welp, that giant can of worms and BAGGAGE just opened up here oh hai PTSD trigger
? Oh Joyce, honey, you didn’t need to tell them that anything that specific about the referral, if anything at all.
Whatever comes of this, whatever Joyce decides to do with this referral and its HEAVY implications, my biggest hope is that her friends totally and completely respect her wishes.
I know exactly what Joyce is feeling right now, how hard she’s trying to repress it, that spiral of emotions. ???
I know all too well how it feels to have the ability to decide for yourself who you are just RIPPED AWAY FROM YOU by the uncontrollable circumstances of your birth, and other humans, “professionals”, “friends” who act like what they’re doing is “compassion”.
She didn’t have to tell them anything, but it’s good that she did. Joyce is clearly having issues, and her friends(and Dina) are good people who have additional perspectives that she needs.
I’m sorry that this is a stress trigger for you! 🙁 Plus it sucks when people who are supposed to help don’t, or they assume what’s best for you and don’t get your input.
I had a doctor at a university clinic prescribe me an ADHD medication that had too many side effects at the dose where it actually worked – worsened anxiety and appetite loss (except for sugary stuff – I lost weight when I didn’t want to AND got like 4 cavities).
Not to knock the drug itself – I know at least two people who are doing great on Vyvanse – but different people react differently to the same stuff.
Anyway, he should have followed up better and listened to me about my symptoms. I was also annoyed because I assumed he was a psychiatrist and then found out he was a GP (in retrospect that’s understandable, because the school didn’t have infinite resources and my case wasn’t a life-or-death issue). When I did see a psychiatrist, she actually listened and was much more helpful…not that all psychiatrists are helpful, of course, but that one was!
A diagnosis is a mixed blessing. It puts you in a different drawer that might be a better place to work from. Similar to medication: in my case it increased productivity and decreased the already rather limited competency and patience I had dealing with people of perceived lower comprehension (essentially everybody). It was a net loss for being a productive member of society. Sometimes not being an asshole is important.
I once had a roommate I was randomly paired with in college bring in a bunch of her family (that I had never met) to “explain to me that I had Asperger’s Syndrome”. It almost felt like those interventions that you see on TV, except the only person I sort of knew was my roommate and they were going on about how it wasn’t a bad thing even though they were blaming my personality and reactions to some stuff on it. Considering I have a cousin that works scientifically on that syndrome and strongly said that I don’t have it, it was weird to say the least. After that, I really think that you have to be careful talking to someone about stuff like that even if you think that you are helping. Most people want someone to listen, and will let you know if they want your thoughts on the matter. I might not always be the best about it, but I try. I just know that your fifth paragraph really hits on the feelings that I had at the time. I know that some people find diagnoses like that helping as it can help explain things for them. That doesn’t mean that it’s that way for everyone. It can also sort of feel like they are saying that if it wasn’t for this condition you would be a better person. They might not mean it that way, but it can come across like that. Like a denial of the way you are being fine and normal, which can feel like a rejection of your very being, if that makes sense. Things like that are not something like a drug addiction, though it feels like it is treated like that with trying to train or use medication to get rid of it. Sorry if I am rambling, your comment just really struck me.
It sounds like your roommate was an asshole.
She used your supposed diagnosis as proof that the way she was is normal and the way you thought was weird.
Wellerman, you perfectly summed up what happened when my mom “diagnosed” me at 14. Yes, I did get a proper diagnosis and second opinion later, but by that point the scientific proof was comforting. That initial burn of my own mother taking solace in having an explanation for “what was wrong with me” completely took the foundation out from under a teenager. A foundation most kids question at that age anyway.
As awful as it is to be forced into outing yourself, the successive clarifications of her previous sentiments feels very on brand for many regions of the neuro-diversity spectrum. Over-sharing is a widely recognize trait within the community from what I have seen
Would the two necessarily connected? Unless being autistic also gives you hypersensitivity to pain/cramps, if I told a doctor I had menstrual pain, I wouldn’t expect them to also be like “Yeah, i think there’s something wrong with your mental state too/you’re definitely not neurotypical” or so (I mean i do also have social anxiety issues but that’s beside the point lol) But i know some women are more sensitive to cramps while one only get their period for like 3 days instead of the average full week as well
i’m assuming the doctor noticed some things about the way she acted and communicated
but who knows maybe she just has an autistic hoohah
Mturtle7
Somehow, “vaginal autism” barely provoked a reaction from me, but “autistic hoo-hah” nearly made me spit out my drink. Congratulations.
drs
does your vagina avoid eye contact?
Juanoku
It’s really late stop making me want to burst out laughing
Taffy
Shor’s bones, I really hope so.
StClair
Does it have special interests?
Does it often engage in repetitive activities, sometimes known as “stimming”?
Felgraf
*To Hakuna matata*
Vagina Ocula
A terrifying phraaseeee
Vagina Ocula
the horriffyiiinggg gaaazeeee
it means no more sleep!
For the rest of your daaayyysss
Felgraf
(Oh damn gravitar roulette did me justice this time)
Andrusi
Cloyster
drs
haha
Lily
idk if a doctor can ask about religious stuff but i wouldn’t think joyce’s family dynamic was too healthy growing up either but i never had religion forced upon me growing up
AlaninDC
Medical personnel at the college should have access to a student’s personal records as well, right?
Before I’d dangle an autism eval, I think I’d first flip thru that report and take a moment to ask, “Are you seeing someone to help you deal with the kidnapping last fall?”
Yeah, I feel like regardless of how she presented, a referral to talk to someone about trauma is an obvious choice given her history, both recent and extended.
