one that I myself have, not all Autistic people have that issue, you also don’t need to understand Sarcasm in order to do comedy and be great at it.
          Jim Jefferies is a really good example.

        4. Retrikaethan

          the world is also very sink or swim so even if one regularly doesn’t get it, they can learn to pick up on other indicators like past behaviors or even simply learning a person’s opinions well enough that you know they’re obviously lying (aka being sarcastic).

        5. Needfuldoer

          I think that’s tied in with the whole “nonverbal communication doesn’t come naturally” complex.

          (Of course, that’s also a wide gamut from “can process it manually” to “anything that wouldn’t come across in a court transcription is completely missed”.)

        6. Laura

          The writer of Nanette, Hanna Gadsby.
          Chris Rock.
          So many others.

        7. Wack'd

          autistic people can be and often are funny but dan aykroyd is the exception that proves the rule

      2. Thag Simmons

        Also, the doctor who gave the referral was a Sikh woman, and given that her own daughter is autistic it’s very possible she has first hand-experience with the exact same problem Dina had to deal with

        1. Laura

          Maybe Sikh. Many/most Sikh women will have the surname “Kaur” but diaspora folks of other religions and ethnic groups have also used the surname. I may have overplayed the Sikh angle when I mentioned it earlier.

        2. Thag Simmons

          The frustrating part is that I had a maybe (or a probably, or something) in this comment, and I removed it while I was writing it.

          I blame twitter.

        3. Laura

          All good! I did the same thing, earlier. *Facepalm*

      3. Proxiehunter

        I worked as a special education paraprofessional for a while. I subbed in a classroom specializing in autistic students where the teacher who specialized in working with autistic students did not know black people could be autistic until a couple of black kids were put in her classroom.

        1. Thag Simmons

          fuck

        2. Thag Simmons

          I don’t even know how you get that into your head, like what the fuck

        3. asmodai27

          It’s quite an easy conclusion, really: “I have met hundreds of autistic people, and I have yet to see a single black person with the label, that must mean they cannot be autistic”.
          There is of course a huge bias in that statement, but let’s not forget that in this line of work, people tend to have more faith in the system than the system deserves, and can easily miss prejudices they did not witness firsthand.

        4. Needfuldoer

          …

          What.

        5. Agemegos

          Holy fuck.

      4. Bluesnake463

        Even with Joyce’s luck of getting a good referral, she has still flown completely under the radar for years. It is truly awful that Dina had to fight so hard to get her diagnosis, if she even has one now. But I will say at least she had a family that saw the signs and supported her. Meanwhile, Joyce’s family would have probably fought to keep her from getting a diagnosis and have been pushing her symptoms under the rug for years. I can completely understand Dina’s annoyance, especially after her last interaction with Joyce. But in the grand scheme, I would not particularly call finally having a doctor give you your first referral at 18/19 years old as lucky.

        1. Ed Callahan

          It’s a little intense sometimes but it’s fandom. I guess it doesn’t hurt to have a place where you can obsess with likeminded people.

        2. Ed Callahan

          This was supposed to be a reply to Caro. I love my decaying fine mother skills.

        3. Ed Callahan

          Motor skills. Damn you autocorrect.

        4. Laura

          Mike now loves his decaying fine mother skills.

    4. Amós Batista

      I was.

  5. Sunday

    O_O”

  6. Sirksome

    Dina should try again. You’d be surprised how quickly things change in a few years. Also sometimes I swear a doctor can be a dice roll. Each one has a different opinion and even a second one might not be enough. It took five doctors before I was classified legally blind instead of just low vision.

    1. Nono

      It’s also Indiana, so I’m not overly surprised if a lot of them within accessible reach were similar.

      1. UrsulaDavina

        Is Dina originally from Indiana? IU has out of state students as well.

        1. Nono

          I don’t think it’s ever made too clear. Joyce and Becky definitely are, and most likely Walky, Sal, Jennifer, Dorothy, Danny and Joe. Ruth’s home is also based in Indiana now, since Howard was shown driving back to Carmel. I suspect Amber, Mike and Ethan are also Indiana based since they all came to IU.

          At the same time, I don’t know who would be coming from out of state to study at IU specifically.

        2. Jamie

          There are reasons. One of the reasons that I picked the university I attended was because I had an online relationship with someone living in the area. It wasn’t the main, or even deciding, reason, but it certainly contributed to my choice.

          I actually knew a specific professor at Indiana University who pioneered academia for a field. If I’d been excited enough about his stuff, I would have applied to Bloomington specifically to get into his orbit.

          I’m sure other people have other reasons.

        3. UrsulaDavina

          Indiana University is a good university for specfic subjects I studied at Purdue for Computer Science beacuse it had a better program that I was able to get into then my home state.

        4. Ed Callahan

          IU’s medical program is one of the best in the country. Its music department has an international reputation and its law school isn’t too shabby, either.

    2. Leorale

      Maybe Dina could try to get birth control from Joyce’s doctor, too. -.-

    3. Maxy

      Things can change, but now Dina’s also facing the issue of being an adult woman (theoretically) trying to get diagnosed.

      Adult diagnosis resources are far more sparse and unreliable than those for children.

      1. Leorale

        That’s true too. Psychologists always want to know that you’ve been Autistic since early childhood, and Dina has a long line of psychologists who said that she wasn’t Autistic.

        She’ll need somebody who understands the history of Autism diagnosis (when Dina was a kid, people did not think that quiet girls who could read could possibly be Autistic), and the psychologist needs to be somehow immune to the racism that has denied her a diagnosis so far.

        Maybe Dina can bring all those report cards that talk about how she’s awesome but needs to stop yakking about sweet prehistoric monsters. Those could help.

  7. Doopyboop

    As someone who works with children with autism, I’ve seen this a lot. From both angles too, because one of our kiddos, my supervisor thinks she was “diagnosed” as autistic because she didn’t speak English at the time, because once she learned English while working with us, she had no issues. There are also minority children who have been diagnosed with autism, but also tic certain possibilities for ADHD but… likely haven’t been diagnosed for obvious reasons. Otherwise, the center I work at actually has a diverse group of kids. But I can definitely see Dina and her parents running into this barrier, especially depending on when they went.

  8. Nono

    On an unrelated note, the last few strips have really highlighted how tall Sarah is, huh. I think the only other women on par are Rachel and Carla. Maybe Ruth, but I think she’s shorter.

    1. True Survivor

      Yeah, her head is above the trees. Get it, because of her sweater?

    2. DailyBrad

      Yeah, I forget if Sarah or Carla are taller, but Sarah’s definitely one of the tallest. I think one of the only times she doesn’t look really tall is when she interacts with Joe, Jacob, or Ethan, since yeah, those are probably the tallest three, probably in descending order.

      1. Jeff K!

        Don’t forget to factor in Carla’s roller skates when discussing her height!

    3. Doctor_Who

      Sierra is a frigging amazon.

      And we know that’s all her, because she doesn’t even wear shoes.

  9. Kyrik Michalowski

    Wow, angry Dina is something new, unless I’m forgetting if she was angry in another strip.

    Also, is this white privilege here? Or does it have more to do with the fact that doctors are more likely to diagnose autism, and have failed in both direvtions.

    1. alongcameaspider

      I’d say when the assumption is “you just don’t know english” there’s definitely a racial component going on

    2. MordWa

      I blame the patriarchy.

    3. The Wellerman

      She was angry when Joyce called her “robot girl” remember?

      Also a few IRL years ago at Galasso’s, when Joyce denied evolution in a conversation about dinosaur feathers.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I wonder if Joyce will think robot girl is now their word they can use freely.

        1. The Wellerman

          Personally, I would rather much have HUMANS and their SMOL SMOL ASININE BRAINS automatically lump me in with characters like the GIR, Android 18 and Bender than very offensive stereotypes like Sheldon Cooper and Rain Man.

        2. C.T. Phipps

          I love being a robot. Robots are cool. Data, Isaac, and the Cylon gals.

          Sheldon is just an asshole.

        3. The Wellerman

          *virtual high five*

          Being a robot like Android 18 would be so cool, the power to destroy this world and change it into something better!

        4. Mr D

          Pretty sure 18 can’t recreate the world.
          Tho she did spend an entire timeline destroying earth.

        5. The Wellerman

          Bruh, Android 18 has INFINITE energy. She never gets tired. ANYTHING is possible with that.

        6. Switchchris24

          Android 18 is also Married to the strongest Human, with their powers combined they could do so much…

        7. The Wellerman

          RIGHT?!?!?

          Switchchris24, *virtual high five*

          Pleased to meet you! I’m an Alien Parasite making a Dumbing of Age video game with scientifically accurate dinosaurs because YOLO ?

          No really! I’m making a game! I have collaborators from all over the world too! You wanna join?

        8. ololo-518

          No jokes she was my childhood crush, way before I knew it was a crush, ’cause I didn’t know I was a lesbian.
          Anyway, she’ s so cool

    4. Nono

      She’s been mostly angry re: Joyce and things she learned in homeschool. Or incorrect dinosaur things.

      I think given the wording of the strip, it’s strongly implied it is white privilege. There’s emphasis that Dina was told it was because of her language issues, despite being at least third generation American. And that Joyce got a referral within half an hour for something unrelated.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I mean Dina just hates Joyce for multiple reasons: the science denial, the ignorance, the closer relationship with Becky, the condescension, and probably now a little bit of jealousy regarding the fact Joyce is higher functioning in her social skills.

        1. Leorale

          More social skills, and yet, effortlessly referred for a diagnosis. I can see why Dina would be jealous!

        2. Switchchris24

          She doesn’t hate Joyce, Hate is a very strong emotion that most people will never feel in their lives (at least most decent people), it takes a lot to hate a person. She may Dislike some of Joyce’s more loud personality traits, but she is Becky’s best friend, and is usually quick to correct her misconceptions when she knows them to be false, more so now that she has stopped believing in God, so I don’t think its even close to Hate right now, just annoyed. Even now I think she is more annoyed at the Doctors she had then at Joyce specifically, and is Jealous of how quick Joyce got her referral. She is probably going to tell Joyce that she is Lucky to have gotten the Diagnosis and probably explain to her how its not a bad thing.

        3. Leorale

          Also, if I’d been trying unsuccessfully my whole life to get a thing that would help me, and then somebody else got it effortlessly, and I could plainly see that this person needed it way less than I did, but she got it without even asking due to her white privilege, AND NOT ONLY THAT, but this somebody was upset that they got this helpful thing that I wanted so badly…

          Yeah, it could make me see red for a minute there. No, it’s not Joyce’s fault, but, Dina has got layers of frustration going on here and it’s totally understandable that she might glare in an imperfect direction about it!

        4. Agemegos

          Yeah, but Joyce doesn’t have a diagnosis. She has a referral to see a specialist. Seeing a specialist is something that Dina has got to do several times, and that might still not work out for Joyce.

          For all any of the characters in the strip can tell, Joyce’s referral might yet end up with “Lol, nope! You were the best-socialised in your home-schooling group.” We readers might know that that is not going to happen because of Willis, but as far as the characters can tell Joyce has just caught up to somewhere Dina has been before.

        5. Jamie

          Yeah. Dina is being strongly emotional at the moment, but Joyce is just the catalyst for this particular unhappiness and I expect that Dina recognizes the difference.

          This strip was about Dina expressing the problem. Tomorrow, we’ll hopefully get non-punchline reactions and conversation. Or a smash cut. I give it even odds.

        6. Lee

          I wouldn’t say its fair to say that Dina HATES Joyce. There’s something very unhealthy about hating your partner’s best friend, and Dina has fought with everyone else to defend Joyce. I think she probably just finds her hard to relate to for a lot of reasons, and can find those reasons grating. You can not like but also not dislike a person.

    5. angie

      angry dina is pretty common. she was just angry pretty recently about joyce calling her robot girl, there were a bunch of other times when people have treated her like a kid, I think there were a few times related to science and dinos too

    6. Grimey

      I take it as Dina has had to watch the world sort of be patient with Joyce and her growing pains to better understand the world, while Dina has basically been written off as a weirdo time and time again. Though so has Joyce in certain ways but I can see why this for Dina might be the last straw. That Joyce gets to call her robot girl (my daughter is on the spectrum and I was…Not happy the first time someone called her something akin to this) and then is diagnosed in half an hour. With that diagnosis will come stigma but also help and aid in circumstances. As opposed to Dina who will continue to be written off and never get help or comfort or certain things that might have made life as a POC or child descended from third gen immigrants (also my daughter) a TINY bit easier.

      1. Leorale

        That’s legit. When it’s pointed out, Joyce’s friends say “yeah, that makes sense”, but Joyce still has passing privilege among the neurotypicals. (Joyce makes friends very easily, her speech patterns don’t out her, nobody calls her a robot or a child, etc… it takes a doctor who is intimately familiar with a similar Autistic kiddo to spot that anything atypical is going on with Joyce.)

        Meanwhile, Dina can’t fit in for half a conversation. She doesn’t know that this is probably because Joyce is masking and it’s really hard and draining actually; Dina just knows that she is not successful at masking, everyone knows she’s weird, and always has and always will. And she STILL doesn’t get a diagnosis or help for it. Because of racism.
        …This would just be so maddening.

        1. Jason

          “ She doesn’t know that this is probably because Joyce is masking and it’s really hard and draining actually…”

          Okay. I really needed to read this today. That says a lot about how my capacity for being around people is limited and is- well, exhausting. I’ve known all the pieces but laying them out like this was very helpful for me right now, thank you.

        2. thejeff

          Maybe – at least for the masking and draining thing. I don’t think we’ve seen any real signs of it though. I don’t remember her ever not wanting to be around people or it being tiring for her. She seems to socialize effortlessly and to have some trouble comprehending that others need non-social time.

        3. Joyfulldreams

          I’m of the opinion that in almost all cases (with the exception of certain complex dynamics when it comes to race and colorism), there is no such thing as “passing privilege”. It’s not a privilege to be forced to cut off parts of yourself in order to fly under the radar of a bigoted society so as to reduce the amount of abuse you’re subjected to. It’s not a privilege, it’s just a different kind of oppression.

          Trying to frame any and every instance of ‘your experiences are different from mine’ into a ‘you have x privilege over me’ dynamic is just another way to use the progressive language to pit members of minorities against each other to play the oppression olympics, which is a game that no one wins.

    7. Ladymissfit

      Dina has been annoyed, frustrated and upset but outright pissed off doesn’t happen often.

    8. GeekyWarrior

      The right doctor and potentially 10+ years of progress assuming Dina first met with specialists around 5 or 6

      1. Proxiehunter

        Like I said below it would be very strange for them to not have made a last ditch effort to get a diagnosis right before she started college.

        1. GeekyWarrior

          Yeah, that’s a good point.

          Recalling the moment when Amber was “teaching sympathy via light contact” early on makes me think she still doesn’t have the proper diagnosis 🙁

  10. anon

    well, at least her parents seemed fairly chill/supportive as opposed to “we need to figure out what’s wrong with her to put her on the proper meds” (unless there’s some flashback backstory drama we haven’t seen with dina’s childhood yet)

    1. DailyBrad

      Thankfully, Dina’s parents seem very nice. They’ve been pretty supportive of her from what we’ve seen, but it’s sadly not surprising to find out that her and her parents have been dealing with all of this. I’ve heard it many times before.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I suspect both her parents might be autistic too. It happens.

        1. Needfuldoer

          Their only appearance (aside from a few bonus strips) was almost 10 years ago. It’s possible.

          https://www.dumbingofage.com/2013/comic/book-3/04-just-hangin-out-with-my-family/strength/

  11. BBCC

    Ah, racism, thou art a fucking bongo.

    1. The Wellerman

      It it’s not racism keeping you from a diagnosis that would enrich and help your life, it’s the insidious ableism that TORMENTS you if you do get one.

      No matter how you go about this, you’re punished for failing a test that was designed for you to only FAIL.

      Punishment for the crime of being born into random bodies, random circumstances beyond your control…..

      Isn’t human life just fucking wonderful?

      1. BBCC

        Yeah, ableism is also a fucking bongo. Makes diagnosis – something that SHOULD provide a term to quickly summarize certain traits and provide connection to similar people – into a weapon. Ode to fucking joy there.

      2. Regalli

        You say that as though people won’t be ableist if you’re NOT diagnosed, they just think you’re ‘weird’ or ‘lazy’ or just need to push through that constant pain you’re in. It can’t be that bad.

        *Bitter, bitter laughter in invisibly disabled. Which does afford some benefits that being visibly physically disabled does not in the constant harassment, but by no means rules out the harassment and bullying. You just have less recourse because ‘being weird’ isn’t a protected category anywhere.*

        1. The Wellerman

          Being picked on for being weird is one thing. I KNOW what that feels like in the places where I didn’t disclose of my “autism”.

          In the places where I WAS known to be “autistic”, however, especially in my own family circle, they went out of their way to “scare me straight” by showing me videos of “autistic” people in mental institutions — people without the ability to think, to hear their own thoughts. I was forbidden and scared to do the things I loved, to be myself, under the premise that they were a gateway to mental deterioration, disease, disaster. And being a child with no ability to evaluate or resist what I was told, I believed it, I got fucking nightmares, I was mortally afraid ALL the time, it fucking BROKE ME.

          Being “weird” and bullied for it? Yeah, I get that, it’s really horrible, I know that that’s like.

          But having it associated with mental deterioration? With mental “disorder”? That’s FUCKED.

          But yet again the WHOLE SYSTEM is fucked, for basically everyone born in the wrong body, the wrong place, the wrong time.

          No matter what we do, we seem to be punished one way or another, for failing a test that was designed for us to ONLY fail.

          Calling myself “autistic” again? If only here? And only if others totally respect what I AND I ALONE want it to mean for myself.

          Maybe. Maybe in the future.

          But calling myself a human? What with members of the species punishing, tormenting, teasing each other for the random, uncontrollable circumstances of your birth?

          The Singularity? Merger with machines? If it means I have to stop dealing with this crap, this UGLINESS that seems to be an intrinsic order to human life, sign me the fuck up.

          TL;DR, I’m a living thing who has had an am having a VERY rough time. I will do say or think whatever gets ALL THIS PAIN to stop for me, for everyone, all these innocent people.

        2. temperaryobsessor

          I’m sorry about your family, it sounds like the worst circle to be out to and you didn’t have a choice.

        3. Masumi

          So sorry you had to go though that.
          I hope you find some humans who treat you well. Who see you for who you are and like you *because* of it.
          I’ve been that lucky a handful of times, it really helped me heal… Or maybe just it’s something that happens eventually, if you keep your ears up?
          Anyway, all my gratitude to the kind people out there, it makes a lot more of a difference than you might be aware of :3

  12. newlland(Henryvolt)

    Well fuck Joyce if you give yourself 5 minutes maybe you can come up with something…give me some time too because I don’t have anything either.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      Dina really hates Joyce and even something they could bond over just divides them further.

      1. newlland(Henryvolt)

        Yeah though in all fairness it’s not like Joyce would even deny or downplay how messed up that is which is the worse thing she could do unless there is something worse she could do that I’m not aware of.

