redfiredog

Feeling better, buuuuut...

Added 2021-02-19 02:08:31 +0000 UTC

About a month ago, I started static all the time. Like, 24/7, all over my full field of vision. I'm pretty sure I have something called Visual Snow Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder that messes with your brain's visual processing. Most people with VSS have migraines with auras, which I've had since I was a child, and the symptoms seemed to start after I had an especially bad migraine.

So... unfortunately, there's a good chance that this is something I'm just going to have to live with for life. I was really panicking when the symptoms got worse about a week ago, but now I'm already getting used to everything shimmering and vibrating all the time. I can read almost as fast as I could before, even though text looks like it's vibrating and flashing.

It's relatively easy to tune out most of the time. It also seems to vary in severity over time, but when it got worse I had other symptoms that were harder to ignore, like really extreme flashing after-images when I look at something. The severity can probably be affected by things like anxiety, blood pressure, sleep, sodium, sugar, alcohol and caffeine... so I guess I'll have to try to be healthier if I want to see relatively normally!

For some reason my current computer monitor is hard to read on, way more than my phone. I ordered a new 4K monitor with some settings that should make it less straining to use, so hopefully that helps.

I'm still not decided about whether or not I'll plan on pausing the Patreon this month. I'll aim to finish everything before then, but I don't want to push myself too hard or spend too long of hours on the computer, so we'll see. Above is a comic I started on, only about 30 renders are completed by I'm pretty happy with how it's going.