Hyper sensitivity to pain absolutely can be one of the sensory difficulties that can present if you’re autistic. So can insensitivity to pain. I don’t think we’ve seen Joyce exhibit either though.
Laura
That comment she made earlier about “talking sounds like a chainsaw to my spine” might be a tip-off. Like a kind of synesthesia. Like how a lightbulb’s hum can sound particularly shrill to the point of causing physical pain in some folks on the spectrum.
Obsessive and zealous adherence to the precise and predictable rituals of religious observance might have been a very familiar and comforting routine for a person with spectrum traits, too. Just thinking about family history.
We (here meaning AFAB autistics) apparently have a high rate of menstrual disorders, on VERY brief Google Search. Now, granted, I didn’t look further to ‘how much higher compared to the general population,’ and it could just as easily be a ‘we’re more likely to get diagnosed because it’s harder to ignore the pain when your body CANNOT SHUT OFF ITS AWARENESS’ the way I suspect autistic people being queer and particularly trans is really more a reflection the rates are way higher but we’re way more likely to declare social rules silly and ignore them if they don’t make sense to us. But if the doctor was already aware of that statistic and getting pings of recognition at Joyce, I could see her bringing it up… and it is VERY easy to see Joyce failing to mask given the stress she’s under and the commentariat’s speculation for like, the last decade.
BUUUT, I should also note that there’s current research looking into a theory that endometriosis is in some way an autoimmune disorder, and that it has become increasingly obvious that Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is REALLY underdiagnosed because it was only formally codified in 2007 or so and doctors haven’t been trained to look for it. (MCAS being an autoimmune disorder that can have a WIDE variety of ripple effects throughout your body, and which is part of this cluster of frequently-connected conditions including Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome… both of which have VERY disproportionately high co-occurrence rates with autism, to the point where there apparently are in fact theories that there’s a causal link somewhere in there.) So like… there actually is a possibility the two are, in fact, actively connected, almost certainly through a third systemic condition that would be a massive pain in Joyce’s ass to manage whether it’s EDS, MCAS, or both. Having been on this particular journey the last several months… I admit I’d kind of like seeing Joyce’s freakout faces when she got some of the shit I’ve been dealing with, especially trying to manage the increasingly-troublesome dietary restrictions. I wouldn’t wish it on another human, but DAMN have I been relating to Joyce’s Handling Medically Necessary Life Changes Poorly crisis with glasses pretty hard the last few months.
It could also just be Willis introducing something for narrative convenience when a doctor’s appointment was already being set up to bring something autobiographical, which Willis has at least been increasingly publicly identifying with for a couple years now, into the comic and confirming a long-held fan-theory.
Incidentally, Willis, if this IS your way of publicly stating you’re autistic, whether on-paper diagnosed or elsewise… congrats, if they’re something you’d appreciate? I know people have a wide spectrum of feelings on the subject, especially with formal diagnosis since it can open the door for some active discrimination in formal settings (bias against us as parents with adoption or custody hearings, struggles to get medical care while autistic and trans because how could we ACTUALLY know our own brains, perceived lower quality of life when talking about medical triage situations like organ donation or life support – and I urge anyone who wants to ask further questions THERE to Google ‘autism COVID deaths’ or something to that effect because I will NOT be doing that explanation tonight – point being, there are issues even beyond the standard assumed autism/‘weird’ discrimination,) but I also know you’ve been at least somewhat publicly identifying it on Twitter and such for a while now, so inasmuch as it’s a ‘figuring out your own identity and being public about it,’ that can be anxiety-provoking and I appreciate it being stated in the text of your work. This is rambling. Whatever.
Regalli
… The spectrum pun in that last paragraph was not intentional. I so firmly claim ‘autistic’ as my identifier and have for years that I barely even THINK of the spectrum part anymore.
Kazuma Taichi
Unintentional and yet also perfectly applied puns seems to be a symptom of being on the spectrum too, I think
autogatos
*slides in* EDSer with MCAS and POTS here! And yup this is spot on. Studies have shown both Autism and ADHD occur at high rates in people with EDS (and perhaps related conditions). I just got diagnosed with ADHD myself (which seems to have a decent amount of symptom overlap with Autism as well, curiously enough).
Regalli
Technically I’m in a ‘we can’t diagnose it as hEDS because you don’t have the classic-type skin elasticity that distinguishes from HSD and any family member who COULD show a family history of hypermobility never got diagnosed before they developed arthritis even though there clearly IS familial hypermobility’ gray zone but hey, extremely similar hats. Internet gesture of solidarity.
autogatos
Oof I’m sorry. Tbh that seems so much like it just depends on the doctor. I don’t have extreme skin elasticity either and my dr told me not all hEDS patients do (I have basically every other symptom including doughy skin texture, bruising, dislocations, easily tearing skin, etc) so he said the stretchy skin wasn’t necessary for dx. Some drs are still following outdated views though and thinking it’s mandatory for dx. :/
Regalli
My doctor is actually quite good – she does think it’s EDS, just ‘yeah we can’t prove it until and unless they isolate that gene, and the diagnostic criteria are really specific now to the point they almost certainly have a few edge cases on either side in the wrong category, so we’re writing down HSD and treatment wouldn’t differ all that much anyway but you clearly have a connective tissue disorder.’ (I then got tested for other types.) I just like being specific and from what we can tell the connective tissue disorder may be ‘my immune system is attacking my collagen.’