      2. Nova

        I mean… her anger about this isn’t directed at dividing anything. She experienced some pretty terrible racism from people who should have helped her, and her anger is JUSTIFIED as hell.

        It literally isn’t about her feelings re: Joyce.

        1. Lucky Winner

          If I were in Dina’s shoes, I’d do the rant while looking angry at my hand (hand held in angry posture), then look up at Joyce while still looking angry for the final phrase. And the final phrase would be “but for you, they only needed half an hour“. Because it’s “they” I’d be angry at not “you”.

          But instead Dina looked in Joyce’s eyes the whole time and said “but all you needed …” I think Dina’s wrong to be angry at Joyce here (and very justified to be angry at the doctors), but I have to admit it is drawn and phrased like she is indeed angry at Joyce.

        2. The Wellerman

          Towards Joyce, it’s not really “anger” I’m reading here.

          More like frustration, because surprise surprise, Joyce’s ultra-conservative upbringing means she’s ignorant of the systematic racism that stopped Dina from getting something she desired to help her in school, maybe with life in general.

          I understand Dina’s frustration myself — when I talk about the systematic bigotry that ruined my life on the other end of the double-edged sword, where the label is that which caused my life being ruined, it just feels like I’m so fucking INVISIBLE, because others lack the experience or imagination to absorb what they’re being told.

        3. Jamie

          Yes, but Dina hasn’t been taught how to do that. She’s been taught to make eye contact with the person she’s speaking to.

        4. The Wellerman

          Taught? Huh?

          *sigh*

        5. deathjavu

          She and Amber had a conversation about making eye contact while talking, a long time ago.

        6. eh, whatever

          What is “hand held in angry posture”? A fist?

        7. Lucky Winner

          No, open but tense fingers, more like clenching a sword. Superheroes saying “I have the power!” do it, whether clenching a sword or not. No name for it comes to mind.

          I don’t know whether what I’d do in her shoes is typical. But thinking through what I’d do and comparing it to what I observe other people do is a useful exercise for me. Sometimes it tells me better what they’re thinking, sometimes it tells me how I could accomplish X more intelligibly. But it requires, like, directed thought, which is expensive, so I don’t do it often.

      3. Ladymissfit

        I don’t know where this comes from. Dina has very clearly considered joyce a friend. An occasionally frustrating friend but a friend nonetheless for most of the comic. Someone whose quirks can be tolerated. It’s only with the now recent “robot” remark thst she seems to rethink theor relationship.

        1. Tunasammich

          Yeah I never really got the impression she hated her either :S

  13. Segnosaur

    So much for the chance Joyce and Dina might bond over their shared medical condition.

    1. Sirksome

      They can still bond. The situation is unfair and Dina is valid in her anger but it would be a little fucked up for Dina to blame Joyce specifically. Racism is something we all deal with even if you happened to be born on the winning side of it.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I mean, it’s fine if Dina and Joyce just never get along and never will.

        Sometimes there’s people you just irrationally hate.

        1. Nono

          They did get along once, at least superficially, when Joyce was trying to be cool.

          Honestly I’m guessing them spending more time together because of Becky is causing more conflicts than normal because their conflicting ideals are bound to collide more often.

        2. Fay

          The funny thing is, they don’t even really have conflicting ideals anymore. I think it’s mostly their preconceived notions of each other and the way they’ve treated each other in that past that makes them so confrontational with each other.

        3. Sirksome

          Well they dislike each other for more reasons than just this if we’re speaking in general. Hating Joyce for her white privilege specifically though seems pretty out of character for Dina.

        4. C.T. Phipps

          I dunno, Dina finding how everyone (from her perspective) coddles Joyce emotionally and physically could burn Dina’s feathers.

        5. Sirksome

          I don’t see it. That feels kind of petty. I do think some of the irritation is irrational on both ends though. But I think most of it is because Joyce and Dina are actually very similar. They serve as reflections of each other with opposite ideologies (well formerly opposite a lot of it is just bad blood now) For example much like Dina’s near encyclopedic knowledge of dinosaurs, Joyce has a similarly compatible acute knowledge of fundamentalist Christian dogma and often weaponized it against Dina even now if unintentionally. It can be annoying to see your own traits used against you even if you don’t fully realize that’s what’s happening. Society doing Joyce favors is just icing compared to nuanced and well crafted dynamic they already have.

        6. Cerusee

          That is a good point—the parallels—and something to think about!

        7. JBento

          Considering the recent storylines, saying that Joyce is being “coddled emotionally” is a stretch worthy of Mr. Fantastic.

        8. Taffy

          If “emotional coddling” looks like this, image when Joyce really starts to get her ass kicked. Eesh.

    2. newlland(Henryvolt)

      Right out the window.

    3. Thag Simmons

      It really depends on whether Joyce is able to de-escalate this, since Dina’s not really angry at her

      Knowing Joyce and her history with Dina, I’m not hopeful.

    4. Wraithy2773

      Why? Dina’s pissed off about how she’s been treated. She’s a smart girl, she understands that Joyce herself had nothing to do with it, she’s just venting a little.

      Dina’s entirely capable of calming down and letting it go, or at least recognizing that she has no reason to hold this against Joyce.

      1. Cerusee

        She’s directing it AT JOYCE when Joyce is already visibly distressed.

        Dina’s experiences here must be unbelievably frustrating, to say the least, but not one iota of them is Joyce’s fault.

        1. Wraithy2773

          Yeah, people who are pissed don’t often aim their anger at the correct targets in the moment.

          Le gasp.

        2. GeekyWarrior

          What’s next?! 19 year olds don’t make rational decisions?!

          That’s one thing I’ve always loved about DoA. A lot of the conflicts and dialogue really seem to fit College Students.

        3. Cerusee

          You know, I have zero—absolutely zero—problem with people chalking up characters making ill-considered choices, or being ignorant, or saying stupid or mean shit, to them being the dumb kids this comic was named for.

          I would just for fucking once like to see people do it *consistently* instead of picking and choosing what’s an acceptable mistake/behavior/choice from this crop of 18-year-old fictional characters based on who’s the current favorite. Situational ethics is a bad look!

  14. C.T. Phipps

    Joyce: That sucks.

    Dina: *glare*

    Joyce: Is something wrong? Is this an autistic thing? DO WE HAVE TELEPATHY?

    But also, Joyce got EXTREMELY LUCKY as a woman to get a female doctor who was able to recognize the signs due to her own relationship. In most cases, Joyce never would have been diagnosed and hasn’t been in 18 years.

    1. Nono

      The best out Joyce could give right now is to suggest Dina go to the same doctor.

      1. DailyBrad

        Yeah, that’s an option, potentially, but I guess we also don’t know yet if the doctor Joyce is getting referred to is necessarily going to handle it right. I’d hope so, but yeah. We’ll see.

      2. Miri

        Fingers crossed! But Joyce is still reeling from “autistic?!” to have even started to consider the ways that a diagnosis could help/could have previously helped her… Not sure she’s going to manage to say something more helpful than “that’s completely horrible and your experiences were messed up and awful” – and this being Joyce she could well ask Dina why she wanted to have a diagnosis instead and miss addressing that point…

        1. thejeff

          Yeah, while I certainly see why Dina’s angry about this, it is a lot to throw at Joyce right after she got hit with this out of the blue. She doesn’t even get a few hours to process that she might be autistic first.

    2. Illjwamh

      Please. As if her parents (read: her mother) would ever accept or even entertain such a suggestion, let alone full diagnosis.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        To be fair, it never got that far clearly.

      2. thejeff

        the other aspect of that is that it might have been bad for her in that culture if she had been diagnosed young

        1. JBento

          Cue exorcism.

    3. Jason

      I can’t comment on what her experience would be now- at this point she’s… nearly twenty years younger than me which means it’s POSSIBLE that things could be twenty years better in recognising and diagnosing autism in girls compared to when I flew under the radar as an autistic “girl”. I’d like to think so (although I’m aware that- well, we see Dina’s reaction here, so…)

      But.
      Joyce did not live in society at large. She lived in a tightly controlled group that was much, MUCH less likely to be accepting of such conditions- look at Joyce’s learned immediate reaction to having the idea of treatment for horrible period side effects. I cannot imagine the society she lived in having anyone who was vaguely aware of what autism REALLY is. I can’t imagine it ever even being mentioned as an option to her parents.
      I could be wrong there. But I don’t think pointing out that Joyce hasn’t been diagnosed in 18 years is the same as saying she generally is extremely unlikely to be without having stumbled upon the right doctor. The two things may be accurate but given her upbringing I don’t think they’re entirely related, is my point.

      I hope that made sense, it’s morning and I’m tired.

      1. GeekyWarrior

        I think I agree with you if I’m parsing right. My perspective is that Joyce in her childhood years didn’t show any of the symptoms that would give anyone a pause to even consider going to a doctor let alone something was up.

        * Joyce doesn’t appear to have any issues with language, speaking, or handwriting.
        * Joyce doesn’t appear to have big issues with social cues, I don’t recall any time when she had issues recognizing someone else’s emotions. (Joyce noticed when Billie was depressed, Joyce realized Sal opened up to her when Joyce crossed the line about the hand wound. Joyce realized Becky was sad at 6 flags when ToeDad said no about the toy and tried to cheer Becky up by going on the coasters. Joyce recognized when her parents were rude to the Keeners)

        The symptoms of ASD she did show were just accepted
        * Joyce is a picky eater, just youngest sibling things.
        * Joyce is possessive of her stuff, again youngest sibling things
        * Joyce oversteps boundaries, but seeing as Becky does as well, this behavior was more or less accepted and/or encouraged by her group (waking people up to share the gift of life with them, story time to share your testimony for the lord (paraphrasing those moments as I don’t’ feel like searching for the exact quote.)).
        * Joyce is really passionate about stuff to the point of obsession. But seeing as her passion was for the bible and faith, then this was hugely accepted.

        Disclaimer, I am in no way, shape, or form a medical professional and was just reading this page for symptoms https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/autism/signs.html

        1. Jason

          Late reply, but-
          Your first point- I didn’t either, at 18. At least not that I hadn’t learned a level of masking.
          Your second point- it’s actually much more complex than is often thought. Difficulty with boundaries can be part of social issues. She seems to have a reasonable grasp of fitting in socially, to a certain extent- but definitely to a level that can be learned. Again- within my own experiences (I think, I don’t know how other people experiences me at that time). Also understanding specific circumstances can be learned for some autistic folk, although how well they understand the nuances varies enormously.
          Other things that can be learned to be masked but can be autistic experiences involve (in not particular order) sensory over OR under stimulation, needing to avoid certain situations, difficulties with their own routine or aspects of their day is disrupted (which can be variable), um… that’s what’s coming immediately to mind. Over or under stimulation we haven’t really seen; avoiding situations we have (but which also made sense for a teenager dealing with parental issues), difficulties with routine… I’m not sure?

          My point is that autism is massively varied, for one thing; and we’ve mostly only seen present day Joyce for another. We really can’t know how much a person would have had to have known about autism to see it in her as a child.

          It’s now the other end of the day so I’m rambling and unsure if I’m making sense again AND I’ve lost track of any points I was making, but it’s a topic I’m very switched on to so… uh, so I’m replying I guess?

  15. Reltzik

    Intersectionality ahoy.

    1. Lady Duffman

      Joyce is fixing to get a crash course in it…

  16. Lui Bom Voiaje

    I love Dina. Her character on the previous work was okay but dumbing of age is just 1000 out 10 no further comment

  17. Bryy

    oh shit.

    I was not expecting it to go this way.

    Also: Dina’s parents are awful.

    1. DailyBrad

      Dina’s parents are great, they were also being subjected to racism, they were not denying Dina’s experience or reality.

    2. Andy

      Dina’s parents always struck me as pretty accepting and decent people. I don’t see what they did wrong here. It’s the doctors who kept pulling the ESL bullshit.

    3. Aus

      Wait, they are? It sounds like they believed her and took her repeatedly to psychologists trying to get a positive diagnosis.

    4. Illjwamh

      How are they awful for trying to get their daughter a diagnosis that would allow her to access help and support she needs (or could make her life easier, at the very least)?

    5. Nono

      Uhh, where are you getting anything bad about Dina’s parents? They took her to many psychologists, and I’m assuming using up a lot of money in the process, to try to get her diagnosed properly, only to be kept being told that it was a language barrier, despite all of them being born in the States.

      These are the same parents that immediately sent her 200 dollars for Dina to take Becky out somewhere nice as soon as she told them that she had a girlfriend.

    6. Thag Simmons

      What did Ryou and Haruka do? By all accounts they’re nice and supportive people. Little too nice, sometimes, but easily some of the best parents in the comic

    7. Dawn T

      Dina’s parents are some of the nicest parents in the comic, what are you even talking about???

    8. Suitora

      Dina’s parents are Japanese. They (or Dina) have probably noticed something has been off for years, but when they have tried to get her diagnosed, they think her speech patterns are because she’s Japanese. Diagnoses are important so that autistic people can get resources. Without resources, many autistic people can flounder in school, work, and general life circumstances.

      Also, stereotypes about Asian people most likely go into it. Dina is very much in line with what society thinks of Asian people. Smart, cerebral, highly introverted… So much so they dismiss that she would potentially need help.

      1. JBento

        Dina’s parents are AMERICAN with Japanese ancestry, not Japanese. Just like her.

    9. KM

      I can only imagine you wildly misinterpreted “and so were my parents” to arrive at this conclusion.

    10. Clif

      What?

    11. Taffy

      Ya wanna explain that last bit even a little bit, like the tiniest amount at all?

    12. Keulen

      From what little we’ve seen and heard about them so far, I’d say Dina’s parents are some of the best parents in DoA.

      1. Proxiehunter

        It’s a low bar but they clear it by miles.

  18. DailyBrad

    You know…

    I was thinking, Dina could potentially also get a referral here, and I thought, well, Dina can’t just book an appointment with a gyno without cause, so that’s not a full solution.

    But…

    Dina IS sexually active now, so that could be such an occasion (read: excuse) to see her. Does also mean Joyce likely finds out, so maybe that’s how it happens.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I believe Joyce went to a general practitioner, so actually Dina wouldn’t need to go have an excuse for seeing an OBGYN.

    2. V

      Any woman can make a gyno appointment, you don’t need a special reason for an annual exam. In any case, that might’ve been a general practitioner, they can prescribe birth control as well.

      1. DailyBrad

        That’s true, I just don’t want Dina getting brushed off if it was seen as ulterior motives, but if it’s a GP, then yeah, maybe it’ll be less of a hassle.

    3. thejeff

      She might not get the same doctor.

      And that still only gets her a referral to a specialist, where she might well face the same problems. Or Joyce could face similar ones – apparently there’s resistance against diagnosing adult women as well.

  19. Lady Duffman

    Even when Joyce has it rough, she has it better than most of the cast…

  20. Masumi

    … not the reaction I saw coming.
    Maybe campus doc can help Dina out with that? Since she probably knows a good psychologist (who her daughter might be going to).

    Unrelated, just felt like sharing for no reason:
    You guys have been mentioning hyperfocus a bunch the last few days, so I got curious and started reading up on it. Found an interesting review that makes a point that the thing clinical psychologists call hyperfocus and treat as a symptom is in no way different from what positive psychology calls flow and treats as a desirable state.
    Kind of surprised me.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      I dunno, the problem might be Dina expects Joyce got better treatment and she might get the same racism.

    2. Leorale

      What I define as my hyperfocus =/= what I define as my flow state.

      – Hyperfocus can be a laser focus on minutia. There is no forest, only trees. Flow is much more malleable. I might be very effective at seeing a bigger picture while in a flow state.

      – Hyperfocus often includes deafening me. Like, I hyperfocus when reading, so you can call my name nearby and I will not hear you. (Sometimes you have to actually cover the page to get me to hear you, which annoys me, but it breaks the hyperfocus.)

      …But yes, they do have similarities, and both can be very fun!
      I can see why these states are desirable. If I didn’t need to eat and sleep and take care of other responsibilities, it could be fun to hyperfocus a lot of the time.

      (ADHD-inattentive: I have a whole lot of attention, and very little control over where it goes.)

      1. Regalli

        Yeah, my understanding is flow does not necessarily extend to forgetting to eat, or go to the bathroom? (Or knowing you should do one of those things vaguely but feeling barely any urgency to do so, if any at all, for hours.)

      2. Masumi

        That’s very interesting, thanks! I do notice often that I miss the big picture while I’m working on something, and the penny doesn’t drop until way later when I’m doing completely unrelated stuff (like, wait a moment, that thing was the important one!). Figured that was normal, like shower thoughts and stuff.

        I totally need reminders to drink water because otherwise I end up completely dehydrated with a massive headache, so there’s that XD

      3. autogatos

        “I have a whole lot of attention, and very little control over where it goes.” is a really perfect way to describe it. Oof.

    3. Clif

      Hyperfocus can be an aid to entering a flow state and being in a flow state may or may not lead to hyperfocus, particularly in those of us prone to hyperfocus, but the two are recognizably different. I can recognize I’m in a flow state and also when something is threatening to interupt that. When I hyperfocus I’m not aware of anything that I’m not focused on. The rest of the world doesn’t exist. Leaving a flow state always annoys me. Coming out of hyperfocus is always a shock, but unless combined with a flow state, not annoying.

      1. Masumi

        Interesting! I’ve never observed my own states closely enough to figure out which is which, I think. Then again, my brain has the unfortunate habit of running out of energy after a couple hours and dissolving into a cloud of fog before anything disrupts me… Hmmm.

      2. autogatos

        I’m curious, have you found this is something you had to learn, or have you always noticed a difference?

        JUST started treatment for ADHD and I could not tell you what the difference between hyper focus vs. a flow state would be for me, so I’m wondering if I have ever actually experienced the latter and how I achieve it to improve my creative work vs. just relying on the latter to self-destructively torpedo my way through tasks at the last minute or when I just HAPPEN to be interested enough in them.

        1. autogatos

          This was directed art Clif btw (or anyone else who can answer!) ^

        2. Clif

          Sorry that I didn’t get back on, so this is Clif from the next day. Subjectively, for me, a flow state is getting into the groove of a process, things within the scope of that process become easier and things outside that scope become unimportant. When I’m in a flow state I can get a ton of stuff done, but if it’s interrupted, it’s very hard to get back to where I was, and occasionally I can’t even pick back up normally because I can’t even understand what I was doing. It generally takes a lot of practice at doing something before there’s any possibility of getting into the flow.

          I’m no expert, but I think a lot of experienced video gamers, musicians and writers will sometimes enter this kind of state.

    4. Opus the Poet

      It’s not like a symptom can’t be a positive thing. About the only thing “they” could agree on was that whatever it was I was smart, not just everyday bright, but hypersmart, reading at 2nd grade level in kindergarten, taught myself to read and write before I ever even saw a school. I had a verbal level at pre-school Sheldon Cooper could only dream of, reading Reader’s Digest Condensed Books because my parents didn’t think to keep little kids books because I was “too young to be reading”. The only reason I say I was at 2nd grade in K was they didn’t test any higher than that, and I didn’t have the fine muscle control to write very well. Still don’t almost 60 years later.

  21. Pocky

    Women get it rough with doctor’s as it is; at in being a woman of color, and doctor’s I’ve seen completely write off so many things.

    “You’re in pain? I don’t think we need to look into that.”
    “You’ve been having issues losing weight? Just get exercise”
    “Anxiety? Just stop worrying about it!”

    1. Savail

      “You’re having headaches and losing periods of time? Clearly just migraines and stress since you’re a college student with long-running diagnoses of AD/HD, OCD and depression. Here, have some medication you might be allergic to because I’m too lazy to actually check the allergies in your file.”

      Switched to a woman neurologist about 45 minutes away in a bigger city. They couldn’t find anything wrong with a weeklong hospital stay, but she LISTENED to me, even if she probably suspected stress and migraines, too. I had a professor willing to contact the doctor and explain that it looked like I was having absence seizures in his class (his son had them, so he was familiar). Ended up on a different medication for migraines, BUT this one I wasn’t allergic to AND it also had some side benefits for those “seizures.” As a precaution, I was also told to take B12 supplements because the medication messed with birth control and because it might help too with the other stuff and because the levels–while normal–were on the low side.

      As it turns out, that “technically normal” level was causing those absence spells and the excruciating headaches, along with premature greying and making me extra sleepy all the time. It was a long road to get that correct, including medications that it turns out I didn’t need, but just the difference between this woman and the male was night and day. She listened to me AND the people in my life telling her there was something more going on, even if she probably didn’t quite believe it herself.

      1. Masumi

        There should be a database or something with common nutrient deficiencies and associated symptoms. I have heard stories like yours quite a few times, and somehow it’s not what doctors look into first… I was blown away when I realised most of my depressive episodes can be treated by eating liver :V (probably because of B6)

        1. Taffy

          Liver, you say? Might have to try that.

        2. StClair

          I’d rather stay depressed. :p
          (but I’ll look into the vitamins.)

        3. JBento

          Fried liver is absolutely great and one of my favouritest foods.

        4. Taffy

          I’ve heard it’s great with some nice fried onions, as well. If there’s one way to tempt me I to trying a food, it’s to add some fried onions.

        5. JBento

          I love onions, and it’s extremely weird that I do not, in fact, enjoy them when cooked with liver (because the sauce gets them all soggy and changes their flavour; same with potatoes). Here’s a Portuguese recipe for liver with onions that you can throw into your translator of choice, and then change the spicing to taste:

          https://www.teleculinaria.pt/receitas/carnes/iscas-de-cebolada/

        6. Taffy

          Now that’s the sorta link I’m liable to follow. I’ll be sure to investigate this very important matter at the earliest convenience, thanks you.

        7. The Wellerman

          Have you ever tried cooking them with baking soda? It really brings out their sweet and savory, real tasty ?

  22. Cmasta1992

    Oh piss off Dina this is not Joyce’s fault. She didn’t ask for that.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      She also just lucked out by meeting someone with an autistic child.

      1. Cmasta1992

        Right. Joyce didn’t look for this. It happened and Dina chooses to insert herself into a conversation that she was not a part of to dump on someone going through a panic. I don’t care what Dina had deal with in the past, that is fucking rude

        1. snags

          LOL, yeah. What a time to walk over to someone and say something adjacent to “I don’t like that you’re getting resources”. Writing this off as “Dina’s just venting about our shitty racist healthcare system, don’t worry about it, don’t tone-police her frustration” is gonna be the take from this comments section that really gets my goat.

        2. Clif

          Someone has dealt with years of frustration and then seen access to the resources they’ve needed apparently just handed to someone with no effort required and the fact that they’re annoyed by that really gets your goat? My first reaction is “What the hell is wrong with you?” and the second is “What are you possibly reacting to here that I’m not getting? “

        3. snags

          Clif, I am merely reacting to the fact that Dina is glaring daggers at Joyce while she says all of this. Though I’ll admit that “what the hell is wrong with (you)” is an excellent question; I have only the foggiest idea, thanks to facing similar systemic hurdles in regards to getting my brain checked out. I simply do not walk up to other people and angrily vent my shit to them as they’re confiding in their friends. Hope that clarifies things.

        4. Agemegos

          But Joyce doesn’t (yet) have any access to resources that Dina was denied. Joyce has a referral to consult a specialist about a possible diagnosis, and consulting a specialist is something that Dina has already got to do several times.

          Dina’s consults were useless and frustrating. But Joyce’s might yet be not better. There will be time to make Joyce answer for white privilege if she ever gets diagnosed with ease.

        5. eh, whatever

          and say something adjacent to “I don’t like that you’re getting resources”.

          You are way overinterpreting what Dina is saying.

          That happens to people on the autism spectrum a lot, BTW.

        6. snags

          Bold of you to assume I don’t understand that last bit all-too-well already, Eh Whatever.

          I’ll concede that I probably jumped the gun or read too far into a single statement when there’s several more strips to go w/r/t this conversation, though. “Character 1 glares at Character 2 while going ‘it’s unfair that you got something when I get nothing” is a helluva starting point for a coversation; intrigued to see where it goes from here.

        7. Rogue 7

          I understand why Dina’s reacting like this, and it doesn’t diminish my opinion of her (to be frank, I personally don’t engage with Dina as a character very much, positively or negatively.), but I don’t think it’s the time or place to have Joyce address the issue of racism in the American healthcare system when she’s neither done or said anything untoward recently.

        8. GeekyWarrior

          It’s certainly rude! But it’s certainly in character for Dina to miss this social cue, especially for something that is sensitive to her.

          Dina is in control of her emotions unless you cross a line with her. The line can be in unexpected places, ie Dinosaur facts, but it still happens.

          I agree she is being very unfair to Joyce. I’m really hoping Dorothy or Sarah pull her aside and just go “yo chill, not the time to blow up at Joyce”, but probably won’t happen.

        9. Agemegos

          No, of course it won’t happen. What is most likely to happen is that they decide that Joyce is to autistic to have been in the right when they treated her badly. “Condescending compassion”, as someone described it further up the page.

        10. Agemegos

          For “to autistic” read “too autistic”, and curse the lack of an edit feature.

    2. alongcameaspider

      I dont think Dina is upset with Joyce specifically, rather she’s upset at the unfairness of the situation

      1. Wraithy2773

        This, Dina’s angry and venting, but she’s almost certainly not going to place any blame on Joyce for that.

    3. Nova

      “How dare you be angry that Joyce lucked into something you’ve been desperately chasing to get access to the help you need.”

      “How dare you be angry that the likely reason for that is racism and xenophobia.”

      “Piss off, woman-of-colour who is upset about a white woman being immediately taken seriously where you have been brushed off.”

      Dina didn’t ask to be treated that way either. Her anger is justified. Stop tone policing BIPOC and maybe listen instead.

      1. C.T. Phipps

        I’m actually pointing out how incredibly lucky Joyce was since an autistic diagnosis for a woman is almost impossible as is.

        1. Agemegos

          Joyce doesn’t have a diagnosis. At least not yet.

        2. Nova

          I was replying to Cmasta1992, not you. The comment chains are messy so I think it might just look like it was a reply to you.

      2. Cmasta1992

        You are literally yelling at a black person. Check yourself.

        You don’t get to be shitty to someone else who had nothing to do with the shitty thing that happened to you.

        1. BBCC

          No, but you can definitely get angry about people being advantaged by structural issues that marginalize you.

          For example, it might not be the fault of an individual man that many of them don’t have to specifically think of ways to defend themselves from being sexually assaulted by strangers just because they’re out after dark, but when I hear like a dozen guys be like ‘Oh, huh, never thought about that’, YEAH, my eye twitches in their direction.

          Similarly, it’s not Joyce’s fault that she had an easier time getting a diagnosis because she’s white, but the fact is she did and I’m not gonna fault Dina if she is annoyed at her about her benefitting from being white.

        2. Jamie

          I don’t think explaining to someone else their privilege qualifies as “being shitty”.

        3. Thag Simmons

          There are so many ways to explain to someone else their privilege in a way that would qualify as “being shitty”.

        4. Azhrei Vep

          They are not literally yelling at anybody or anything, black, person, or otherwise. They have posted plain text with no indicators of any emotion or significant intensity. Check yourself.

        5. Rabbit

          Nobody is yelling?

        6. Nova

          And now you’re tone policing me as well. I am a native woman who is neurodivergent, so I have a particular reason to have pointed out what you were doing.

          I wasn’t yelling, I was disagreeing with you and suggesting that you not tell BIPOC women how and when to be angry. As a black man, why aren’t you standing up for us instead of telling us to sit down when a white lady gets vented at?

          I checked myself and it turns out I’m fine, but thanks.

      3. Insufficient Data

        It’s kind of weird to use BIPOC when you are talking specifically about someone who js neither Black or Indigenous.

        1. Taffy

          Oh, is that what the “BI” part is? That makes more sense than what I’d been thinking, which was “bisexual”.

        2. powerpowerpow

          Yeah I think BIPOC is a very US-centric term, where black and indigenous people are highlighted since they have arguably the longest history of being exploited, mistreated and/or discriminated against based on their ethnicity. I think there are more Hispanic and Asian people in the US than Indigenous folks though, at least after some quick googling.

          It’s like how the UK uses BAME, or Black, (generally South) Asian, Minority Ethnic, since we were the folks that the Empire exploited the most ?

        3. Taffy

          The only word I take issue with here is “arguably”. Those long-dead fuckers’ Step 1, the second they got off the boat, was to start murdering and enslaving as many natives as possible. And then that wasn’t enough for ’em, so they imported black people to boost their numbers. That’s just history, unless I’m missing some vital nuance.

        4. powerpowerpow

          Oh, sorry. I just said “arguably” cause I’m not American, and maybe there was some systemic exploitation of folk from another ethnicity I was unaware of. You’re 100% right.

        5. Opus the Poet

          But Asians are part of POC. Anyone who is not specifically WAS(p) falls into POC. Not trying to be pedantic, it’s just part of who I am.

        6. khn0

          are italian-american POC? They’re not anglo-saxon…

          Also I never got why “white” before “anglo-saxon”
          Both anglo and saxon are some kind of aggregation of people that don’t exist anymore as an homogenic ensemble, so it refers to a concept of anlo+saxon where white skin is implied. It’d work better to skip the anglo-saxon part, toi focus on the white christian, or white protestant if you want to remember of the conditions of the indentured irish people – while it should be checked if something like this didn’t existed with protestant parts of the population (like italian had in some countries the clergy negociating the cost of the travel to several countries where workforce was needed, cost that was sometimes directly needed to be reimursed, or that sometimes was included the paternalist capitalistic system of housing/economat-commissaries where you’ll always fall in debt).

        7. BBCC

          Not in the US they’re not. Other areas have different understandings of the term ‘white’ that are based on all sorts of racial and ethnocentric understandings.

          The Anglo-Saxon part is included because they comprised the majority of the American elite at pre-1945.

        8. JBento

          “Not in the US they’re not” TODAY. You don’t have to go that far back to find a time in the US where Italians and, e.g., the Irish weren’t white in the US (or, at least, not white enough).

        9. BBCC

          Well, yeah, but I’m assuming they were talking about today. 😛

          But hey, a lot of those ‘formerly not white’ groups managed it by assimilating, intermarrying and throwing BIPOC under the bus like it was their frigging day job.

        10. khn0

          Maybe then POC isn’t the right term for all, and racialized might work better?

        11. Nova

          Fair. I automatically use BIPOC as an indigenous person (because it does include all POC), but I would have been more correct in saying “Asian-American” specifically to center Dina.

      4. snags

        El-oh-el! I’m one of those asian people that’s been brushed off by my own share of psych folks because “oh, asian girl quiet”. Thanks for assuming, though!
        I know that anger well, and just think it’s weird and useless to point it at other people when they’re not the doctors holding metaphorical fingers in their ears. Though I’ll concede that I might’ve jumped the gun, but, hey, so did you.

    4. powerpowerpow

      Oh boy. Okay. So here’s my take:

      Dina is absolutely justified with her anger at the intersectionality of institutional racism and ableism that kept her from receiving the help she truly needed. That much is obvious.

      But simply based off of the framing of this strip, the past history between these two characters, and and the fact that Dina is staring daggers at Joyce while she stares all this, we can clearly see that her anger is directed, at least at some level, towards Joyce.

      I don’t think that’s completely justified. Dina’s faced a lot of discrimination from the cast, but I think the worst if it has been from Joyce. She’s infantilized her, called her “robot girl,” and not to mention has been the reason for many of Becky’s problems over the past few days. And now, Dina finds out, Joyce may also have autism? And lucked out into getting a referral within 30 minutes? Something that you’ve needed your whole life but systemic bigotry has denied you?

      All this taken inti context, you can see why Dina is directing her anger at Joyce. Whether or not Joyce is deserving of it all, whether or not she has the right to blame the injustices she’s faced in Joyce. I can see where Dina’s anger is coming from. I obviously don’t think this is what she should be doing, but it’s what I expect the character to do here.

      1. powerpowerpow

        I don’t think that’s completely *UNjustified.

        Don’t you just hate it when you missed two letters and it changes the meaning of an entire sentence?

      2. Cerusee

        How on earth is Joyce the cause of Becky’s sexual hangups?

        Joyce is not responsible for Becky’s abusive upbringing, any more than she’s responsible for her OWN abusive upbringing. Between the two of them, Joyce is the one who’s working HARDER to reject the cultish dogma and harm caused by the adults in their lives, and whose official stance on pre-marital sex is, at this point, “God isn’t real and you, Becky, should have sex with your girlfriend Dina if you want to.” The fact that Becky has chosen to fixate on Joyce and make her the symbol of her own ambivalence about sex is irrational and unfair. If Dina were a little older and wiser, and less pre-disposed to dislike Joyce and assume the worst about her, based on their history (not to mention her awareness that Becky has been in love with Joyce for much of her life, and probably still is) she might recognize what Becky is doing and call her on it, instead of enabling it. (But again…it’s called Dumbing of Age for a reason!)

        Dina has some legit gripes with Joyce, but that doesn’t mean every unkind thought she has about Joyce is accurate, or that she’s blameless in every negative interaction that they’ve had or may have in the future. That’s only how grudges work in your OWN mind, not in objective reality.

      3. JBento

        “has been the reason for many of Becky’s problems over the past few days.”

        lol, wut? Joyce has done pretty much nothing other than bending over backwards and sacrifice her well-being and sense of self for Becky over and over again since the comic started. Joyce has forever been the SOLUTION to Becky’s problems, not the cause of them.

        1. alongcameaspider

          But Joyce made Becky sad by talking shit about Christians, which we still don’t know if Dina even knows about, therefore any anger at Joyce for whatever reason is justified apparently

        2. powerpowerpow

          First off, I phrased it very badly when I said the “source of Becky’s problems.” I was referring to the argument between Becky and Joyce. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that Dina is aware that they had a fight. And that, among other reasons, may be contributing to Dina’s feelings towards Joyce. A misstep on my part, and for that I am sorry.

          That, among other things that Joyce has said and done to Dina in the past, such as the aforementioned infantilization and calling her “robot girl” can make me understand why Dina is choosing to get mad at Joyce right now. I’m not saying it’s RIGHT, I’m saying this isn’t out of character.

          Please don’t think I’m saying Dina directing all her frustrations towards Joyce is okay or justified. It’s not. It’s just something that I can empathize with and understand, having had a long history of anger issues in my own past. It’s irrational, and sometimes something completely unrelated will make you direct all of it at whoever ticked you off the most in the last 48 hours.

    5. Yeet

      don’t think she said it was

      most likely she’s just upset and potentially having trouble managing that emotion (now why could that be?? maybe she’s just english second language! /s)

      maybe give it more than sixty seconds of in-universe time before you decide she’s being awful

  23. Florence

    This be the continual problem with how protective institutions are about diagnosis, treating them as precious commodity instead of a something incredibly useful in helping people understand themselves and also empowering them to make decisions that will improve their lives.

    There’s so many services Dina’s been denied because she didn’t fit the standard, but I’m sure the extra burn is the lack of access because the doctors all found an excuse to say no

    1. The Wellerman

      It goes much deeper than that, Florence.

      These are the kinds of people that go out of their way to maintain the illusion that the status quo is a natural, universal order.

      Even if they lower one hoop, they’ll just raise another, just like all the other implements these bourgeois bigoted bastards loosen and tighten at their whim to maintain divisions between the classes.

      1. Hazel

        Please stop ‘correcting’ people’s opinions, The Wellerman. Maybe I’m assuming something or causing unnecessary drama, but Florence has already asked you to step off. We can all get along and feel welcome here when we respect each other’s boundaries.

        1. The Wellerman

          I’m not trying to correct her opinions, Hazel.

          If anything, I think she is entirely correct in what she said.

          All I want to do is give a bigger picture of this bigotry that affects all kinds of people, all across America.

          Between red-lining and “vagrancy” laws, racial covenants, and so many other tactics across the last century, bigots and their institutions they have a very tight handle on have and still do go out of their way to conspire and keep disadvantaged groups from being upwardly mobile in any way they can.

          One of the things I love about this comic, really, between Sal, Walky, Marcie and now Dina, is the honest exploration of systematic racism.

  24. Axel

    my experience in this is with white friends so obviously not the best comparison, but I know a good amount who have recommended doctors (and use those recs) based on “this one actually will diagnose you” and “this one will actually write a prescription for the meds you need” etc, because we’ve all seen a ton who say “you should try harder without medication first” or “well you could be, but I don’t want to put that diagnosis on you” appointment after appointment.

    so if she is up to it and wants to, I think trying the exact doctor Joyce saw might help Dina. also because IU’s health center probably sees more POC than most non-university ones in Indiana.

    NB this is me just going full into a practical option, I know this leaves out a lot of complexity about dina’s emotions and history and the stress of risking going through the same bullshit yet another time

    1. Axel

      side rant, one of said useless appointments for me included “I’m not going to help you apply for disability. If I do that you’ll never work again.”

      ?????? I already hadn’t worked in three years and continue to be unable to 8+ years after that appointment ????

      The question marks are somewhat facetious I know the reason is a) her thinking being disabled = being lazy and b) her thinking not working = not benefiting society

      1. Proxiehunter

        You’re damn right I won’t, that’s the point. I can not work without doing serious harm to my mental health. I stopped working because I was supervising young disabled children and I had begun having frequent autistic shutdowns and I was terrified something would push me into a shutdown while I was supervising on the playground or a field trip and a child would be injured or become lost because I was unable to actually do my job due to being in the middle of a shutdown that could last for me upwards of an hour.

  25. Tris

    Why would Dina’s parents be awful?? Seeking a diagnosis for their child after being denied one for clearly racist reasons clearly isn’t their fault?

    They share a lot of traits with Dina and are probably neurodivergent themselves, I don’t think they were taking her to psychologists because they thought there was something wrong with her. Diagnoses can be a double-edged sword but my GOD they are useful sometimes, especially wrt accommodations within the school system.