My one grandma actually DID get diagnosed with hypermobility in her 40s (and didn’t tell us until I’d been diagnosed with hypermobility causing a repetitive stress injury,)… but she’s on the side of the family that isn’t where we have hypermobility, dysautonomia, balance, and GI issues all over the place, and none of her kids seem to have it. So we’re assuming it’s from the side where all my grandma’s siblings just cannot wrap their brains around the fact that it actually is unusual for one’s elbows to invert like that, because they can do it. What do you mean that’s not standard? (I love them all, they’re not being jerks about it, it’s simply so normalized that everyone in the family got growing pains that woke you in the night crying or can put their foot behind their head that the idea this ISN’T something everyone goes through does not compute. Fair enough, I missed the implication of my PTs telling me I hyperextended for years. A lot of weird genetic quirks on that side are now being reassessed.)
autogatos
And yeah I sympathize on the lack of family history too. I’m lucky my dr overlooked that as I didn’t actually find out my grandma was hyper mobile until literally last month, 6 years after my diagnosis. Neither of my parents have really obvious symptoms (though my dad and I share some health issues) so it was a mystery where I got it from until then.
autogatos
I kind of wonder if there’s another subtype division or if classifications will change again, as there seems to be a divide of some hEDS patients having stretchy skin (or maybe that’s more cEDS?) while tbh MOST of the ones I know don’t but just have extremely friable skin instead.
Icalasari
Wait wait wait
My hypermobility in my hips and knees could be due to my autism?
…The fuck is this disorder, the Blob?
deathjavu
It means we don’t understand what it is exactly, the disorder at present is closer to a loose grouping of symptoms rather than a traceable process failure. Because biochemistry and biology are really really really fucking complicated.
autogatos
We’re not sure about the correlation, it may be the other way around, or they may just be conditions linked to the same genes. We’re not really sure! I know some of the theories about the prevalence of Adhd in EDS patients are that reduced blood flow to the brain due to POTS (caused by stretchy veins) may play a role, but that’s just a theory and doesn’t necessarily explain it all, or what the autism link might be.
tl;dr it’s all a big mystery so far!
Uly
Oh, yeah, definitely. There are a lot of things which all seem to present with one another, and various stages of connective tissue issues (the hypermobility) and autism are well-known to be very heavily comorbid with each other.
Note: Also very likely connected to the hypermobility, because it’s all *connective tissue problems* are the following, if you have them –
Weird fainting spells
Weird heart problems
Migraines, including migraines without the headache part
Weird digestive issues, including but not limited to frequent bouts of constipation AND diarrhea
Weird hives – I can get hives just by carrying a cold can of soda or by scrubbing too hard in the shower
Anything at all having to do with the joints
Weird circulation issues
(This list is almost certainly incomplete.)
Normal people don’t say “Gosh, I have migraines AND weird joint issues, I wonder if those are connected?” they say “Welp, my grandma had weird joint issues and my mom has migraines, guess it’s just one of those things yay”, but if everything’s an issue, think “connective tissue”.
autogatos
^Can confirm all of the above Uly. All those things you describe are things I deal with. Definitely all part of the EDS/POTS/MCAS cluster.
LadySilence
hEDSer here as well. I’ve been suspicious about possible ADHD or ADD but my therapist ran me through a basic assessment and I wasn’t even close to borderline. Thankfully I don’t have POTS and no indication of MCAS, but I did get a weird “by the way you have ‘a little bit of’ endo” diagnosis during my fibroid surgery (he took the liberty of attacking the endo with lasers since he was already in there). UGH at all of the things.
autogatos
There are so many of us here! Hello fellow zebras!
And yeah I don’t know what it is specifically (inflammation or what) but almost everyone I know with EDS and a uterus seems to have various uterus/pms-related problems. I’ve never been formally dxd with anything like endo but I do get bad ovarian cysts and my periods were a NIGHTMARE pre-IUD. Much how Joyce’s have been.
Inahc
*waves*
what a day to check in on the comments section – while I was away I found out HSD exists *and* that I’d been misinterpreting the beighton score. I don’t get a diagnosis because canada is like “no diagnose, only treat” when it comes to hypermobility disorders 😛 but I’m halfway through doing Muldowney on my own anyways. I have a feeling I’ve ranted about my health when I was around here years ago.
I’m so glad I haven’t seen mcas or pots symptoms yet (or real period trouble)… having my muscles randomly try to tear themselves apart is quite disruptive enough 😛 and the brain fog still isn’t really gone… I’m not even sure if that’s from the muscle issues or something else, still.
sadly my brain is refusing to hyperfocus on the comments so I’m not likely to actually read all of this thread… er… I was actually supposed to be buying groceries online, lol
autogatos
Forgot the rest of what I was gonna write (see there’s the ADHD): So much of what Joyce has been dealing with, both in terms of “quirks” that’re likely autism symptoms, and her PMS stuff, have been super relatable to me as someone with EDS/MCAS and ADHD so yeah there’s definitely a lot of overlap and similarity in all of this.
Allandrel
While I obviously don’t know what relationship there may be between autism and various conditions that have higher reported incidence among autistic people*, I think that at least some of it is because we are looking, not at the rate of incidence, but at the rate of diagnosis. If you have access to the kind of care and support that will get you tested for one, then they will likely also test for and diagnose the other stuff you have. Same thing with the correlation between being autistic and trans.**
* Oh my but there are a lot of them – oddly I don’t seem to have much of the stuff on the list besides anxiety and depression, and I hold that those, as with their correlation with being LGBT – are due to how people treat autistic and LGBT folks rather than a result of them being autistic or LGBT.