    My youngest sister was professionally diagnosed with ADHD and a learning disability in reading (similar to dyslexia but not) and even WITH that diagnosis could never get any accommodations from her school because the bureaucracy is a disaster. At least with her diagnosis she could appeal to teachers on a one-on-one level even if the administration was unhelpful. If Dina doesn’t have a diagnosis it means she might have missed out on a lot of support, depending on her circumstances.

  26. Laura

    Danged if you do, danged if you don’t.

    …Back when I used to work in mental health program development there was a lot of exploration over how diagnosis (or withholding of diagnosis) from various racial and ethnic and ancestral groups was used to perpetuate stereotyping and oppression.

    Particularly Black folks, but Indigenous / First Nations folks and children of Southeast Asian refugees, too. Every group got “typed” and doctors found unique ways to dismiss and abuse each one.

    I remember a Black mom crying in fear because if her child got “in trouble” in school one more time, he would be diagnosed with “conduct disorder” and taken into “the system”.

    And then the same children, when evaluated by therapists who were visiting citizens of Japan vs. by white US therapists, were identified (by the Japanese therapists) as “respectful” “polite” “studious” “a good kid” and (by the white US therapists) as “withdrawn” “socially anxious” “avoidant,” etc.

    I remember 2nd generation children of Southeast Asian refugees explaining schizophrenia to parents who had no equivalent cultural concept of auditory hallucinations, but explaining it as “ghosts” and “spirits” so it made more sense.

    Americans of AAPI descent keep getting pigeonholed into that “perpetual foreigner” or “othering” stereotype, no matter how many generations on in the families are.

    And then Indigenous folks just get abused in the system six ways from Sunday. Blamed for their own trauma. After genocide.

    I’m a little sleep-deprived, so I’m basically just rambling, not making too much sense, but point is: “it’s turtles all the way down.” It’s just trauma stacked on top of trauma. Oppression stacked on top of oppression. (https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/03-trial-and-sarah/settledin/)

    Point is — racism and stereotyping don’t stop at the clinic door. Often it gets repeated over and over again, in contexts within contexts. Even contexts focused on healing.

    1. C.T. Phipps

      As someone who used to work with mental health and had friends who were professionals….yeah.

      The above is just 100% accurate.

  27. Yotomoe

    o3o Can’t blame Joyce for that, Dina. She didn’t even want the diagnosis.

    1. David Alexander McDonald

      I don’t think Dina is blaming Joyce. She’s realizing what was done to her, and can recite the records, and she’s laying out a truth bomb.

      Now I want to know what’s going to come from Sarah. This could turn into a four alarm fire.

      1. Nono

        Sarah’s mostly apathetic re: race, she’s jaded about the injustices she’d face because of it. Any big reactions from her would be more of if Joyce reacts poorly to Dina.

  28. David Alexander McDonald

    Ten points to Gryffindor for setting up that brick and dropping it perfectly.

  29. Suitora

    Dina’s parents are Japanese. They (or Dina) have probably noticed something has been off for years, but when they have tried to get her diagnosed, they think her speech patterns are because she’s Japanese. Diagnoses are important so that autistic people can get resources. Without resources, many autistic people can flounder in school, work, and general life circumstances.

    Also, stereotypes about Asian people most likely go into it. Dina is very much in line with what society thinks of Asian people. Smart, cerebral, highly introverted…

    1. Suitora

      Whoops, meant that as a response for Bryy.

    2. The Wellerman

      Can you tell me more about these resources, besides government subsidies and extended deadlines at school?

      For me, all the rest of the resources ever amounted to was “professional” dipshits blowing bubbles in my face and giving me sticker books thinking they can just change the way my brain worked (HATE stickerbooks) and on one occasion even pinning me down and breaking my bones.

      Maybe I’m just the unluckiest duck in the world, but it just seems to me that the system sets up these fucking scams where these “resources” are only made to look like they have value because you have to jump through hoops to get them.

      Wouldn’t be surprised, given how many other insidious scams the bourgeois set up to make it look like they care about us when really they don’t and only ever want to use us as tokens.

      1. khn0

        Oh yes.

        I worked as a teacher with kids with different divergences, all I ever got as help/resources form the establishment/governments were half a day seminary about how “dys” is all the same (not only mixing dyslexia and dysgraphia, but also that both lexical and grammatical/syntaxical dyslexias have different causess, effects, and functioning under their own categories that are not recognized *at all*)

        An it wasn’t even in the US.

  30. Kravis

    Everything is fun and games until the person that ACTUALLY probably is on the spectrum or is taken as someone who is enters the stage!

    1. Proxiehunter

      You say that as if Joyce isn’t also actually probably autistic.

  31. CrazyJ

    Huh, Dina’s parents were born in the US. I wouldn’t have guessed (and no I’m not justify what happened to Dina, they could have just asked). Dina on the other hand I always assumed was born in the US, but that might be because I have a much larger exposure to her as a character.

    1. Laura

      Based on Dina’s age, I wouldn’t be surprised if she were Gosei (5th-generation).

      1. RassilonTDavros

        Out of curiosity, what’s the connection between her age and her generation?

        1. Laura

          Nothing, really, I’m likely full of s***. Just based on personal experience, most of the Japanese American youngsters I know who aren’t themselves first or second generation (born abroad or of Immigrant parents) are Gosei.

          Most of the Americans of Japanese descent imprisoned in the Internment Camps were either Issei (first generation) or their Nisei children (2nd generation). You’d think the Nisei children would have come of age around 1950 or so. Their children (Sansei – 3rd generation) would be boomers. Most boomers are grandparents by now. Their kids would likely be Gen-X or late Millenials (Yonsei – 4th generation) and now in their late 30s or early 40s. So it stands to reason that the Gen-Z / Zoomers around age 18-19 or so would be Gosei.

          Just the timing of different waves of Japanese American immigration to the US.

        2. Laura

          But then, there I go, using heuristics and making assumptions again. *D’oh!* *Facepalm*

        3. The Wellerman

          Just thinking about the treatment of the Japanese during WWII….

          ??? ???

          I don’t feel so good.

          One of the reasons I absolutely cringe at the idea of identifying as “American”.

          Identifying with a nation that’s a monument to hypocrisy and all this CRUELTY? No thank you.

        4. Jamie

          Eh. In fairness, this is true of pretty much every nation at or greater than America’s age. Assholes come to power everywhere.

          I’m not saying you shouldn’t cringe, but there’s also a strength in reclaiming that identity from the assholes and demanding that we live up to our ideals. Dissociating may still be the right choice for you, but it’s not the only good choice.

        5. Laura

          That and the fact that World War II was the catalyst for many Japanese who had been farmers and fishers in Western and West Coast states to lose their homes and be relocated to the midwest, particularly Illinois/Indiana area. So Dina’s having been born in Indiana to native-born parents makes me think that her parents might be descended from folks who were forcibly relocated.

        6. Laura

          …Japanese *AMERICANS*. Sorry. D’oh! *Facepalm.*

          I’ve got Japanese American family and I still don’t get it quite right all the time. *Shaking my head.*

        7. Mr.Morningstar

          Terminology can get weird and confusing sometimes, don’t worry you’re fine 🙂

  32. Derek

    Understanding of autism has grown tremendously in the last few decades, to the point I’m not surprised a ten-year-difference (I am guessing Dina tried to get diagnosed when she was in elementary school) has two girls have a very different experiences.
    Plus there’s the fact that autism was barely even recognized in girls up until recently.

    This reminds of those scare-mongering headlines that said “there’s an autism epidemic!”. No, we just diagnose it better now

    1. Proxiehunter

      It’s probably got a lot more to do with Dina’s race than it does hypothetical years between attempted diagnoses. We don’t know when the attempts to get Dina diagnosed started or when the last one was. I would honestly be surprised if they hadn’t made one more attempt just prior to her starting college so she could get any aid she might need.

      1. autogatos

        Yeah, I mean awareness/time has probably helped, but having just gone through this with ADHD as a white person after watching a biracial friend go through it…

        She spent MONTHS trying to get a doctor to take her seriously, and even more time finding one who was willing to rx meds instead of seeing her as drug-seeking. I was bracing myself and all prepared for the same level of difficulty and skepticism but it was not an issue for me at ALL. At every turn doctors I saw believed I was being honest, and had zero issue pursuing the testing, dx, and eventual prescription of meds.

        I HAVE faced issues at times trying to get my pain taken seriously as someone who deals with chronic pain, and it’s definitely still a thing that women’s pain is constantly dismissed, but my understanding is it’s even worse for POC/WOC.

      2. autogatos

        Class likely can also play a role. I know my experiences now that I have GREAT insurance are very different than when I did not. I can afford to see doctors who are out of network, I can choose my doctors a bit more freely based on favorable reviews, etc.

        Where for someone with terrible insurance (like I used to), or for someone on an HMO, you have WAY less choice about who you see. And therefore much worse odds of seeing someone good and compassionate. Obviously this wasn’t the particular issue for Dina as it sounds like they could afford to see MANY different doctors, but it’s just another example of how marginalization interferes with diagnosis (and often intersects with race because of how economic disenfranchisement and race intersect in the US).

  33. AGV

    I did not see that coming either ?

  34. Deadjolras

    Ah, I was waiting for this shoe to drop.

    1. Deadjolras

      After reading the comments, I can only say: DINA, GET BEHIND ME

  35. Regalli

    So remember what I was saying about self-diagnosis being seen as an important community tool because of medical gatekeeping based off stereotypes, and how racial biases played a role there?

    Yeah. I do hope that Dina talking to Dr. Kaur would give her at least some validation… but she can’t diagnose it either, which could well mean referral hell again. But maybe Dr. Kaur’s referring to the person who diagnosed her daughter and might therefore be less biased? (Then again, lateral racism.)

    Oof. I was not expecting ‘she was never diagnosed’ to come up as a plot point and explicit angst. Poor kid. Even if she manages well these days, it’s helpful to have accommodations if you need them… and it’s way easier to get on SSI for disability as a kid than it is as an adult, with slightly less fucked restrictions, and with getting hired being so difficult for autistic people (disclose and they’ll reject you for being disabled, even if they justify it to themselves as a fit issue or the like. Don’t disclose and they’ll reject you for just being… a bit off. Bad interview skills. You know how it is) that’s worth looking into even if you don’t THINK you’ll need it. (Financially, my parents can support me longterm. They are also not immortal. Things I have to be constantly a little aware of.)

    As an adult, a diagnosis can sometimes be a double-edged sword, but it DOES get you access to legal protections that self-diagnosis doesn’t, even if it can also bring in more explicit discrimination. (Also more illegal, but can you prove that was the factor? What money do you have to hire a lawyer with?)

    Structural racism: It’s bullshit!

  36. UrsulaDavina

    Sorry this is long and i really feel bad for Dina beacuse i went though the same thing of going to so called specailist and not getting diagnosed albeit I didn’t go through countless trips and wasted hours beacuse after trying to go through my school my parents gave up insurance wouldn’t cover mental health. All my parents could do is resist the schools attempts to have me committed.

    Yeah Dina’s was not dianosed probably due to racism, but if her parents went through the schools it also presented a problem or if their health care wouldn’t cover certain specailists.

    Though Dina said she took countless trips. Racism definetly plays a role in diagonis it still does. But The one thing I can’t get seem to understand is it can’t be the case that every pyscholgost Dina visted is a racist or have been affected by that much unconscious bias in 2019.

    I know that this a point of white privallge but even how racist the US heathcare system can be not one psychologist they visited could diagnose Dina properly it mean maybe they visited a few maybe. But Dinas family could not have that much bad luck doesn’t make sense.

    But it seems so obvious that Dina is neuroatypical it seems statsically unlikely that at least one psychologist who anaylzed Dina would diagnose something other then English is a second language is a problem. Especially when she was born in the US unless her parents never vocalize this point.

    These test cost money to administer and if you can afford it doctors don’t have a problem with giving it. The only conclusion I can come to is that they did this through Dinas school and their health coverage is poor they got shitty psychologists

    Also it may not the whole story for Dina but right now she is pissed at Joyce so I can understand her anger.

    Honestly i think poor healthcare and neglgent public schools played a role which amplified uncionouc or continously racism that exists in the healthcare system. beacuse that was my case. I mean i am Jewish but that isnt a thing that can be seen thus unless told If it was through Public schools seem to not want to commit resources to help nerodivergent students. (Btw i was in New York so this problem isnt a red state problem) My school was like he maintains a good GPA so you cant have ADHD or Autism but also schools at least in my age were not willing to diagnose me. Also they tried to commit me twice, you would think they say maybe their mental breakdown due to stress in school was due to an underlying condition. Also anti semtism may have played a role whenever I was bullied for being Jewish the school never went out of its way to stop it. I doubt anti semtism played a role it was more likely the school didn’t want to spend money to help me.

    My parents couldn’t afford to send me in for private mental health anayslsi beacuse insurance wouldn’t cover it.

    Then I am 30 with healthcare covering mental health and after about 6 sessions and formal test I have autism.

    1. Joyfulldreams

      I can safely say that it’s not that statistically unlikely. This degree of racism and stigma really is just that entrenched in the industry, especially when they’re seeking out a diagnosis in Indiana, which is not a state known for an excess of progressive values. Maybe they would have had better luck if they had gone further east to a more ethnically diverse city with more options and sought out a specifically non-white doctor, but as it is this sort of thing doesn’t surprise me at all.

      I doubt her family has poor healthcare, as you don’t get the sort of options of ‘seeing multiple different doctors’ through a school or government institution, you get one option, maybe two, and thats it. And they’d NEED to have decent healthcare in order to afford multiple trips to multiple different doctors and have that be even remotely affordable.

      1. Regalli

        Especially since travel is frequently involved.

      2. UrsulaDavina

        Do we know if Dina is from Indiana? Beacuse I can assure you that I lived in NY and still struggled with trying to get diagnosed.

        Also going east or west does not mean you will get better treatment.. Also there are progressive palces on Indiana just as there reactionary places in NY and Californa. Or Canada. The whole medical system in US and tbh the entire west had inherent racial bais that needs to be addressed. But I still have trouble with idea that Dina could get so many terrible psychologists.

        1. BBCC

          Yes, Dina’s from Indiana. Per the books, she’s from Merrillville. I have no idea what the says resource wise.

        2. Ed Callahan

          Dina should have had local access to quality services as a Merrillville resident. In addition, Chicago and Indianapolis are 90 minutes-two hours away. Inconvenient but hardly impossible.

        3. autogatos

          I mean, I’m white and yet it still took me 30 years to get my chronic illness symptoms taken seriously and diagnosed despite a full lifetime of symptoms and seeing MANY doctors…so I’d say Dina having seen that many terrible doctors is pretty believable. Especially with the added dynamic of race.

          I am fairly sure the only reason I’ve had better luck lately is better insurance + the wonder of Internet review sites means I’ve been able to carefully select who I go see in recent years which has improved the odds of seeing someone who isn’t awful. But the few times in recent years I’ve not bothered screening drs via reviews and just followed a referral, it did NOT go well.

  37. Joyfulldreams

    I mean yeah Dina that’s super frustrating but maybe don’t take it out on Joyce??? Jesus, she was an ass to you earlier sure but seriously. People really need to get off Joyce’s case for like five seconds, she’s going through enough.

    At least, I hope this isn’t Dina about to take her frustrations out on Joyce. Fingers crossed?

    1. Imogen

      Yeah, I think I’d feel less mixed about this comic if Dina was glaring at the ground and not at Joyce.

      (It’s fine for a character to act irrationally in a moment of emotional intensity, I’m just a little worried that the next comic is going to have Joyce apologizing or something like this isn’t a little unfair.)

      1. Joyfulldreams

        Even worse is that Joyce gets defensive, because of course she would get defensive, everyone is on her case constantly and she’s still in pretty intense pain. But her getting defensive would obviously escalate the situation. Woof.

        1. Mr.Morningstar

          I always thought “Getting defensive means youre guilty” is really really dumb, and still do.

          It is natural to be defensive when people accuse you of something you didn’t do, or are on your case about stupid things all the time, which was me alot during childhood.

          Once when I was fifteen, I was walking home with a friend, and when we parted ways I was followed by an adult home.

          Apparently two other boys (wearing our school uniform) smash his windows in what I believe was a racist hate crime, so he followed me home, having apparantly been nearby (i still dont know where his house was) and said as much when my dad opened the door and accused me of doing such.

          I naturally was not happy about being accused of that AND being followed home by a man I do not know as a minor and got defensive, which made my dad wonder if I DID do it, despite having never done that sort of thing before in my life.

          People need to stop viewing “Defensive” as “guilty” tbh.

      2. Mr.Morningstar

        I’m worried she’s going to put her foot in her mouth (as joyce tends to do) and say something unintentionally dismissive or mean… Like the robot comment from before, which i’m 90% sure wasn’t about Dina’s autism, more their upbringing, but that is likely also playing a part in the anger being directed AT joyce.

    2. UrsulaDavina

      Joyce has been pretty shitty to Dina yes it may be brought on by extenuating health circumstances but Dina interaxtions withJoyce arent exqctly postive she is aware Becky has feelings for Joyce she calls Dina a robot she spoke out against evolution and commits actions that frustrates Dina.
      So yeah suddenly she is given an opportunity that Dina never had something that could have made Dina’s life less frustrating I don’t think Dina is in the wrong here.

      1. G127

        You neglect the way Dina has acted towards Joyce as well. Approaching someone you know is in pain, with whom you have a bad connection to begin with and saying that the one parent they still have a decent relationship it, abused them… She didn’t exactly cover herself in glory there either.

        (And I can’t say I liked the way Dina attacked Joyce for het ignorance on evolution earlier either).

  38. thakoru

    I’m always kind of amazed (as a white guy) how bigots just completely disregard basic facts of reality. Like, by the time a psychologist or therapist is making that call, they should probably know that Dina isn’t ESL, and even if they do make that mistake, it should be easy enough to correct the assumption. But somehow, they always manage to convince themselves that any evidence contradicting their initial assumption must be wrong. It’s infuriating.

  39. Leorale

    Bonus injustice: if Dina was trying to get diagnosed through a School Psychologist or Learning Specialist, the professional may be under serious pressure to underdiagnose because the school must give expensive assistance to diagnosed students, and it just hasn’t got the funding for another aide or special-ed teacher or whathaveyou.

    If the school is poor and understaffed (and personally I’ve never been in a public school that isn’t poor and understaffed), there may be pressure to save those very few Special Education resources for kids who create a bigger problem in the classroom. Dina was a smart college-bound girl who is reading about dinosaurs, she’s not jumping on any desks or shouting or otherwise disrupting the classroom. Neglecting her only harms her, instead of harming everyone else around her. No school psychologist or learning specialist is ever going to do this consciously! it’s just, if a kid is gonna have to get neglected, it’s gonna be her, every time.

    It super, duper sucks.

    1. Leorale

      –oh, I reread the comic. Dina went to many psychologists, not just ones at school, so school funding isn’t the major issue. Dina’s parents were willing to pay for help — they just weren’t able to get through the racism to access a diagnosis for her.

    2. LovelyMonsters

      Does any of that stuff happen in schools? In the U.S. school district where I went to school and my mother worked her entire career, there was no learning specialist, 1:1 aides were given only to students whose parents had provided the school medical documentation solid enough to obligate them by state law to furnish that aide, and school psychologists did not evaluate children for autism or cognitive or mental issues but rather acted as therapists for children who were struggling with trauma–usually abuse by their guardians.

      Teachers and staff were *strictly* forbidden by the school district from mentioning to parents if they thought a child might be autistic or have any other neuro/cognitive/psych/learning issues, as in, staff would be formally written up by principals for doing so.

      1. Leorale

        Yikes, that’s awful.

        Yes, that stuff does happen in schools. My mom taught in a very poor district, 1st & 2nd graders, upstate rural New York. My mom would quietly recommend that a reading specialist should test a kid for a learning disability in October or November, because it was that glaringly obvious, but the specialist had to wait to test these obviously-needful kids til the end of the schoolyear… at which point they’d sometimes put it off again, all so that the school could provide one fewer year of their limited support.

        I don’t think the specialist was evil or anything, I think they were just made to “wait and see” because the school was stretched sooooo thinnnn.

        My mom said it was deeply frustrating to watch the kids’ hearts break as they struggled, growing harmful self-beliefs that they were stupid, or bad at school, or whatever. Often it was multigenerational, too, kids would repeat the parents’ anxieties about being stupid and terrible. They might have avoided some of this trauma if the schools could’ve just tested and gotten some early intervention in there.

        What you’re saying is even worse, though!
        I do not like when teachers are muzzled from helping kids.

        1. Rogue 7

          As a teacher who works with a diverse needs population (ESL in my case), I have to say that I think it’s probably for the best that teachers are forbidden from attempting to diagnose kids. General education teachers don’t receive training in identifying neurodivergencies in children, and may be affected by a great deal of bias, lack of focus (a parent who’s spent their whole life with a kid is going to be more qualified than a teacher who sees them in a class with 25 other kids), or a desire for the kid to just “settle down” (see: stories of students being forced onto Ritalin so that they wouldn’t disrupt a class)

          Overall, I think it’s probably for the best that teachers be forbidden from identifying students as neurodivergent, as opposed to identifying specific learning needs and acting on those.

        2. thejeff

          OTOH, who else (other than parents who have their own blind spots) sees the kids as much and has as much opportunity to spot problems. Nor is it the teachers who would actually diagnose kids – just recommend that they see a specialist to do so.

        3. asmodai27

          There is a huge difference between “identifying students as neurodivergent”, and “mentioning to parents if they thought a child might be autistic”.
          The first one is indeed a form of diagnostic, which can be biased on the part of the teacher, the second is a recommendation to the parents to mention this whne they visit a doctor (which they are free to dismiss if they think it is not accurate based on their living with the child)
          The only reason I can see why the school system would prohibit the second one is to prevent proper diagnostics in children, and therefore avoid having to provide them with the help they need (I very much hope there is another reason that I can’t see, but I’m quite pessimistic).

          I’ve been told (admittedly, by teachers) that IF a teacher tells you something might be wrong with the way your child’s brain works, it is generally a good idea to get a specialist involved, I cannot imagine a teacher making this kind of comments lightly.

        4. Rogue 7

          It’s definitely a teacher’s job to say “I’ve noticed your child does X,Y,Z”, or “Your child is having issues with X”, and lay out that their behavior fits a pattern, but if a parent then asked me “do you think that means they’re autistic”, my answer is going to be “I’m not qualified to say.”

          I trust my fellow teachers to do a ton of different things for our kids. But I trust neither them or myself to be free of bias, stereotypes, or misunderstood information in order to take such a step and recommend that a specific individual be evaluated, no matter how obvious it may seem. We don’t have the training or education to make that call. And the reason I say that is *because* of the fact that we’re in such a position of responsibility. If a parent goes to their pediatrician and says that the kid’s teacher said he should be looked at for autism, I think there’s ultimately a much higher chance that the kid will be designated as such. And I don’t want to introduce that positive bias into the system.

          School districts should provide information about neurodivergence in children to parents- seminars, reference material, and the like, then lay out the symptoms of individual students for parents and make sure they’re aware of said resources. But attaching the pressure of “we think your kid has X” is that step beyond the scope of what teachers are trained for.

        5. thejeff

          I guess it’s a question of how far to go. It sounds like you’re suggesting they hint to the parents there’s something wrong and hope the parents follow up with the appropriate specialist. Which seems weird to me. I get the “positive bias” aspect you describe, but isn’t there also a bias in the other direction? Parents get the list of behaviors, but no suggestions on what it might mean and thus don’t follow up at all?

        6. Rogue 7

          I’ve only been in this job for a year, and not had much experience with the issue. It’s very possible! But this could also be an expression of my anxiety: when given the choice between doing something or not doing something, both of which may have negative consequences, I feel like I’m going to pick the “don’t do it” option every time.

        7. asmodai

          OK, I can see how the wording matters, my interpretation of “forbidden to tell a parent they think a child might be autistic” was not a literal wording that is forbidden, but rather that they should refrain from telling the parents about stuff they noticed which could point in that direction, which is absolutely not OK in my book.

          Also even neglecting the bad choice of words, I think no one (not even a qualified doctor) should say something like “we think your child is autistic” without further elaboration on why that is and what steps can be taken for the child’s benefits (like “see a specialist about that and see what they have to say about it” in the case of someone not qualified to make a proper diagnostic).

        8. Rogue 7

          Shit’s complicated, yo.

      2. The Wellerman

        Oh, 1:1 school aides. Hai PTSD trigger.

  40. Barf Ninjason

    Seems like Dina should be autistic enough to know not to take it out on *Joyce* like it’s her fault

    1. Proxiehunter

      I’m not sure there’s any way I can parse that statement where you come out looking good for having made it. Maybe I’m just misunderstanding you though, can you clarify what you mean by that?

  41. iamdeltas

    Goddamn, poor Dina. Medical racism is a bongo.

    The fact that autistic women/feminine-presenting people and people of color in general have a harder time getting diagnosed at all really makes me wonder how the hell I got misdiagnosed as having autism when I was 4 apparently even though I was a female-presenting kid of Indian descent.

  42. Morhek

    Joyce, no, don’t jump straight to “I can use being autistic to excuse my shitty behaviour!” You’ve already pissed Dina off enough!

  43. Yotomoe

    This topic is kinda heavy so in lighter news I have decided to ink the Billie/Walky comic…
    And I started a patreon to support myself through it.

    1. Deathjavu

      Yooooo I’m glad I suggested it, as someone who volunteered to put money in that particular pot, please link it! I’m sure it will be acceptable since you got permission to make such a thing in the first place (I’m assuming this is what you were trying to contact Willis about previously.)

      1. Deathjavu

        Actually maybe don’t link it here? That might be Not Ok, now that I think about it.

        I guess I will have to go look for it!

        1. Yotomoe

          I will tell you the name at least. NottyArt

        2. cbwroses

          Good name.

        3. Maveric1984

          I have added my pledge!

    2. Ed Callahan

      Cool. Don’t ever underestimate your drawing skills. They can be very expressive.

    3. milu

      Great news! I’d be happy to support you (to the paltry extent my finances permit) but I can’t currently locate your patreon. Also, while I assume this is the reason you reached out to Willis yesterday, it would be good if you confirmed you have explicit permission to seek compensation for work based on his creation?

      1. Deathjavu

        I also cannot find said patreon 🙁

      2. Yotomoe

        I do have his permission. And if you’re having trouble finding it just type the name into Patreon dot com, backslash, the username.

  44. Tim C.

    These are fictional characters. I’m still feeling rage. I’m a high functioning person with autism who works In a public school and Willis has nailed everything correctly. Everything. I just want this story to have Dina and Joyce feeling worthy and respected and as they deserve to be.

  45. G127

    Medical racism is horrible and I fully understand why Dina is mad. Still Joyce and Dina aren’t friends. Dina clearly hates Joyce. I can’t remember any interaction between the two that ended well.

    So to just take over a conversation from a clearly distraught person talking to her closest friends… I don’t think this is the best timing or even the best person to approach about this.

    1. Needfuldoer

      I think part of it is nonverbal communication issues coming into play. (And the word bubble medium’s lack of tone doesn’t help.)

      Dina has every reason to be (rightly) angry, and has every right to express that. But whether she intends to or not, she’s coming across like she’s guilting Joyce for benefiting from systemic bias. Joyce isn’t the enemy here, but she’s a front-and-center example of the problem Dina struggled with so she looks like an easy target.

      1. thejeff

        Yup. That’s why I like this.

        Dina’s reaction is perfectly understandable here, even without her existing animosity towards Joyce. She’s still not doing it to be mean or cruel though.

        But it’s still a lousy thing to throw in Joyce right now. None of it’s her fault and she’s barely starting to grapple with yet another life-altering revelation. Rough time to have to process that she’s privileged.

    2. Cerusee

      People were criticizing the HELL out of Roz for inserting herself into a private conversation between Joyce and her friends to….neutrally drop some very pertinent medical facts Joyce very probably did not already know. Whether you think she was overstepping or not, her intention was clearly to be helpful to Joyce, and she left immediately after.

      Dina inserted herself into a private conversation between Joyce and her friends to make it about *herself.* She didn’t join this conversation to offer Joyce any kind of useful advice from her own experiences, or with any desire to alleviate Joyce’s visible distress. She hijacked it to complain about things that, while legitimately really awful, are not Joyce’s fault, and are not appropriate to dump on someone who’s reeling from confusing and wholly unexpected new information. Joyce hasn’t even had time to begin to think about what this could mean for her future, and she’s got Dina glaring at her and essentially telling her “how DARE you have a less fraught experience with the medical community than I’ve had!”

      1. thejeff

        OTOH, Dina’s reacting out of her own pain and trauma. It’s not an intellectual exercise to demonstrate Joyce’s privilege to her or something. She’s legitimately upset and showing that. That’s more relatable and sympathetic.

        Roz had no emotional connection. She was just there to info-dump, not knowing what Joyce had already been told.

        I do agree that it’s not appropriate to dump this on Joyce. It’s not her fault and she very likely doesn’t have the bandwidth to deal with it now. But it’s easy to see why Dina did speak up rather than just bottling up her own feelings about it.

        1. Cerusee

          She’s entitled to her feelings. She’d be entitled to ‘em even if they weren’t coming out of years of experiencing medical racism—everyone is.

          But it’s not acceptable to take them out on Joyce, particularly in a moment of vulnerability, in a conversation she was not invited to join, and it’s pretty frustrating to see people cutting her so much slack for that immediately after giving Roz all the flack in the world for something that was not only not harmful to Joyce, but probably helpful. Feelings are always legitimate and don’t need to be justified; how you act on your feelings is another story entirely.

        2. thejeff

          As I said, I agree it’s not appropriate and yet I can understand why she did it. I find that good characterization.

          I suspect that empathetic connection to her motivation is why she gets more slack than Roz did.

        3. Cerusee

          It IS good characterization, for sure! Willis is a careful storyteller.

          I think I’m approaching one of those moments where I may need to take my own advice and take a break from the comments section. This is one of those storylines that’s emotionally raw for a lot of people, and while I understand the depth of feeling, I don’t have a lot of patience for some of the ways it’s manifesting.

  46. snags

    Woo-wee… many thoughts about both the strip and the comments, as a (mixed) Asian person with my own diagnosis-woes currently ongoing. Mighty curious to see how the rest of this conversation goes.

  47. Rectilinear Propagation

    People are mad that Dina is mad but she’s not really mad at Joyce. She’s mad that apparently doctors are fully capable of recognizing autism and trying to help someone but they weren’t willing to do that for her.

    There’s knowing you’re being discriminated against and then there’s realizing the sheer magnitude of the difference it makes when the discrimination isn’t happening. The thing about bigotry is that it’s happening to you all the time so you often have no non-bigoted experience for comparison. So while Dina knew racism was at play in her inability to get diagnosed, it’s still shocking to see someone else have a doctor try to help them without even asking.

    There’s also the realization that not only have you been getting discriminated against but that people were intentionally choosing not to help you. Not “ignorance”, not “unconscious bias is one of multiple factors messing with their judgement”. Just a straight up refusal to help because of who you are.

    I’ve experienced this a few times and y’all?

    It is infuriating. Especially if you’ve been doubting/blaming yourself because of it. You will be too angry to point your glare in an appropriate direction. The rage is breathtaking.

    1. Leorale

      Yes this! This is a very good take.

    2. Mr.Morningstar

      Oh yeah no Dina has every single right to be mad about this, I do not blame her in the slightest. I just hope she doesn’t “Take it out” on joyce so to speak, who didn’t do anything. Except for that “robot” comment earlier, which deserves a bit of karma, but beyond that once Dina’s rage subsides we’ll see how things go.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Pretend your comment got an upvote (it needs one but we can’t give them here).

  48. Mackabre

    Even if Dina isn’t blaming Joyce, the way this is framed suggests that’s how it’ll be taken imo.

    Like, Dina is speaking on a major problem in this country and she’s right that there’s an imbalance but I wish this could have happened at a different time, when Joyce wasn’t still so freshly processing the information.

  49. Hazel

    …Y’know, I didn’t even think of counting this factor, and I really, *really* should have thought of it. It’s so obvious, now it’s brought up.

    Still, I’m glad that Dina has supportive parents, even if the medical (and education???) establishment has already made up its mind about her.

  50. Robin

    The exact same thing happened to me with undiagnosed speech impediments. Funny, isn’t it? And by funny I mean holy fucking shit everything sucks

  51. Shiro

    Willis, I feel you should know–I saw a Transformer just now, and immediately went “oh, it’s after midnight, I should check DoA.” And here I am

  52. Robert

    …..So who’s up for leftover Mac n’ Cheese????

    1. The Wellerman

      I AM!!!!!!!!

      I really need a comfort food like this.

      Being reminded of how ugly and cruel humans and their societies can be is pretty exhausting.

    2. Needfuldoer

      Kraft Macaroni and Cheese Dinner is best eaten fresh. It’s just not the same after it’s had time to set.

      1. The Wellerman

        IMO fresh or leftover, it’s really good when you put it on a hotdog, K&M, real filling.

  53. Taffy

    Some very good Dina faces here.

    1. The Wellerman

      You should see what I have planned for the fan game, comrade.

      Don’t worry. They will be happy faces. Really happy faces. She deserves them.

  54. George the Archon

    Go on Joyce, you can acknowledge her pain at the unfairness without it diminishing you: “That’s awful and I’m sorry” You can do this.

  55. AY

    Weirdly enough, I saw this anger coming

    1. Arianod

      The fact that Dina is so visibly angry, which is so rare for her, really drives home how *hard* it must have been for her growing up.

  56. ADLegend21

    god the fury is just radiating off Dina. the racism in the medical world is the nastiest of them all.

  57. Arianod

    …from “You’re autistic, Joyce” to “check your privilege” in only three strips. Girl just can’t get a break these days.

    1. Taffy

      I’m not sure if this is Dina telling Joyce to check her privilege, I think it’s mainly Dina being agitated by her own lack of it. Not an expert, here, just an impression I’ve got. I think it’s probably good for Joyce to see that it’s weird all the way ’round, with her own experience of not getting spotted until later in life, as well as other people’s experience of struggling to just get a confirmation of what they already suspect.

      1. Arianod

        Sure, Dina didn’t mean it like that. But that doesn’t change the fact that Joyce is being confronted with her privilege, just after learning that she’s (probably) autistic, while suffering from awful menstrual pains. The poor girl just *can’t* catch a break. If she had any karma to pay for being snotty about her newfound atheism, she’s paying for it all at once.

        1. Taffy

          I take your meaning, in that case.

          As a side note, is that how karma works?

        2. Arianod

          Yeah, as far as I know.

        3. Proxiehunter

          Depends, are we talking about pop culture karma or the Hindu religious context?

        4. Taffy

          Whichever one came first, which I feel safe assuming is the Hindu one. Pop culture anything is only rarely in line with the real version of itself. Unless My Name Is Earl was a documentary?

        5. Arianod

          If we’re being serious, different traditions have different conceptions of how karma works, and they disagree on a number of points (for example, whether you pay off all your karma on this life or it carries over into the next one), but as far as I’m aware they all agree on the basic idea that if you do bad things, bad things happen to you.

        6. thejeff

          Which in many ways is a terrifyingly shitty philosophy, if you look at it through the wrong lens: You deserve all the bad things that happen to you, however arbitrary they appear or however much you try to do good. While equally, people who are well off deserve that as well.

        7. Arianod

          They also seem to agree (?) that it’s an action-reaction thing: that is, there isn’t a cosmic entity writing your sins down and scheduling retribution for later, it’s just how the universe works; like gravity or thermodynamics, but at a metaphysical level.

        8. Opus the Poet

          Karma gets you in the next life, not this one AFAIK. So you have to permanently die and come back as a baby, not just die and come back like I did.
          And I know this sounds weird without knowing my history.

  58. Tenzhi

    Aside from the superhuman stealth, Dina has always seemed more “normal” to me than Joyce. That probably says more about my skewed perspective on normality than anything else.

    1. Arianod

      Makes sense, though. Dina has spent a lot of time studying on neurotypical humans and how to interact with them, while Joyce has gone all her life believing that she was “normal” and behaving in a way that she assumed was “normal” too.

  59. Jamie

    So… anticipation: Becky is only not here because she lagged behind to talk to Robin.

    She’s about to explode onto this scene.

    I have no predictions about how she’ll handle hearing any of this.

    1. Agemegos

      She will blame Joyce’s autism for Joyce disagreeing with her about God.

  60. Needfuldoer

    Joyce: “Go talk to Dr. Kaur at the medical center.”
    Dina: “… I will.” >:(

    [Smash cut to the exam room, Dina’s sitting on the table. Dr. Kaur enters.]
    Dr. Kaur: “Good afternoon, now can I help you toda–”
    She writes out the referral right then and there.

    1. Taffy

      That’s a very good image, thank you.

      1. Needfuldoer

        Icing on the cake: in the last panel, Dina has the same expression she had at the end of this one:

        https://www.dumbingofage.com/2022/comic/book-12/03-trial-and-sarah/goandsinnomore/

  61. Danae Jay, Local Gay

    The last couple of comics made me decide to go take a couple online.. screening/assessment/extremely not definitive tests/whatevers with regards to autism and..

    Ever fall out of a tree and hit every branch on the way down?

    I guess maybe I should talk with my braindoc at some point.

    1. Proxiehunter

      Yeah, my first time falling out of that tree was when Time Magazine published a assessment that hit me with all it’s branches.

    2. Opus the Poet

      That called up a painful memory of falling out of a tree and bouncing of a limestone building slab left under the tree. Not your fault.

      And I need to have a talk with my braindoc, too. Not that that has anything to do with what you posted.

    3. Needfuldoer

      Complete aside: your screen name is almost a perfect fit for the Bill Nye the Science Guy theme song.

      And now you can’t unhear it either! Muahahaha!

      1. BBCC

        Dammit, *I* certainly can’t!