** I should reiterate that I am not saying “THIS is the cause,” because I find the idea of such things have a sole, identifiable cause to be ridiculous. It’s far more likely to be an amalgamation of factors, the the cause in question is just one of them.
My mother’s oncologist asked her if I was autistic, after meeting me (with my mother) a few times. Not because she’s a specialist in autism, she’s not, she’s a cancer doctor and I’m not even her patient – but because she has an autistic daughter.
(Story of my life. People who know about autism peg me within minutes. People who don’t go “Oh, but you don’t seem autistic!” Yeah, I do, and that statement is not polite but rude.)
Regalli
Same. My immediate family can ping off walk/vocal cadence/general vibes pretty quickly because they know me. (They probably won’t bring it up unless you do first, though, because that quickly gets into rudeness territory. But if you do they’ll almost certainly say ‘oh cool, so’s my X, I thought that speech pattern sounded familiar.’) Neurotypicals with no frame of reference have been known to say things like that or ‘I never would have guessed!’ after asking me where my accent’s from. (The answer being: Right here. It’s the regional accent on an autistic vocal cadence. This is your accent on autism.) All depends on whether the observer’s tuned to the right signal.
Uly
Ah, autistic accent syndrome, I know it well, the very bane of my existence.
Though I have found that the further I get from NYC, the less likely it is that people will ask me where I’m from…. (Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn, and so’s my mom.)
ischemgeek
I actually appreciate autistic accent syndrome because since my accent is kind of vague and odd people usually don’t peg me as being rural in my upbringing so I usually escape regional stigma (the regional accent I’d have without it is stereotyped as stupid and hyperconservative. The stupid stereotype is not with merit but the hyperconservative stereotype very much is – the riding I spent most of my childhood in recently broke a decades long trend of voting Conservative only because there was a more extremist right wing candidate on the ballot. People when they find out where I was brought up usually make assumptions about me that I don’t want made about me. Particularly as a bi non-cis person.
So the more I can obfuscate being from where I’m from the better.
I hate how socially acceptable it is to be explicitly prejudiced against people with certain regional dialects.
Taffy
Your voice sounds slightly different than mine. We are enemies now.
Uly
Prejudice against a speech variety is a proxy for prejudice against that group of people.
The prejudice already exists. Mocking their speech is just how people express it.
Regalli
I find the comments on mine funny more than anything but yeah, my accent and region aren’t particularly stigmatized and I don’t care who I tell I’m autistic. Sucks that it works out for you in that way because of the societal prejudice.
Allandrel
Oh man, did I ever have that. As a teen I have had kids who grew up in the same neighborhood as me ask “Is that accent from like, England or something?”
One of those kids, in high school, also point at my St. Patrick’s cross pendant and asked if it mean I was “Like, a Satanist or something?”
Lovely Ohio.
Needfuldoer
I can spot it right away in others, but do my best to mask it myself. I can usually fly under the radar…
Lauralot
…Wait, my accent is because I’m autistic?
Well that explains a lot.
Taffy
Never once heard of this “accent” thing, but I get weird looks when I talk, so maybe people are too busy staring like I grew a third head to bring it up.
autogatos
Yeah this is a thing too. Maybe Joyce’s doctor has autism or an autistic family member! I first got on the EDS path because I happened to see an ortho who had it and realized I was hypermobile where every other previous ortho had missed it.
Often stress, being sick or being in pain increases cognitive load on autistic people so we’re less able to mask. It actually tracks for me that Joyce’s doctor might not see signs of autism in previous checkups but now that Joyce has a lot on her plate and is sick and sore to boot she can’t put on the cult personality she was indoctrinated to display.
autogatos
This 100%. My ADHD symptoms became less manageable the worse my chronic pain/illness got. If you have a condition that requires a lot of mental compensation (even if it’s subconscious), the more stress on your mind/body, the harder it’s gonna be to keep that up and continue to function.
As someone who is on the spectrum, sometimes I find that otherwise light contact or pressure can be overwhelming if I’m not expecting it, especially if I’m already stressed out
That said (and as a male I can only conjecture on this) I don’t think such a thing would necessarily apply to the regular pain of menstruation, especially since this only seems to happen to Joyce sometimes, and not every month
The previously stated theory that one of her ovaries is just very overactive is probably correct
The doctor most likely picked up on other signs of possible austism and, being a medical doctor and not a psychiatrist, referred her to someone who would actually be qualified to determine such a thing
I mean, it *can*. I’m hypersensitive to water and loud noises, and probably at least a third of the people I met at a local autism-spectrum support group had some kind of sensitivity too.
Srsly, just glad someone has recognized a problem that was shrowded by her getting homeschooled. With nobody to interact with except family who were used to her, her neurodivergence was probably just written off as “Joyce being Joyce”.
486 thoughts on “Plenty”
The Wellerman
??? ???
welp, that giant can of worms and BAGGAGE just opened up here
oh hai PTSD trigger? Oh Joyce, honey, you didn’t need to tell them that anything that specific about the referral, if anything at all.
Whatever comes of this, whatever Joyce decides to do with this referral and its HEAVY implications, my biggest hope is that her friends totally and completely respect her wishes.
I know exactly what Joyce is feeling right now, how hard she’s trying to repress it, that spiral of emotions. ???
I know all too well how it feels to have the ability to decide for yourself who you are just RIPPED AWAY FROM YOU by the uncontrollable circumstances of your birth, and other humans, “professionals”, “friends” who act like what they’re doing is “compassion”.
IT’S FUCKING AWFUL!!!!! ???