  62. Mr.Morningstar

    Yeah that anger is justified. More to the medical world and general racism as a whole, not joyce, but justified nontheless

  63. Emmy

    I don’t know how it is in the US but children’s mental health services in the UK are awful. Much much easier for for an adult to get diagnosed. If a child is diagnosed the government has to cough up money. So they are reluctant to do it. I have been an autism specialist teacher for years and I have taught kids that everyone knows are autistic. Yet CAMS fails to diagnose them. Because then they would have to fund intervention. Then these kids turn 20 and get diagnosed right away (the ones who haven’t given up). I don ‘t know if it would have been like this for someone like Dina, but if she were in th UK I would say try again as an adult.

    1. Proxiehunter

      Here in the US you’re much more likely to get diagnosed as a child and getting diagnosed as an adult requires doing back flips through flaming hoops.

    2. Joanna Cole

      It’s just as hard as an adult to get diagnosed in the UK. My GP said that because I had a job and a family he was reluctant to pursue a diagnosis as autistic adults don’t have the skills for that.

      Then there was a three year waiting list. With multiple reminders that I could pull out of the process at any time.

      The actual diagnosis? Granted, relatively easy. Six hour session with a doctor then a six month wait for a response. My eldest children were both diagnosed with about three month waiting period (though again the GP was doubtful of my daughter as “she has friends so can’t be autistic”). My youngest? GP looked at the records, looked at him, recommended a diagnosis.

      1. Emmy

        I think it can be difficult to go through your GP if they don’t have experience. They tend to be gatekeepers when they don’t have the knowledge to do that. I have noticed a huge disparity it what GPs will do. I teach kids in one borough who couldn’t get treatment for major conditions during the pandemic, while kids in the next borough over had no trouble. Although getting a diagnosis is always hard, my experience is that it is almost impossible for school age kids.

  64. Arianod

    That’d be two nickels for Becky, by the way.

    Which isn’t a lot, but it’s still weird, don’t you think?

    1. Proxiehunter

      Mike’s fucking Becky’s mom twice?

      1. Opus the Poet

        Becky’s mom is slightly less alive than Mike, but only just.

  65. Wendy

    I’m sorry for picking on you Willis but I’m only doing this because I in my autism am overall very pleased and excited by how this topic is being handled:

    but Japanese parents (even second-gen) going to ONE psychologist, let alone multiple?

    *LAUGH TRACK*

    1. Wendy

      I MEAN Dina’s parents being unusual in that way would explain a lot about 1. their fashion choices despite being born in the US and 2. Dina acting…very not like an East Asian-American girl. (Given all the non-Asian screaming about BUT NOT ALL ASIANS, YOU’RE NOT AN EXPERT ON ASIAN AMERICANS here last time I spoke on this topic – at me, an Asian-American – I would greatly appreciate the withholding of similar screaming if you can at all help it in your blessed little hearts, thanks in advance)

      1. The Wellerman

        Well if it’s any consolation, I’m actually making a video game set in the DOA universe with Dina as one of the characters.

        Any tips you have to write her to be more like an East Asian-American girl?

        I’d really like to hear what pointers you have, Nami!!!

        1. Wendy

          Yeah I noticed that a couple comments in, it should be fixed on this one.

          It’s less about Making An East Asian-American Girl and more having an awareness of the cultures East Asian-American girls come from, and how the people around them usually treat them. The girl in question may REACT in different ways depending on her own individual personality, of course. But those things would still happen and have definite responses.

          As an example, just off the top of my head, it’s extremely unlikely an East Asian-American autistic girl would be so open and unashamed about a dinosaur obsession no matter how strong that obsession might be. Because that openness would have been bullied FIERCELY out by kids and even adults around her all her life.

          Dina’s remarkably, I would say unrealistically, self-assured and confident – except when someone points out to her that she may have been insensitive or misstepped socially – which she then tries to improve, but it always seems to be news to her. Trust me: none of that would be news to an Asian-American autistic girl by the time she got to college.

          That’s actually a huge part of WHY it tends to be so so hard for us to get autism diagnoses – we get bullied hard through childhood not just for being garden variety weird but because we don’t fulfill anyone’s expectations of what Asian Girls Are Supposed To Be. So from a very early age, Asian girls start doing all kinds of mental and emotional contortions to “mask” our autistic features, whether we suspect we’re autistic or not.

          It’s horribly taxing, and ends up in high emotional disorders and even suicide rates – but because Asian-American young women are so intensely pressured to mask ALL the time, instead of getting autism diagnoses, we only get told we have depression or anxiety or “are just stressed and working too hard.”

          Among other things, one major aspect of Dina that doesn’t ring true for the demographic she’s in is that Dina does not noticeably mask – nor seem to feel any need or desire to. Yeah, part of it could be because her parents have been super supportive and grounding of her autistic quirks and needs, but the rest of society around her?

          UNLESS she was homeschooled and heavily sheltered until college. Then her lack of social awareness and openness about her special interests would make WAY more sense.

          Anyway. That was a lot, but I hope it’s helpful in some way.

      2. The Wellerman

        BTW when I click your name the URL is broken, also I have Discord and Twitter if you’d rather use those to talk about it.

        You seem like a fascinating human to me, Nami, and look forward to discussion about this.

      3. KM

        What’s the word for the concept of having to thread the line between being representative yet also an individual that may in fact be different..?

        1. Taffy

          Writing.

        2. Wendy

          Oh shit you win the “YOU’RE NOT AN EXPERT” award, I knew one of you would come out of the woodwork

    2. autogatos

      I actually always wondered if Dina’s parents are also autistic because they seem to share a lot of her mannerisms and ways of speaking.

      And then that made me think she’d never been diagnosed because they didn’t see anything different in her behavior because they didn’t have a neurotypical frame of reference to compare to (in the same way many of us who are ND or have chronic illnesses don’t actually notice we’re experiencing anything outside the “norm” because it’s all we know).

      But now I’m thinking it’d make sense they’d be on top of it because they’re scientists and more inclined to notice and analyze stuff scientifically (that the average parent might miss) for that reason? But I could be totally wrong. Are they paleontologists? I just remember Dina’s mom having a hat that read very “I dig up science-y stuff in sunny climates” to me (I do not know what that type of hat is called…)

      1. autogatos

        Ok I just tried to find info to confirm my theory but I may have completely imagined this/conflated Dina’s mom with Dina in It’s Walky! because the one image I could find of Dina’s mom has her wearing a fashionable sort of hat that indicates no specific profession (she COULD still be a scientist though!…they seem like they would be given Dina’s interests…)

      2. hatman

        Today’s comic itself kind of pokes holes in that theory, in that Dina brings up that she has seen many psychologists, so it’s less her parents not realizing something is wrong than it is the psychologists being racist AF.

        1. autogatos

          Oh yeah I just meant this was my theory for why she hadn’t been diagnosed BEFORE this comic. Obviously this comic disproved my theory.

    3. milu

      Ah, I’m glad to see you here today and interested in your input because I remember Willis last time being like “stop shutting down a person from Dina’s actual demographic, also @Wendy i’m actually planning to address Dina’s specific background in the future, stay tuned and I hope I do better” and I assume they were referring to this story.

  66. Wendy

    ALSO unrelated fun story: I did manage to get diagnosed (when I was almost 30) but the specialist who diagnosed me said, “You’re autistic alright, but the bigger problem is your poor self esteem.”

    Me, autistically: Buuuut isn’t it logical to have poor self esteem if you like, actually suck?

    Specialist: NO.

    Me: *pikachuface dot jpg*

    1. BBCC

      Based on your comments here, you categorically do not suck, so I gotta agree with your specialist.

      1. Wendy

        Huh! That’s nice of you to say. I feel like my comments here often rub people the wrong way, haha.

  67. Akane

    I mean Joyce’s doctor only caught her cos she presented in a similar way to the doc’s daughter by accident. No sense being mad at Joyce about it.

    The doctors Dina had were pretty terrible with a clear racial bias though. It’s just this was independent from Joyce. This same doc might not have caught Dina either if the presentation of autism was different.

    1. BBCC

      It’s not Joyce’s FAULT, but yeah, Dina’s salty that she’d getting an advantage for being white. I’m not sure if she’s actually salty at Joyce or just in her general direction, but either way I can’t fault her.

    2. Nicoleandmaggie

      I think she’s also angry because Joyce seems to not want the diagnosis that Dina has worked so hard for. There’s some you don’t know how lucky you are going on.

  68. Maggie

    Yeah, thanks to my mother’s private health insurance (I’m in the U.K.) my diagnosis happened in a matter of weeks.

    Early July – get told by an autistic person they think I’m autistic
    Mid August – get a GP referred for an assessment after 1 appointment
    Late September – get diagnosed as autistic after a two hour appointment with a psychologist.

    On the other hand, one of my partners got told that she would be diagnosed as autistic, but she “copes too well”. I got diagnosed at 18, whereas her experience was in her 40s. So I’m aware of how different experiences can be when seeking a diagnosis.

    This was years before I came out as trans, and I wonder how my experience would have been different had I been out first.

  69. Lone Duck

    Doctors and diagnoses have gotten better. When I was young, autism wasn’t thought of as a spectrum, but a polarity. Throw in a dose of medical racism, wham bam no thankyou m’am.

  70. Amós Batista

    Hey, listen: Dina is not obligated to be nice, as Joyce received the same diagnosis. Being autistic not mean they need to be automatically nice to each other.

    Dina can be very angry to Joyce, still.

    1. The Wellerman

      ☝️ THIS RIGHT HERE. This human GETS IT.

      Really wish people would stop with hurtful assumptions about us neurodivergents, and instead respect what we want a descriptor to mean for us.

      Even if its common sense in this community to not assume stuff about “autistics” and what they want that to mean for themselves, I’m still so afraid of being vulnerable to ever use that word for myself. ?

    2. Rogue 7

      I think that folks would say that Joyce is not responsible for the poor treatment Dina has received, and thus directing anger at her for it is misdirected. I hope no one’s saying that Dina’s anger isn’t valid, but that Joyce in this instance doesn’t deserve to be the target of it, because her white privilege wasn’t something she actively tried to exploit.

  71. Joanna Cole

    Ah, yes, this. Was wondering if it would come up.

  72. Stormrunner

    I actually expected this, just not this fast.

    But, guess I should have sunce Dina was in hallway.

    My thoughts past couple days “is Dina diagnosed, or has she been denied… wonder when we’ll find out”.

    Best timing…worst scenario and the English as a second language excuse – despite not being a second language – I’ve seen too often.

    1. thejeff

      Yeah, we knew from Word of Willis a long time ago that she hadn’t been diagnosed, but the implication at the time was that he wasn’t comfortable writing a character labelled as autistic, not that there was some deep backstory about her trying and failing to get a diagnosis.

      Which likely was the case at the time, but not that he’s decided to tackle autism more directly the original reasoning no longer makes sense, so that statement becomes the cue for drama.

      1. BBCC

        Specifically he said that he based a lot of the traits that made people think Dina was autistic for on himself and he’d never been diagnosed so he wasn’t sure if he should give Dina that label or not.

        That was years ago and I’d imagine a lot of research and/or possibly personal revelations have happened since then.

  73. Rogue 7

    I’m not qualified to talk about the Healthcare aspect of it, but I’m a public school ESL teacher.
    Quite frankly, I doubt Dina was subject to ESL classes. My district’s primary tool for identifying an English language learner is a “home language survey”, where we ask the parents what language the kid speaks at home. So Dina’s parents just filling that out accurately would pretty much guarantee she wouldn’t be evaluated further (and that includes if Dina was raised in a bilingual household. Kids don’t get put in ESL because they speak another language, they get put in ESL if they have trouble with English). Parents also have the right to waive all ESL services for their child if they want, even after the kid is identified as an ELL.
    Now, I’ve been at this job for just a year, and I work in a diverse district in a more progressive state. I can’t speak to how things are elsewhere in the country. Nor can I speak to racism in Healthcare at all. But based on my understanding of how public school ESL students are identified, Dina wouldn’t qualify as such. Which, arguably, makes her doctors’ racism worse, because they’d have to ignore her parents saying that their daughter wasn’t in ESL classes.

    1. Stormrunner

      I grew up with other kids some from Vietnamese heritage because their parents or grand parents were refugees from the Vietnamese War.

      It’s not that they are ESL or are labeled as such – it’s that doctors used it as an excuse to not label them with ADHD, Autism or other mental disorders as they “don’t understand properly because they aren’t fluent” even if they were.

  74. Chris (the other one)

    First, I must apologize. I’m reading this at work, and don’t have time to read all 307 (as of this second) comments, so even though I’m pretty confident this has been discussed, I won’t know it, at least not yet. I know this appears like I’m lazy, but I’m not, usually anyway…

    Second, I don’t understand the dynamic here. I understand autism, and high functioning autism, and Asperger’s… in as much as I can as someone who has no one diagnosed within my extended family, but my son dated a girl who was a diagnosed high functioning autistic, specifically “with Asperger’s” … her words, not ours.
    I know how she reacted, or not, to various events, while my son dated her, but of course, don’t really understand, as our time with the young woman was limited to about six months.

    All that being said, today’s strip confuses me on a couple points.

    1. Is Dina a diagnosed autistic?
    2. Is Dina saying she (and her family) truly believe she is, and couldn’t get Doctor’s to actually diagnose her properly after many months of trying?
    3. Does that mean she isn’t but finally some Doctor did diagnose her, but that Doctor was simply giving the family what they wanted and ALL the other Doctor’s were right?
    4. Or does that mean she is, and finally some Doctor DID diagnose her and all the other’s were wrong?

    Finally:
    5. Is she saying here that she is upset because Joyce was diagnose within a very short time and OH MY GOD White Privilege?
    6. Or is she saying that, no Joyce, no Doctor, who isn’t a Psychiatrist/Psychologist can possibly diagnose you in such a short time so stop wailing already…?

    1. Sterling

      Seems to mainly be 2 and 5. As a reader who does have autistic family members, went to school with many autistic people and may well have autistic traits comorbid with ADHD, Dina’s autism is incredibly blatant, so the reveal that she’s undiagnosed in this strip is about as shocking as the Joyce reveal.

      The fact that psychologists (multiple) said that she must simply be an ESL learner (even though she very clearly isn’t) would definitely be a white privilege situation. In terms of mental health and specifically Autism and ADHD, being ANYTHING other than white and DMAB makes a diagnosis much harder to come by simply because diverse people present their symptoms in a diversity of ways and the education most doctors go through is largely based on studies of white men rather than anyone else.

    2. Beau Kirin Maysey

      I believe it’s fully #5. I’m not sure Willis ever said Dina HAD a diagnosis for autism at all. The diagnosis rate for autism for women is already low, and it seems like it’s been even lower for non-white individuals, who have simply been labeled as having ‘bad behavior’ or any other number of excuses. I believe she’s saying she’s never been diagnosed formally thus far, but either way, yeah it seems like a major discrepancy due to race is being described.

      Also, hi, someone on the Spectrum here, the reason ‘Asperger’ has fallen out of as much usage, and thus been linked back into the ‘Autism Spectrum’, is partly because of Hans Asperger’s alleged links to Nazi activities. If you already knew this, apologies!

      1. CGCampbell

        Beau, I must apologize to you, I would guess. I was indeed unaware of any issues with Asperger, at all. My only first hand knowledge, as I said, was an ex-girlfriend of my son’s, who herself said she was diagnosed Asperger.

        Once she told us that, it was like “well, of course” as she displayed many of the more obvious traits that movies and television have publicized, correctly or otherwise.

      2. Proxiehunter

        There was nothing alleged about them. He was a full on Nazi picking which of the children he worked with deserved to not get gassed.

    3. Needfuldoer

      It sounds like Dina and her parents suspect she is, but they were never able to get a diagnosis because their quiet nature (and their ancestry) led mental health professionals to believe it was all language barrier issues. She could’ve gotten a lot more help if she was diagnosed.

      So, #2 and #5.

    4. Akane

      It really feels like 5. Which… idk.

    5. Joyfulldreams

      Dina is explicitly saying that she is not officially diagnosed as Autistic, but she and her family know she is not neurotypical, but her experiences are routinely denied and dismissed by doctors because she isn’t white. Any difficulties she has that are normally associated with autism or other forms of neurodivergence are explained away with a non-existant language barrier the doctors make up in their minds based on false, racist assumptions.

  75. moxie

    first comment here but dammnnnn this strip reminds me of the Fun Times I had getting my own autism diagnosis.

    like, okay, I’m more in joyce’s situation than dina’s, since I’m white and went through “alternative schooling” that prevented me from being referred as a child, but. when I had a comprehensive neuropsych evaluation at 15, I was told I wasn’t autistic because I was “smart” and “had empathy.”

    …followed by my next psych, when I was an adult, deciding I couldn’t be trusted with my autism diagnosis and who proceeded to diagnose me without telling me until months later.

    at this point it doesn’t matter too much, I rarely need my diagnosis to get accommodations at work (I tell them I’m autistic and except for my most recent job they’ve just taken me at my word) and it’s too late to salvage my school career, but getting that autism diagnosis can be SUCH a crapshoot. I’m hoping that joyce gets whatever accommodations & resources she needs regardless of her diagnosis.

  76. Hello

    I think the difference here is Joyce wasn’t officially diagnosed, a doctor with an autistic daughter just noticed similarities and suggested seeking a doctor for diagnosis. Big difference between seeking out a doctor and getting tested and a gyno saying “you’re having some trouble here kinda like my autistic daughter, maybe see someone about that?” and likely the referral is to a doctor she (the gyno) already knows in relation to her daughter.

    However, the ESL assumption from doctors does bring the racism in diagnoses of mental conditions as rightfully a sore spot for Dina definitely. I just feel like it’d be a completely different matter if this is Joyce after going to a first session with an actual doctor qualified to make the diagnosis saying she was autistic. It’s not exactly a 1:1 comparison *yet* since there’s ALSO the factor of underdiagnosis in women (which gives Dina a double whammy in getting diagnosed unfortunately)

    Though I also say this as a woman that first session in 2009, so way before it was more mainstream understood, was diagnosed with ADHD which is under diagnosed in women. Never would’ve known that with my own experience to go with and the only reason I didn’t get it treated until 8 years later was because of the lack of information about how deeply it impacted all facets of my life.

  77. Beau Kirin Maysey

    Ah, the famous Diagnosis Debacle, but with a Cool New Twist!: Enthnicism!

  78. Creatrix Tiara

    Is it common for GPs to make referrals for autism diagnoses in the US? I’m in Australia and I had to self-refer to a specialist, my GP couldn’t really do anything on that front even though she managed to get me referred to all sorts of other specialists for other things. May be different because I did this as an adult.

    I can attest as a femme POC that getting taken seriously as autistic or any flavour neurodivergent is a challenge. Growing up in Malaysia, mental health was not seen as a thing that existed, and autism was equated with “completely out of it boy”. I was assessed for it as a non-verbal child and got told I can’t be autistic because I was “too responsive”. It took me AGES to get an ADHD diagnosis because every other place I went to was like “you would have been diagnosed as a child” – hello, where I came from they don’t believe ADHD exists, what do you want me to do??? reform the system in school?????

    What really upset me though was the assessment itself. It was done by 2 people, one for the main assessment and one specifically for communication skills, which was the main reason I wanted to get assessed in the first place. The main person was pleasant enough, but the comms skills person was just a hot mess of White fragility. Whenever I tried to explain to her that some of my difficulties have come from racism, she got all bothered and claimed that I didn’t see her as an ally or whatever. And to top it off, her report was so poorly written (typos and all) that I was like, how are YOU the communications skills person??? I complained to the first one and she apologised, and I did eventually get my diagnosis, but because of that woman I’m kinda suspicious about it now.

    1. thejeff

      A lot of it’s tied to insurance in the US. With many policies, if you’re not referred by your GP (primary care physician), insurance won’t cover it. In that case, self-referral isn’t really a thing. So, even if your own policy doesn’t work that way, the normal pipeline does. GPs will do referrals for pretty much anything – or they’ll act as gatekeepers and block referrals.

      1. JBento

        As someone who enjoys being neither dead nor bankrupt, it’s amazing how every single thing I hear about the US makes me happy I’m not American.

      2. Creatrix Tiara

        Insurance (neither Medicare nor private) doesn’t cover adult assessments in Australia either, it’s all out of pocket and can cost hundreds of dollars. It being an option in the US makes the US actually better in this regard.

  79. Cerusee

    So much for Dina and Joyce bonding over this!

    Somehow I am not surprised.

    1. Eldritchy

      I thought Dina might defend Joyce from being “babied” but instead it’s just another item for the “Why I dislike Joyce” basket.

      1. Cerusee

        Yeah, I think Dina is at BEC-levels of animosity towards Joyce at this point.

        1. Eldritchy

          Yup she is getting unhealthily hostile towards Joyce.

        2. Rose Red

          What does BEC mean in this context? Google isn’t giving me anything helpful. I’m pretty sure it’s not “bacon egg and cheese”.

        3. Taffy

          Bongo Eating Crackers. As in, “Look at that bongo eating crackers over there, like she owns the place.”

        4. Rose Red

          Thanks!

        5. Cerusee

          As Taffy said. It refers to when you dislike someone so much that even innocuous things about them annoy you, just because it’s them.

        6. Rose Red

          Makes sense, thank you!

  80. Jon

    Man, today is just not Joyce’s day, huh?

    1. Needfuldoer

      Just wait until Becky catches up with them!

  81. Rabisch

    Dina doesn’t like Joyce more and more and that doesn’t seem to have any chance of decrease. I actually like this situation and can understand Dina’s antipathy/envir/rage for Joyce and her incredible luck in finding a good and supportive doctor on the first try. I hope Dina goes to see the doctor and she has the same luck. Hoping that the expert she sends them from is really good..

  82. Pylgrim

    Even Sarah seems unwilling to touch that one.

  83. aelfwine

    Discuss with friends about your super-angst over your referral to be diagnosed of autism. Be yelled at by random hostile eavesdropper over something that’s not your fault.

    Dina’s being super-shitty to Joyce right now.

    1. Taffy

      I really don’t see how Dina is “yelling at Joyce” or “hostile” in this strip. I think people are looking for things that aren’t there.

      1. Rogue 7

        She’s glaring daggers at her and emphasizing “all *you* needed”. I would definitely read that as hostile.

        1. Needfuldoer

          It’s an envious hostility.

        2. Taffy

          It’s a more verbose version of “Oh, come on!”, at the absolute worst.

        3. Rogue 7

          I disagree. The narrowed eyes and staring directly at Joyce are what seal it for me- I would associate “Oh come on” with more of an upturned glance, ranting at the sky rather than a specific person.

          And her anger at Joyce is understandable- the dichotomy of her experience and Joyce’s, solely due to race, has got to be grating, especially coupled with her past experiences with Joyce insulting her neurodivergence. But Joyce isn’t to blame for the system, and I don’t think she deserves hostility for being lucky.

        4. Taffy

          Yeah, I think disagreeing is as far as this one’s gonna go. I’m just not gonna meet you at your level of assumed malice.

        5. BBCC

          Even if she is angry at Joyce, it doesn’t need to be Joyce’s FAULT for someone to be angry about her getting an unfair advantage.

          As for “random hostile eavesdropper” – WHY are so many people pretending Dina isn’t part of this friend group?

        6. Jodka

          I think it’s less people pretending that she’s not part of the group, and more the fact that she’s not part of that class.

        7. Mackabre

          She’s part of the friend group but she wasn’t part of the conversation until she made herself part of it

        8. BBCC

          Sure, but just because she wasn’t part of the initial conversation doesn’t make her some hostile rando just barging in.

        9. Cerusee

          Fair! She’s not a hostile rando in this conversation. She’s a hostile known person.

        10. Taffy

          Y’all jump at shadows constantly, I swear. What hostility? Ooh, she frowned and spoke intensely, aaah, send in the SWAT team.

        11. thejeff

          @Mackabre: Which is basically how friend groups work unless there’s much more effort than this to keep things private.

        12. Cerusee

          The, uh, history of hostility Dina has exhibited to Joyce? They may belong to the same friend group, but they are not friends, and they don’t like each other, and among their more recent interactions was Joyce dismissing Dina with a slur and Dina telling Joyce she’s probably an asshole *because* her parents beat her.

          I know it’s one of those things that’s been played for comedy, but Dina *really* does not like Joyce and has said so many, many times, over the past several years of comics. It’s weird that people think they’re friends when there’s probably a couple of dozen of examples of Dina fending Joyce off like she’s Dracula, and absolutely not one single moment, ever, where Dina evinced any interest in Joyce as a person behind what Joyce has to offer her about Becky’s childhood. The Dina-Joyce dynamic right now is Joyce being civil to Dina while Dina treats Joyce like a coin-operated fortune-teller about Becky-related matters.

    2. Alex

      Sometimes when we’re upset about things we do make it about ourselves. I think that’s pretty normal honestly.

  84. Rose Red

    I’m a little sad that one of my headcanons – that Dina, like me, is the daughter of Asian-American immigrants – is wrong.

    I’m also upset at her here. Yes, what she went through is bad, but… this conversation wasn’t meant for you. Be angry at Joyce all you want, but don’t pretend you’re going to respect her medical privacy (as long as she doesn’t have a public meltdown) and then interrupt a conversation, ask her more questions, and make it louder for everyone else to hear.

    Speaking of everyone else, this would be a wonderful time for Becky to walk in on the conversation.

    Also: Yes, Joyce doesn’t have a diagnosis yet, and Dina must have gotten several referrals. But there’s a big difference between “hey, I suspect something, here’s a referral” and “okay fine, if you insist, here’s a referral but I don’t think it’s actually anything “.

  85. John

    Totally get why Dina is angry, and she has every right to be, but don’t approve of her directing it Joyce. Hopefully this is just a kneejerk reaction to her own shitty treatment and she will redirect the anger away from Joyce.
    Best thing Joyce could probably do is try to empathize “I’m sorry that you had to deal with that, that really sucks.” Hopefully that will diffuse the situation, if not, well, she should just walk away. Its not her fault Dina had a shitty experience, and she should not be subject to anger for it.

    1. Eldritchy

      Yeah, Joyce got this referral because she was Very VERY Lucky. If the Doctor Lady didn’t have an autistic child Joyce would probably never even get on the path of diagnosis.

    2. UnDrewsual

      I don’t think she’s directing it at Joyce. Her current phrasing might sound like it, but I think she’s just realizing that she might have been subjected to institutionalized racism and had never considered it before now.

    3. Alex

      I think there is a subtle distinction between being angry at someone and being angry while discussing something with them.

      1. thejeff

        But one that’s very easy to miss when it appears the anger is coming in your direction.

  86. Sajuuk-Khar

    Dina has made angry eyes at Joyce, which of course means that she is one of history’s greatest monsters and her crime coefficient has just jumped to 567

    1. Taffy

      A brow has been furrowed. Alert the nearest world leader and instruct them to prepare for the worst. We might not make it out alive.

    2. BBCC

      But but but

      She might be ANGRY at a pretty white girl for benefitting from white privilege! That’s not allowed!

      Real talk, this comment section can get VERY defensive of Joyce. My personal favourite was way back when I got annoyed she kept going into people’s rooms, getting in their faces, and screaming things like ‘wakey wakey’ in the morning and a bunch of people were like ‘But she’s SO CUTE and she doesn’t know any better! She’ll learn, just be patient’ as if it hadn’t been over half a decade by that point.

      1. thejeff

        But then she did learn and people still bring it up as huge crime that justifies her being attacked. (Metaphorically, at least.)
        Plenty of people brought it up to justify Dina barging in on her to ask about spanking, for example.

        Part of the problem of course is the time distortion. In her time scale, Joyce’s progress over the first semester was unrealistically fast, dropping multiple life-long prejudices in a matter of weeks if not days. From ours we saw her repeating stuff for years on end.

        1. BBCC

          Yes, eventually she did. She most certainly had not at the time I said it. I’m not saying every criticism of Joyce is right and fair (case in point, there’s plenty that was said about her and Becky’s issues that I don’t think are fair). But I do think that a lot of the time, the comment section is VERY defensive of Joyce and sometimes it gets grating to me.

          The time distortion doesn’t help but it’s not really the core of what I’m saying.

        2. thejeff

          Well, I mentioned it because of the “over half a decade” part, which probably translates to about a month.

          The comments sections is alternately overly defensive and overly harsh on particular characters, mostly depending on who’s in conflict at the moment, with very little in between. (Which is actually probably unfair. Observational bias. The more extreme comments stand out and also spark arguments, so there tend to be more of them.)

        3. BBCC

          Okay, I think I get what you mean now. I mentioned the over half a decade part as that was when I said it, with no sign of improvement on Joyce’s part at the time (other than she no longer did it to Sal because Sal’s instinct is ‘strangle’). What can I say, it wore thin.

          I do think that it’s true that the comments section tends to go back and forth on different characters depending what’s going on. This kinda reminds me of when Sal first got angry at Walky from benefitting from their parents racism fuelled favouritism. At first, Sal was called every name in the book in the comments section but over time it seems like the consensus shifted to her resentment being, if not 100% justified, as understandable. I wonder what’ll happen with this one.

        4. thejeff

          Or the arguments over whether Sal or Amber was the monster who basically deserved to die, because of what they did at 13.

          What we do here is essentially catastrophize, whenever characters come into conflict, even mild conflicts like here. We lose the idea that all of these characters have flaws and they’re always going to screw up and hurt each other from time to time and instead turn one into a monster who deserves whatever comes their way and pretend the other can do no wrong and must be protected at all costs.
          Even the mildest defense of one puts you on the other team and is treated as an attack on the other.

          Here, I think Dina’s being unfair by letting her anger spill over onto Joyce, who’s very likely not in any state to deal with it right now, but at the same time, Dina’s anger is perfectly understandable as is letting some of it be directed at Joyce. I like them both. I can let them screw up and still like them.

        5. BBCC

          NGL, the comment section doing that with Joyce and Becky has pretty much made me step back from this comment section a little bit so I definitely think you’re on to something.

          That said, I don’t really think Dina’s exactly ‘wrong’ here. It’s natural to be angry not just about the systemic bullshit going on in our lives, but it’s also normal to sometimes resent the people who benefit from it. As I’ve said before, it might not be my Guy Friend’s FAULT that systemic misogyny exists, but when he sits there telling me that his biggest worry about meeting this new partner is that she’ll be boring or ugly vs. being someone who will harm them? No, but in that moment? Yeah, sometimes I hate my friend. Is that ‘fair’? Maybe not, but he still has a tangible systemic advantage over me that he is expressing in that moment and yeah, I resent him for it. I don’t think that’s worth shaming or moralizing over as something BAD or WRONG that Dina does. It’s not as if she’s harmed Joyce in any way – she bluntly laid out exactly the systemic bullshit she’s dealt with that Joyce isn’t going to have to. It’s not a good time for poor Joyce? I love her to death, don’t get me wrong, but tough. It probably wasn’t a good time for Dina either when it happened but it did. Joyce can at least handle hearing about it.

      2. hatman

        The entire arc is about Joyce being coddled and how she hates it, and that’s what the comments are doing.

    3. Rogue 7

      I’m a bit tired of the statement “Joyce doesn’t deserve to be a target for Dina’s (justified) anger at an unjust system” being taken as though folks
      a) want Joyce to be immune to criticism
      and
      b) suddenly despise Dina.

      1. Taffy

        Maybe Dina should stop commiting war crimes against Joyce, then.

        1. Rogue 7

          That’s…got no real relation to what I said.

        2. Taffy

          Hasn’t it?

        3. Rogue 7

          No. It’s a gross exaggeration of what people are saying Dina did wrong. I don’t think I’ve seen a single person say that Dina’s wrong to be angry about the situation, only that Joyce shouldn’t be her target. And the majority of people who say that (myself included) are also saying that they certainly understand why she’s making this mistake. The hyperbole isn’t helpful, in my opinion.

        4. alongcameaspider

          I’m not even sure she’s making that mistake, I can see how it looks like she’s angry with Joyce, she’s angry while talking to Joyce, but I don’t see anything that indicates to me that Joyce specifically is what she’s angry about

        5. BBCC

          Even if she IS angry at Joyce, I’d hardly call it a ‘mistake’. Joyce IS benefiting from some systemic bullshit that comes at the expense of Asian women like Dina (among others). That might not be Joyce’s FAULT, but she does benefit from it and I’m hard pressed to say Dina isn’t allowed to be angry or resentful of her for it. Especially since it’s unlikely to last super long.

  87. April Powered

    Racism? In an American institution??? I’m shocked! Shocked I say!!

    Well, not that shocked.

  88. Vulcanodon

    Oof, Dina, you poor girl.

    Also when Joyce finds out Dina and Becky had sex, she’ll be; “Any other time I’d have a strong reaction but I’m a bit overloaded right now…”

  89. Tunasammich

    Dina might be jumping the gun a bit—there’s still plenty of time in this process for Joyce to be patronized and dismissed and told she just needs to “actually listen to people” and take lexapro or something (speaking from experience here lol)

    1. Eldritchy

      Yeah, she didn’t get the referral because of her race (The Doctor Lady is Black anyway! Though between Black and Asian people that might be a different can of worms…) but because she got EXTREMELY lucky that Doctor Lady has an Autistic child and knows what to look out for.

      1. BBCC

        A) Dr. Kaur, based on her last name, probably is South Asian.

        B) Racism doesn’t just manifest as ‘You get this referral because you’re white’. It also manifests as ‘You’re not autistic, just ESL’ because Dina is East Asian. Joyce doesn’t have to deal with that because she’s white and is therefore assumed to be from the States. That is Joyce benefitting from white privilege, even if it isn’t Joyce’s ‘fault’.

        1. Eldritchy

          Dina might see it this way but in reality Joyce didn’t even benefit from “white privilege”, just from being lucky that the Doctor had an autistic child.

        2. BBCC

          No, this is still something Joyce does benefit from. She’s never going to see a doctor in the states and be brushed off as ‘just ESL’. Whatever other roadblocks she has if and when she goes to her referral, that will not be one of them.

        3. Eldritchy

          We are talking about This particular situation. I am fully aware there are Other potential situations.

        4. BBCC

          And in This particular situation, Joyce is not going to face the same roadblock Dina did. She was seen as ‘potentially autistic’ right away and given a referral. Dina, according to her here, has always been brushed off as ‘just ESL’. That is where the white privilege kicks in.

        5. Eldritchy

          Except their situations are not similar at all? Joyce got a Referral, as in, nothing is decided yet and she’ll be seeing doctors who will diagnose her, same as Dina was and she might face the same hardships Dina did.

          The Doctor Lady she met was NOT a Psychologist or Psychiatrist, she just got Lucky that this Doctor was familiar with Autism enough to put her on the Path of Diagnosis, nothing happened yet.

        6. JBento

          I think that Eldritchy’s point isn’t that white privilege in the US healthcare system (or anywhere else) isn’t a thing, it’s that Dr. Kaur might very well give Dina the same referral if she shows up for a consultation. The reverse (that the doctors who said Dina isn’t autistic would say the same of Joyce) is a very hard sell, though – at the very least, they would certainly not say that it’s because she’s “English second language.”

        7. Eldritchy

          @JBento Kind of, yeah. I see it as Dina misunderstanding the situation in a very major way. She thinks that Joyce just went to the first Doctor and she was told “Here is your diagnosis! It was nice and easy and didn’t require months if not years of hardship!”. In reality Joyce has Nothing yet, Dina Started off by seeing psychologists, Joyce didn’t even do that yet, she didn’t even cross the Start line yet so there can be plenty of hardship ahead of her. White Privilege was just not involved in any way with Joyce getting the referral.

        8. Joyfulldreams

          That’s…not what’s happening.

          Dina is not upset because Joyce got a diagnosis, she is not confused. She is upset because within 30 minutes of speaking to a random doctor, about a completely unrelated issue, the doctor listened to Joyce enough to both notice her neurodivergence and acknowledge it as a possibility.

          Whereas Dina has only ever been completely dismissed outright by doctors who, despite many many hours of DIRECT attempts to talk about this SPECIFIC issue, refuse to even listen to her for long enough to know and acknowledge what languages she speaks, JUST because of the color of her skin.

        9. Eldritchy

          @Joyfulldreams That’s my point, Dina is upset at something that happened by Pure Chance, by Pure Luck. White Privilege was not involved, what was involved was Pure Luck of the Doctor having an Autistic child.

        10. BBCC

          White privilege IS involved though. Not so much in getting the referral, but in the fact that Joyce is not going to deal with the ‘Eh, she’s just ESL’ bullshit when she sees her psychologist. It’s not a misunderstanding. It’s someone going to a doctor for an unrelated issue and getting a REFERRAL to a specialist because they noticed Joyce enough to go ‘oh, hey, might be autistic’ as opposed to going to her family reaching out to multiple doctors on their own (which means their insurance probably isn’t involved because the US is a garbage fire) and being told over and over, no, she’s just ESL.

          Even if Joyce doesn’t get the diagnosis right away, she’s NEVER going to face ‘the same hardships Dina did’ BECAUSE SHE IS WHITE and not going to be assumed to be an immigrant who just hasn’t mastered English yet. THAT is what Dina is talking about and why she is angry.

        11. thejeff

          White privilege very often looks like nothing special happening. That’s kind of the point of white privilege and why it’s so hard for white people to see.

        12. BBCC

          What thejeff said.

  90. Frogalog

    The number of autistics in America has risen sharply over the years. Years ago, there would be radio ads mentioning the how many children would be diagnosed with autism. One year, it would be something like 1 in 100. The next, it would be 1 in 80. I think it got down to around 1 in 50 at one point. Then the ads just… stopped. And I bet they stopped, because it was making more and more people question what the heck was causing all this. All the anecdotes here regarding increased difficulty in getting a diagnosis may be a sign that efforts are being made to try and keep the numbers down so it appears things are not getting that much worse, keep people from wondering.

    1. Taffy

      Yeah… more autistic people existing/being aware of their autism, I don’t really know if that’s what we wanna call “things getting worse”. You might wanna rethink that phrasing.