*plays “Rain” by the Seat Belts on hacked muzak*
Viktoria
She didn’t have to tell them anything, but it’s good that she did. Joyce is clearly having issues, and her friends(and Dina) are good people who have additional perspectives that she needs.
epitome of incomprehensibility
I’m sorry that this is a stress trigger for you! 🙁 Plus it sucks when people who are supposed to help don’t, or they assume what’s best for you and don’t get your input.
I had a doctor at a university clinic prescribe me an ADHD medication that had too many side effects at the dose where it actually worked – worsened anxiety and appetite loss (except for sugary stuff – I lost weight when I didn’t want to AND got like 4 cavities).
Not to knock the drug itself – I know at least two people who are doing great on Vyvanse – but different people react differently to the same stuff.
Anyway, he should have followed up better and listened to me about my symptoms. I was also annoyed because I assumed he was a psychiatrist and then found out he was a GP (in retrospect that’s understandable, because the school didn’t have infinite resources and my case wasn’t a life-or-death issue). When I did see a psychiatrist, she actually listened and was much more helpful…not that all psychiatrists are helpful, of course, but that one was!
David
A diagnosis is a mixed blessing. It puts you in a different drawer that might be a better place to work from. Similar to medication: in my case it increased productivity and decreased the already rather limited competency and patience I had dealing with people of perceived lower comprehension (essentially everybody). It was a net loss for being a productive member of society. Sometimes not being an asshole is important.
Kimi
I once had a roommate I was randomly paired with in college bring in a bunch of her family (that I had never met) to “explain to me that I had Asperger’s Syndrome”. It almost felt like those interventions that you see on TV, except the only person I sort of knew was my roommate and they were going on about how it wasn’t a bad thing even though they were blaming my personality and reactions to some stuff on it. Considering I have a cousin that works scientifically on that syndrome and strongly said that I don’t have it, it was weird to say the least. After that, I really think that you have to be careful talking to someone about stuff like that even if you think that you are helping. Most people want someone to listen, and will let you know if they want your thoughts on the matter. I might not always be the best about it, but I try. I just know that your fifth paragraph really hits on the feelings that I had at the time. I know that some people find diagnoses like that helping as it can help explain things for them. That doesn’t mean that it’s that way for everyone. It can also sort of feel like they are saying that if it wasn’t for this condition you would be a better person. They might not mean it that way, but it can come across like that. Like a denial of the way you are being fine and normal, which can feel like a rejection of your very being, if that makes sense. Things like that are not something like a drug addiction, though it feels like it is treated like that with trying to train or use medication to get rid of it. Sorry if I am rambling, your comment just really struck me.
temperaryobsessor
It sounds like your roommate was an asshole.
She used your supposed diagnosis as proof that the way she was is normal and the way you thought was weird.
WalkerOfSorrow
Wellerman, you perfectly summed up what happened when my mom “diagnosed” me at 14. Yes, I did get a proper diagnosis and second opinion later, but by that point the scientific proof was comforting. That initial burn of my own mother taking solace in having an explanation for “what was wrong with me” completely took the foundation out from under a teenager. A foundation most kids question at that age anyway.
Kazuma Taichi
As awful as it is to be forced into outing yourself, the successive clarifications of her previous sentiments feels very on brand for many regions of the neuro-diversity spectrum. Over-sharing is a widely recognize trait within the community from what I have seen
Ana Chronistic
This still autobiographical, Willis?
…what birth control did they prescribe you
*runs away*
Doctor_Who
A Transformers VHS. Didn’t work forever, though.
*scampers off*
Achallenger
Potato
Cale
I wish we could upvote comments.
StClair
Me too.
(Daaaamn.)
Amós Batista
No. It worked so well he stills talk about nowadays.
Gigafreak
If it worked so well, how’d he end up with TWO kids instead of ZERO
That’s infinity times more kids than intended. TWO infinities, even!
Despite Rage
No birth control is 100%, not even my looks or personality…
Joshua Kronengold
I mean, nearly all the characters are Willis. Also, nearly all of them aren’t.
Sirksome
Aw. Well good for Joyce. Diagnosis is the first step! We proud for her!
Wack'd
…vaginal autism?
Jon
The worst sort.
Lily
Would the two necessarily connected? Unless being autistic also gives you hypersensitivity to pain/cramps, if I told a doctor I had menstrual pain, I wouldn’t expect them to also be like “Yeah, i think there’s something wrong with your mental state too/you’re definitely not neurotypical” or so (I mean i do also have social anxiety issues but that’s beside the point lol) But i know some women are more sensitive to cramps while one only get their period for like 3 days instead of the average full week as well
brute
i’m assuming the doctor noticed some things about the way she acted and communicated
but who knows maybe she just has an autistic hoohah
Mturtle7
Somehow, “vaginal autism” barely provoked a reaction from me, but “autistic hoo-hah” nearly made me spit out my drink. Congratulations.
drs
does your vagina avoid eye contact?
Juanoku
It’s really late stop making me want to burst out laughing
Taffy
Shor’s bones, I really hope so.
StClair
Does it have special interests?
Does it often engage in repetitive activities, sometimes known as “stimming”?
Felgraf
*To Hakuna matata*
Vagina Ocula
A terrifying phraaseeee
Vagina Ocula
the horriffyiiinggg gaaazeeee
it means no more sleep!
For the rest of your daaayyysss
Felgraf
(Oh damn gravitar roulette did me justice this time)
Andrusi
Cloyster
drs
haha
Lily
idk if a doctor can ask about religious stuff but i wouldn’t think joyce’s family dynamic was too healthy growing up either but i never had religion forced upon me growing up
AlaninDC
Medical personnel at the college should have access to a student’s personal records as well, right?