      1. Icalasari

        I think (hope) that they mean in the eyes of politicians and idiots

        1. Taffy

          Usually I assume that if a person has left such important information out, it wasn’t something they intended to include. Or to put it the opposite way: If that’s what they meant, then they should have included either one of those words.

    2. dalniente

      Nothing is causing more autism, we just have a broader understanding of what the disorder can look like. Plus, autistic folks who might have found ways to fly under the radar in previous decades are running into more and more difficulties in our increasingly complex, noisy modern world. Increased difficulty in getting a diagnosis can be attributed to more people realizing something is up, and USING that broader understanding to seek diagnosis and treatment from medical practitioners who still cling to the outdated understanding. Whether you get a doctor who listens to you and pays attention to new research is a total toss-up. But Taffy is right: more people understanding their struggles and the complications of their own brains is not “worse.”

      And it’s “autistic people,” not “autistics,” thanks.

    3. thejeff

      In addition to all the other huge red flags that post throws up that others commented on, I don’t think any one’s been saying it’s getting more difficult to get diagnosed, just that it’s hard and that there are gender and racial factors that make it harder for women and people of color than for white boys.

    4. Alex

      You’ve seen that graph of left-handed people, where the number increases steadily as being left-handed becomes socially acceptable, but then levels off over time?

      1. Taffy

        Well clearly, that’s just people hoppin’ on that newfangled left-handed bandwagon to be different and earn brownie point and show off how special they are.

        (Big whoppin’ /S there)

    5. Proxiehunter

      The number of autistics has remained the same. We’re just more likely to be diagnosed instead of dismissed.

      1. Taffy

        Imagine how it’d look if people stopped murdering us, too.

        1. Bob

          Well, it’s s toss between sheer incompetence and racism, right?

  91. Bagge

    Perhaps Dina didn’t tell the psychologists enough interesting dinosaur facts?

    1. Taffy

      I don’t think anyone really tells their psychologists enough interesting dinosaur facts. It’s a horrible epidemic and needs to be set right.

  92. dalniente

    Dina could try the doctor Joyce saw? Maybe then? Still a roll of the dice on the possibility of medical racism, but at least she’d be seeing a doctor who 100% knows girls can even HAVE autism.

  93. Cheshrin

    You know… this might actually be a good oppurtunity for Dina?

    Like, Dr. Kaur was a woman of color, and barring adoption it’s likely her daughter is, too, which means that she’s probably aware of how difficult it can be for women of color to get an autism diagnoses in the first place. Dina could go to her and be like “hey my family’s been trying to get me a diagnosis for years but people kept assuming I was just ESL because I’m not white” and Dr. Kaur could be like “ah yep been there.”

    I mean, yes, also, referrals are not diagnoses and going to get a referral from Dr. Kaur might just end with another repeat of the cycle Dina’s talking about here, but god damn it, let me cling to my hopeless optimism of things going right for people for two seconds.

    1. Rabisch

      Fingers crossed. I hope that too.

    2. Username Taken

      Speak that positive outcome into existence!

    3. RassilonTDavros

      Here’s hoping!

  94. KSClaw

    Sometimes we got the Priviledge card, sometimes it’s the doctor not being convinced.

    I’m 36 and only got an “official” diagnose last year. First time I learned of the possibility was back in 2017 when I was on a temporary work internship, and my boss pinged me because he recognized all the signs, being much higher on the spectrum himself (to the point where he actually had a… I won’t say caretaker, but an assistant.)

    Said professional I tried talking to after, as a way to possibly help me workwise, wrote me off as “low on the spectrum” because “I could look her in the eye when I talked to her.”

    I talked to my sister about it later, and we both agreed that it probably didn’t occur to her that it’s because I’ve spent my life being raised without awareness about things, that I’ve “learned” such things.

    My second attempt had the professional ask me direct questions, along with sending me a questionaire for me to fill out, and I went through it together with my mom, who could point out things she remembered me doing through my childhood (doing certain things, averting others etc.) After about 5 sessions in total (counting two sessions I had with my doctor, who much like the one Joyce saw was reminded of her own daughter when talking to me), the professional could conclude that I have both autism AND ADD. So there’s that.

    And as others have pointed out, Joyce has not been to see anyone yet. She’s only gotten a referral. For all we know, that person will either be very good at what they do, or the same type Dina had to deal with. We’ll see if she’ll get a professional who can guide Joyce in a way that will make her accept things about herself, or if they’ll be one of those… maybe unintentionally condescending fools.

  95. Skeptible

    If Joyce did get a diagnosis of some degree of autism, what changes in her life could she expect?

    1. Taffy

      For starters, she’d get a lot more people telling her she’s a liar on the daily.

    2. Sam

      She could get medication (many people with autism have some level of anxiety), counseling, coping mechanisms, scripts for how to explain herself, tools for how to work around executive dysfunction/hyperfocus.

      It would really depend on what Joyce felt she needed help with most though.

      1. asmodai

        It is safe to say that Joyce does have some level of anxiety and could get medication and/or counseling for that, autism or not.

      2. Laura

        Also, I don’t know about currently, but back when I was more active in the community (20-15 years ago) there were ASD-specific medications and therapies.

  96. Emmanuel

    Had the same problem – bunches of psychologists, ADHD diagnoses, finally burning out, losing everything, and getting an autism diagnosis years later. Dina getting a diagnosis earlier was more difficult than Joyce’s because of intersectionality problems on neurodivergency, so I definitely relate to her anger.

    I see so many people getting a diagnosis and support in a fraction of the time and I get so infuriated. That resentment is powerful.

  97. Icalasari

    Woo boy, Dina is now angry with Joyce

    1. Icalasari

      Note that I do see the racism issue in this. Just saying that I was hoping the two could bond. But now this may cause more issues between them and potential issues for Becky as she may be forced to choose between the two

      And with how Becky is, I wouldn’t be surprised if she tried to get both then lost both in the process

    2. Alex

      I think she is upset with Joyce’s privilege, which is not the same as being angry at her but Joyce may not grasp the nuance.

      1. Icalasari

        I do think it’s at least some anger at Joyce, probably due to residual anger at Joyce’s comments before about Dina “Being a Robot”

        “Oh sure I’M a ‘robot’ but YOU get excused because Autism!? Really!? REALLY!? So the system favours the white girl again!” sort of deal

  98. cmd1095

    Ah see Dina’s experience is more like what I put up with, and I’m not facing the racism aspect, it’s just super hard to get diagnosed as an adult when you weren’t as a child. It’s just kinda assumed you’d have figured it out as a kid and if you didn’t you have to do a bunch of extra shit to prove it.

  99. Alex

    Oh my god that’s terrible someone please tell me this isn’t a thing that actually happens. Oh no wait this is America.

  100. not someone else

    I feel like trying to hair’s-breadth analyze the specific facial expression and body language of an autistic cartoon lady for whether there’s malice or not is going to have a high degree of error.

    Source: getting constantly screamed at for Having Emotions at the wrong time because they must be being had At People, having people insist I mean some bizarro-world version of what I’m saying based on random shit my face is supposedly doing, trying desperately to talk people down from accusing me of some malicious Xanatos gambit over the subject of, like, what we should get for groceries or some fuckshit.

    She certainly might be trying to imply things at Joyce, but it is really best to wait and see.

    1. Alex

      Oh my god my parents were like this. You’re upset about something and complaining? It’s not fair of you to be mad at your dad about it!

      1. Taffy

        Jesus Parallel Parking Christ, yes. Everybody honks and moans about a lack of eye contact, “LOOK AT ME, LOOK AT ME” like they’re fucking Ghost Rider, but when you try to follow that basic demand*, well guess what, that’s wrong too. Because it was fine when you Had An Expression and it was pointed anywhere else, but since you weren’t able to flawlessly snap your face into exactly the specific one they wanted (which they don’t even know) the second your neck turned vaguely in their direction, now it’s a federal fucking issue and they’re moments away from calling the police.

        *Not courtesy, demand. It’s actually not “more polite” to point your eyeballs at another person’s eyeballs, they’re just trying to alpha-male you and it’s a scam.

        1. BBCC

          Okay, I’m sorry because I know this is a venting comment about a problem and I’m sorry people are so shitty to you, but “Jesus Parallel Parking Christ” just made my day. Thank you for your way with words, Taffy!

        2. Taffy

          I can’t take credit for this one. That belongs to Robert Benfer, from a bizarre video he made years and years ago.

          https://youtu.be/rq5NLa5kxAY

        3. BBCC

          Then kudos for introducing me to an A+ reference. I applaud your taste.

    2. Taffy

      “having people insist I mean some bizarro-world version of what I’m saying based on random shit my face is supposedly doing”

      Oh my fucking god, this one gets so goddamn old. My face just doing stuff, alright? It’s a face, they do stuff, get the fuck over it and stop cowering in fear because my eyebrows went slanted for a billionth of a second. The overanalysis of facial expressions isn’t just unfun and overly severe, it’s exhausting. And frankly, most of the time the conclusions being made don’t even fucking line up with how people would interpret an allistic person’s identical expressions, so it’s even more distressing.

  101. jhennaside

    Just tossing in MY experience- for contest, my family is white and we live in the PNW where it’s pretty ASD friendly.

    My step-son was diagnosed at age 9 after fighting to be seen by somebody about it for nearly 3 years. He started school in another state and they said he was just an unruly kid with anger issues and would punish him all the time. Here in the PNW it took forever to get him seen, but was mostly painless once we got him the appointments. This was the mid-00s

    My daughter (now 9) took 2 years to diagnose and a fight to get seen that lasted a few months. They kept brushing it off as a “developmental delay” and it was rough finding the right people to work with her- she ended up at a preschool that was AMAZING. She’s verbal but quiet.

    When she was getting diagnosed, my son (now 7) started showing signs that he was also having issues with speach – because of our family history with ASD he was “fast tracked” and seen within 3 months of ASD being spoken of and diagnosed at age 2 – I’m not sure if all the therapy paid off, or if he was misdiagnosed, but he’s a social butterfly who is very chatty. I think he may actually be ADHD – but due to his siblings, he was seen SUPER fast and I was able to take advantage of all the help there was to offer.

    As an adult I was diagnosed ADHD and it wasn’t actually hard at all to get seen and diagnosed – as a kid, I was CLASSIC ADHD Girl symptoms, but ADHD didn’t become “mainstream” till I was a teenager, and by then I had plenty of masking behavior in place.

    So, there’s MY experience – but keep in mind we’re pretty Neuro Divergent friendly here in the PNW

  102. Darkoneko

    So that’s what she was thinking about uh.
    But, Dina, it’s not Joyce’s fault.

  103. Dierna

    Joyce is bloody lucky that some rando doctor saw the signs in her. Males get diagnosed ALOT more than females. I wasn’t diagnosed till I was 30. It was years of seeing various so called specialists before one realised that I was indeed Aspergers (now just Autism Spectrum Disorder). Growing up most people just chocked it up to “Oh she’s just shy…” My family would force me to do stuff I didn’t want to. After I was diagnosed they just let me be me and realised other family members (even ones since passed) could have possibly be ASD. Since then thanks to me other family members have been diagnosed at much younger ages.

  104. Izzy

    god when they gave me a bunch of tests and forms to fill out, one of the questions they asked was race, and I was only allowed to pick ONE, which was INFURIATING. (Like. You’d think that in a medical context they might remember mixed race people exist, but no.) She put me down as Asian instead of white, I guess since “white is the default,” but now I get to wonder whether categorizing myself as white would have made me more or less autistic lmao.

  105. Black

    Welcome to systemic racism and sexism in the US medical industry!

    I fucking hate it here.

  106. wilddeath

    my baby cousin (she’s like 5 now i should probably stop calling her a baby) was incredibly lucky that not only was my mom (her grandma’s sister) was a speech and language pathologist, but my dad worked for the board of education specifically with special education programs all across New York. As such not only were they both qualified to recognize the signs of autism (if not diagnose it) but their network of work contacts and friends included the people who could get my baby cousin a proper evaluation and the help she needs.

  107. Nicoleandmaggie

    I didn’t read all 600 comments but I did read about half of them…

    One important thing I didn’t see discussed is how brilliantly this sequence is contrasting Joyce’s concern about getting the label as if it is a bad thing and Dina’s anger that she didn’t get the label because the label is a good thing.

    And then there are exact parallels between Joyce’s religious upbringing where the labels matter more than actions and Dina’s where truth and science (which uses labels) are so important. This storyline is Brilliant.

    (And then Dorothy’s pragmatic little thing about you still being you, label or not.)

    I hope that Joyce gets that point from Dina— if she is autistic then having the label can help. The label isn’t itself a problem if it is accurate. And I hope she learns to think of science as a science and not a replacement religion. There’s a lot of deprogramming to do.

    1. The Wellerman

      Uh….. about the autism label being a good thing because labels are used in science?

      I’m a STEM major, and one who has suffered a LOT because of the way the “autism” label was used to subject me to legally justified torture, and extrapolate assumptions about me wherever I went.

      Scientifically, we know so little about the brain, the most complex structure in the known universe. Even in medicine, when it comes to untangling things, the best a professional can do is little better than a blind guess. But of course, people would rather much act on pretended knowledge, instead of accepting the uncertainty, the limitations of current evidence, the epistemology that forms the foundation of scientific thought in the first place.

      What people call “autism” is actually a very broad collection of neurodivergent stripes, conditions, and even personalities that are all haphazardly lumped together into one overly generic category. What’s true of one “autistic” can NEVER be assumed to be true of any other “autistic” you’ll meet out there. It can really tell us nothing about any individual brain, so it really isn’t useful as a scientific category at all.

      However, I learned the hard way that whatever is actually true about it doesn’t matter nearly as much as what people THINK is true, what misguided law makers think is true, what teachers think is true, how that compels them when they make decisions that effect people’s lives.

      If the “autism” label is the only way to get an intrinsically broken government to notice us and get financial help and make ends meet in a broken, intrinsically unstable capitalist system, so be it for now.

      It is also worth noting that the “professionals” who make these labels decades ago were definitely NOT so altruistic in intentions, basically the same people who said homosexuality was a mental disorder. The “autism” label by its very nature was never invented to help us as much as it was invented to make it easy for the powerful to look like they care when really they don’t. The word “autism” is actually Latin for “morbidly self-absorbed”, and that alone tells a lot about the AWFUL place these labels came out of without getting into the gruesome details.

      So yeah, about the science, we DEFINITELY need better descriptors, better ways to understand ourselves and for others to understand us. There’s a long road ahead and discussion that needs to happen, considering the AWFUL place this kind of science came out of.

      Thank you for taking the time to read, really feels good to process this in a more analytical, less cathartic fashion.

      1. marillius

        Autism has gotten about 90 different descriptors over the years, a lot of those people making those descriptors are rich white doctors but that doesn’t mean they are inherently evil, just inherently privileged, and many scientists and doctors working on autism are doing their best to help people with it.

        Also, no such thing as legal torture, unless you include starvation, homelessness and so on, which I doubt are the things you’re talking about. There are a lot of different plans to assist in the development of autistic individuals and some of them aren’t the best, but the only people that are legitimately doing something wrong are those trying to cure them.

        As someone who has been denied jobs for being autistic, despite how illegal that is (and it is illegal), the label has still helped me and others like me understand something. Maybe you have a different perspective, but honestly it sounds like a lot of high horse whining and exaggeration. I see a lot of that from people ‘fighting for autistics’ and some even pretending to be autistics that don’t have autism and it always pisses me off.

        1. The Wellerman

          “You know my favorite part about writing the abuse I went through, is people calling me a liar, it’s fucking wonderful.”

          And, might I ask, just what do you intend to achieve by gate-keeping the concept of “torture”?

        2. dalniente

          …wow.

  108. Friendly Frankenstein

    Yyyyeeeueuuuuuuup. Which. To be clear in this specific case, is very much ‘Joyce got a fucking hail mary doctor’.

    But yeah. it’s like this. Not only is it difficult to get a diagnosis if you’re not male, being nonwhite compounds things enormously. Let alone if you present unusually. I got assessed as a middle schooler and wound up being told I couldn’t be autistic because i was talkative and ‘made eye contact’. I do not make eye contact. I watch faces.

    Which I still do!! Because SOCIALIZING IS ONE OF MY SPECIAL INTERESTS. It’s a system with rules and I like figuring them out and it’s like driving a car with stick and a bad clutch but it’s fun. I’m extroverted! THAT HAPPENS. Then I spend my whole therapy session avoiding looking at the video call screen while I fidget with a toy and talk about my job where I talk about things!

    …all this to say… yeah… reasonable dina…. esp since I know she aint mad AT joyce just…. mad.

  109. JA

    Oh shit, blood’s about to flow….

    1. Taffy

      No, that was what instigated the doctor visit in the first place. It’s been flowing.

      1. BBCC

        That’s the second time today you made me crack up. You’re the best, Taffy.

      2. The Wellerman

        Seconded. Thanks for cheering us up.

        In spite of the bitterness, you make us laugh — with you around, life is that much sweeter.

        ???

  110. marillius

    I think this is the one time I’d say Dina can go fuck herself. It took me ages to get rediagnosed because, despite being diagnosed at a young age, my mother tossed it and the doctors number in the trash and paid another one to say I had ADHD because she didn’t want a ‘retard’ for a child. I didn’t even know until I was 18.

    The sheer relief I felt at learning it wasn’t entirely my fault that I didn’t understand some things was really cathartic. And learning from others with similar experiences online really helped me feel like what I was could be managed.

    If I had a friend, or at least a peer, who was autistic and approach me with hostility a mere hour after my diagnosis, I think I might literally assault them. Thankfully, Joyce is largely dealing with a lot of other stuff and is largely focused on all that, making the autistic diagnosis a far smaller issue for her then it was for me, at least in the immediate.

    Even so, for once my literal favorite character can literally go fuck themselves for this reaction, and anyone else supporting her. Joyce personally is not to blame for White Privilege. There is acknowledging it, and then there is taking it out on someone who was diagnosed with a mental deficiency they didn’t know they’d been living with for their entire lives mere moments after said diagnosis.

    1. BBCC

      Joyce is not to blame for white privilege, but she does benefit from it. Sometimes, even if you know that, it’s hard to not resent people – even a friend or a peer – for benefitting from things like that when it’s caused a major problem for you.

      For instance, you said it took ages to get diagnosed and to figure out what happened. If you had a friend/peer/whatever who had a much easier time doing that via entirely arbitrary systemic bullshit, you might resent them for a second, even if they are your friend. I think that’s a normal reaction – it might not be a FAIR one but just as Joyce didn’t ask for her white privilege, Dina didn’t volunteer to be marginalized for being Asian.

  111. PossiblyAlso

    Yeah, lemme put on Dina’s shoes here. This is so relatable.

  112. poyo

    oop, nevermind. bonding moment not happening lol

    1. poyo

      probably should’ve seen that coming. dina doesn’t seem to like joyce so i guess she would take that news differently

  113. spookyfox

    Why is everybody in this comment section so quick to dismiss a woman of color’s experience with racism? Is it because she’s mad in the direction of your beloved white woman character? Jesus.

    1. Wendy

      yep.

  114. Twig

    O h .

    Oh god.

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