Before I’d dangle an autism eval, I think I’d first flip thru that report and take a moment to ask, “Are you seeing someone to help you deal with the kidnapping last fall?”
Nathan
Yeah, I feel like regardless of how she presented, a referral to talk to someone about trauma is an obvious choice given her history, both recent and extended.
Proxiehunter
Hyper sensitivity to pain absolutely can be one of the sensory difficulties that can present if you’re autistic. So can insensitivity to pain. I don’t think we’ve seen Joyce exhibit either though.
Laura
That comment she made earlier about “talking sounds like a chainsaw to my spine” might be a tip-off. Like a kind of synesthesia. Like how a lightbulb’s hum can sound particularly shrill to the point of causing physical pain in some folks on the spectrum.
Obsessive and zealous adherence to the precise and predictable rituals of religious observance might have been a very familiar and comforting routine for a person with spectrum traits, too. Just thinking about family history.
butting
Wondering how she reacted to being told what the appropriate medication was, and what sort of conversation that might’ve led to.
Regalli
We (here meaning AFAB autistics) apparently have a high rate of menstrual disorders, on VERY brief Google Search. Now, granted, I didn’t look further to ‘how much higher compared to the general population,’ and it could just as easily be a ‘we’re more likely to get diagnosed because it’s harder to ignore the pain when your body CANNOT SHUT OFF ITS AWARENESS’ the way I suspect autistic people being queer and particularly trans is really more a reflection the rates are way higher but we’re way more likely to declare social rules silly and ignore them if they don’t make sense to us. But if the doctor was already aware of that statistic and getting pings of recognition at Joyce, I could see her bringing it up… and it is VERY easy to see Joyce failing to mask given the stress she’s under and the commentariat’s speculation for like, the last decade.
BUUUT, I should also note that there’s current research looking into a theory that endometriosis is in some way an autoimmune disorder, and that it has become increasingly obvious that Mast Cell Activation Syndrome is REALLY underdiagnosed because it was only formally codified in 2007 or so and doctors haven’t been trained to look for it. (MCAS being an autoimmune disorder that can have a WIDE variety of ripple effects throughout your body, and which is part of this cluster of frequently-connected conditions including Ehler’s-Danlos Syndrome and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome… both of which have VERY disproportionately high co-occurrence rates with autism, to the point where there apparently are in fact theories that there’s a causal link somewhere in there.) So like… there actually is a possibility the two are, in fact, actively connected, almost certainly through a third systemic condition that would be a massive pain in Joyce’s ass to manage whether it’s EDS, MCAS, or both. Having been on this particular journey the last several months… I admit I’d kind of like seeing Joyce’s freakout faces when she got some of the shit I’ve been dealing with, especially trying to manage the increasingly-troublesome dietary restrictions. I wouldn’t wish it on another human, but DAMN have I been relating to Joyce’s Handling Medically Necessary Life Changes Poorly crisis with glasses pretty hard the last few months.
It could also just be Willis introducing something for narrative convenience when a doctor’s appointment was already being set up to bring something autobiographical, which Willis has at least been increasingly publicly identifying with for a couple years now, into the comic and confirming a long-held fan-theory.
Incidentally, Willis, if this IS your way of publicly stating you’re autistic, whether on-paper diagnosed or elsewise… congrats, if they’re something you’d appreciate? I know people have a wide spectrum of feelings on the subject, especially with formal diagnosis since it can open the door for some active discrimination in formal settings (bias against us as parents with adoption or custody hearings, struggles to get medical care while autistic and trans because how could we ACTUALLY know our own brains, perceived lower quality of life when talking about medical triage situations like organ donation or life support – and I urge anyone who wants to ask further questions THERE to Google ‘autism COVID deaths’ or something to that effect because I will NOT be doing that explanation tonight – point being, there are issues even beyond the standard assumed autism/‘weird’ discrimination,) but I also know you’ve been at least somewhat publicly identifying it on Twitter and such for a while now, so inasmuch as it’s a ‘figuring out your own identity and being public about it,’ that can be anxiety-provoking and I appreciate it being stated in the text of your work. This is rambling. Whatever.
Regalli
… The spectrum pun in that last paragraph was not intentional. I so firmly claim ‘autistic’ as my identifier and have for years that I barely even THINK of the spectrum part anymore.
Kazuma Taichi
Unintentional and yet also perfectly applied puns seems to be a symptom of being on the spectrum too, I think
autogatos
*slides in* EDSer with MCAS and POTS here! And yup this is spot on. Studies have shown both Autism and ADHD occur at high rates in people with EDS (and perhaps related conditions). I just got diagnosed with ADHD myself (which seems to have a decent amount of symptom overlap with Autism as well, curiously enough).
Regalli
Technically I’m in a ‘we can’t diagnose it as hEDS because you don’t have the classic-type skin elasticity that distinguishes from HSD and any family member who COULD show a family history of hypermobility never got diagnosed before they developed arthritis even though there clearly IS familial hypermobility’ gray zone but hey, extremely similar hats. Internet gesture of solidarity.
autogatos
Oof I’m sorry. Tbh that seems so much like it just depends on the doctor. I don’t have extreme skin elasticity either and my dr told me not all hEDS patients do (I have basically every other symptom including doughy skin texture, bruising, dislocations, easily tearing skin, etc) so he said the stretchy skin wasn’t necessary for dx. Some drs are still following outdated views though and thinking it’s mandatory for dx. :/
Regalli
My doctor is actually quite good – she does think it’s EDS, just ‘yeah we can’t prove it until and unless they isolate that gene, and the diagnostic criteria are really specific now to the point they almost certainly have a few edge cases on either side in the wrong category, so we’re writing down HSD and treatment wouldn’t differ all that much anyway but you clearly have a connective tissue disorder.’ (I then got tested for other types.) I just like being specific and from what we can tell the connective tissue disorder may be ‘my immune system is attacking my collagen.’
My one grandma actually DID get diagnosed with hypermobility in her 40s (and didn’t tell us until I’d been diagnosed with hypermobility causing a repetitive stress injury,)… but she’s on the side of the family that isn’t where we have hypermobility, dysautonomia, balance, and GI issues all over the place, and none of her kids seem to have it. So we’re assuming it’s from the side where all my grandma’s siblings just cannot wrap their brains around the fact that it actually is unusual for one’s elbows to invert like that, because they can do it. What do you mean that’s not standard? (I love them all, they’re not being jerks about it, it’s simply so normalized that everyone in the family got growing pains that woke you in the night crying or can put their foot behind their head that the idea this ISN’T something everyone goes through does not compute. Fair enough, I missed the implication of my PTs telling me I hyperextended for years. A lot of weird genetic quirks on that side are now being reassessed.)
autogatos
And yeah I sympathize on the lack of family history too. I’m lucky my dr overlooked that as I didn’t actually find out my grandma was hyper mobile until literally last month, 6 years after my diagnosis. Neither of my parents have really obvious symptoms (though my dad and I share some health issues) so it was a mystery where I got it from until then.
autogatos
I kind of wonder if there’s another subtype division or if classifications will change again, as there seems to be a divide of some hEDS patients having stretchy skin (or maybe that’s more cEDS?) while tbh MOST of the ones I know don’t but just have extremely friable skin instead.
Icalasari
Wait wait wait
My hypermobility in my hips and knees could be due to my autism?
…The fuck is this disorder, the Blob?
deathjavu
It means we don’t understand what it is exactly, the disorder at present is closer to a loose grouping of symptoms rather than a traceable process failure. Because biochemistry and biology are really really really fucking complicated.
autogatos
We’re not sure about the correlation, it may be the other way around, or they may just be conditions linked to the same genes. We’re not really sure! I know some of the theories about the prevalence of Adhd in EDS patients are that reduced blood flow to the brain due to POTS (caused by stretchy veins) may play a role, but that’s just a theory and doesn’t necessarily explain it all, or what the autism link might be.
tl;dr it’s all a big mystery so far!
Uly
Oh, yeah, definitely. There are a lot of things which all seem to present with one another, and various stages of connective tissue issues (the hypermobility) and autism are well-known to be very heavily comorbid with each other.
Note: Also very likely connected to the hypermobility, because it’s all *connective tissue problems* are the following, if you have them –
Weird fainting spells
Weird heart problems
Migraines, including migraines without the headache part
Weird digestive issues, including but not limited to frequent bouts of constipation AND diarrhea
Weird hives – I can get hives just by carrying a cold can of soda or by scrubbing too hard in the shower
Anything at all having to do with the joints
Weird circulation issues
(This list is almost certainly incomplete.)
Normal people don’t say “Gosh, I have migraines AND weird joint issues, I wonder if those are connected?” they say “Welp, my grandma had weird joint issues and my mom has migraines, guess it’s just one of those things yay”, but if everything’s an issue, think “connective tissue”.
autogatos
^Can confirm all of the above Uly. All those things you describe are things I deal with. Definitely all part of the EDS/POTS/MCAS cluster.
LadySilence
hEDSer here as well. I’ve been suspicious about possible ADHD or ADD but my therapist ran me through a basic assessment and I wasn’t even close to borderline. Thankfully I don’t have POTS and no indication of MCAS, but I did get a weird “by the way you have ‘a little bit of’ endo” diagnosis during my fibroid surgery (he took the liberty of attacking the endo with lasers since he was already in there). UGH at all of the things.
autogatos
There are so many of us here! Hello fellow zebras!
And yeah I don’t know what it is specifically (inflammation or what) but almost everyone I know with EDS and a uterus seems to have various uterus/pms-related problems. I’ve never been formally dxd with anything like endo but I do get bad ovarian cysts and my periods were a NIGHTMARE pre-IUD. Much how Joyce’s have been.
Inahc
*waves*
what a day to check in on the comments section – while I was away I found out HSD exists *and* that I’d been misinterpreting the beighton score. I don’t get a diagnosis because canada is like “no diagnose, only treat” when it comes to hypermobility disorders 😛 but I’m halfway through doing Muldowney on my own anyways. I have a feeling I’ve ranted about my health when I was around here years ago.
I’m so glad I haven’t seen mcas or pots symptoms yet (or real period trouble)… having my muscles randomly try to tear themselves apart is quite disruptive enough 😛 and the brain fog still isn’t really gone… I’m not even sure if that’s from the muscle issues or something else, still.
sadly my brain is refusing to hyperfocus on the comments so I’m not likely to actually read all of this thread… er… I was actually supposed to be buying groceries online, lol
autogatos
Forgot the rest of what I was gonna write (see there’s the ADHD): So much of what Joyce has been dealing with, both in terms of “quirks” that’re likely autism symptoms, and her PMS stuff, have been super relatable to me as someone with EDS/MCAS and ADHD so yeah there’s definitely a lot of overlap and similarity in all of this.
Allandrel
While I obviously don’t know what relationship there may be between autism and various conditions that have higher reported incidence among autistic people*, I think that at least some of it is because we are looking, not at the rate of incidence, but at the rate of diagnosis. If you have access to the kind of care and support that will get you tested for one, then they will likely also test for and diagnose the other stuff you have. Same thing with the correlation between being autistic and trans.**
* Oh my but there are a lot of them – oddly I don’t seem to have much of the stuff on the list besides anxiety and depression, and I hold that those, as with their correlation with being LGBT – are due to how people treat autistic and LGBT folks rather than a result of them being autistic or LGBT.
** I should reiterate that I am not saying “THIS is the cause,” because I find the idea of such things have a sole, identifiable cause to be ridiculous. It’s far more likely to be an amalgamation of factors, the the cause in question is just one of them.
Uly
My mother’s oncologist asked her if I was autistic, after meeting me (with my mother) a few times. Not because she’s a specialist in autism, she’s not, she’s a cancer doctor and I’m not even her patient – but because she has an autistic daughter.
(Story of my life. People who know about autism peg me within minutes. People who don’t go “Oh, but you don’t seem autistic!” Yeah, I do, and that statement is not polite but rude.)
Regalli
Same. My immediate family can ping off walk/vocal cadence/general vibes pretty quickly because they know me. (They probably won’t bring it up unless you do first, though, because that quickly gets into rudeness territory. But if you do they’ll almost certainly say ‘oh cool, so’s my X, I thought that speech pattern sounded familiar.’) Neurotypicals with no frame of reference have been known to say things like that or ‘I never would have guessed!’ after asking me where my accent’s from. (The answer being: Right here. It’s the regional accent on an autistic vocal cadence. This is your accent on autism.) All depends on whether the observer’s tuned to the right signal.
Uly
Ah, autistic accent syndrome, I know it well, the very bane of my existence.
Though I have found that the further I get from NYC, the less likely it is that people will ask me where I’m from…. (Brooklyn. I’m from Brooklyn, and so’s my mom.)
ischemgeek
I actually appreciate autistic accent syndrome because since my accent is kind of vague and odd people usually don’t peg me as being rural in my upbringing so I usually escape regional stigma (the regional accent I’d have without it is stereotyped as stupid and hyperconservative. The stupid stereotype is not with merit but the hyperconservative stereotype very much is – the riding I spent most of my childhood in recently broke a decades long trend of voting Conservative only because there was a more extremist right wing candidate on the ballot. People when they find out where I was brought up usually make assumptions about me that I don’t want made about me. Particularly as a bi non-cis person.
So the more I can obfuscate being from where I’m from the better.
Nathan
I hate how socially acceptable it is to be explicitly prejudiced against people with certain regional dialects.
Taffy
Your voice sounds slightly different than mine. We are enemies now.
Uly
Prejudice against a speech variety is a proxy for prejudice against that group of people.
The prejudice already exists. Mocking their speech is just how people express it.
Regalli
I find the comments on mine funny more than anything but yeah, my accent and region aren’t particularly stigmatized and I don’t care who I tell I’m autistic. Sucks that it works out for you in that way because of the societal prejudice.
Allandrel
Oh man, did I ever have that. As a teen I have had kids who grew up in the same neighborhood as me ask “Is that accent from like, England or something?”
One of those kids, in high school, also point at my St. Patrick’s cross pendant and asked if it mean I was “Like, a Satanist or something?”
Lovely Ohio.
Needfuldoer
I can spot it right away in others, but do my best to mask it myself. I can usually fly under the radar…
Lauralot
…Wait, my accent is because I’m autistic?
Well that explains a lot.
Taffy
Never once heard of this “accent” thing, but I get weird looks when I talk, so maybe people are too busy staring like I grew a third head to bring it up.
autogatos
Yeah this is a thing too. Maybe Joyce’s doctor has autism or an autistic family member! I first got on the EDS path because I happened to see an ortho who had it and realized I was hypermobile where every other previous ortho had missed it.
shellshockbp
“but you’re so normal”
ischemgeek
Often stress, being sick or being in pain increases cognitive load on autistic people so we’re less able to mask. It actually tracks for me that Joyce’s doctor might not see signs of autism in previous checkups but now that Joyce has a lot on her plate and is sick and sore to boot she can’t put on the cult personality she was indoctrinated to display.
autogatos
This 100%. My ADHD symptoms became less manageable the worse my chronic pain/illness got. If you have a condition that requires a lot of mental compensation (even if it’s subconscious), the more stress on your mind/body, the harder it’s gonna be to keep that up and continue to function.
Paradox
As someone who is on the spectrum, sometimes I find that otherwise light contact or pressure can be overwhelming if I’m not expecting it, especially if I’m already stressed out
That said (and as a male I can only conjecture on this) I don’t think such a thing would necessarily apply to the regular pain of menstruation, especially since this only seems to happen to Joyce sometimes, and not every month
The previously stated theory that one of her ovaries is just very overactive is probably correct
The doctor most likely picked up on other signs of possible austism and, being a medical doctor and not a psychiatrist, referred her to someone who would actually be qualified to determine such a thing
aoinfinity
I mean, it *can*. I’m hypersensitive to water and loud noises, and probably at least a third of the people I met at a local autism-spectrum support group had some kind of sensitivity too.
Opus the Poet
It’s Joyce, what kind did you expect her to have?
Srsly, just glad someone has recognized a problem that was shrowded by her getting homeschooled. With nobody to interact with except family who were used to her, her neurodivergence was probably just written off as “Joyce being Joyce”.