Triggering Strobe Lights all over the place...
Sometimes I don't submit to certain online literary magazines because of the strobe light-esque flickering visuals all over their website. It's not that I'm bothered by those effects aesthetically. It's that I am someone who can have seizures and strobe light-esque visual flickers have triggered a seizure for me on more than one occasion.
I suspect this is something that most literary magazine editors don't particularly think about or consider.
Heck, it's something I probably wouldn't have thought about in the past before I started having seizures. My seizures are not a result of epilepsy; they're a side effect of another brain-related health issue that happened to me, so I've only been having them for about 7 years or so.
Visually speaking, I used to like strobe lights. But the first seizure I ever had happened at a bar/dance club writhing with strobe lights above the ceiling. I didn't realize what had happened at the time. I thought I had just passed out, fallen down, and peed my pants (which happened to be the back of a skin tight, one piece lioness costume). It's not like I had been over drinking, but the place was crowded and being wedged together on every side causes me to feel claustrophobic, and in the past, I had this phase where I would semi-randomly pass out in crowded spaces.
I've passed out at a busy concert. I've passed out at a crowded bar. I've passed out at a packed church, which is actually kind of funny, because I think I had been talked in to going to some church service I didn't even want to attend, I think it was some sort of group confessional, the church pews were jammed full of people, and then I passed out and had to be carried out. I guess that's what you get for semi-forcing me to go to church. I'm partly kidding though, because it's not as if I passed out on purpose.
So when I came to at that strobe lit dance club, I thought maybe I was backtracking to my days of passing out, which had ended about ten years prior to whatever happened at that strobe lit dance club. But as it turned out, I wasn't backtracking. I was experiencing something new, seizures, somehow related to my brain's neuroplasticity after my stroke. It took me months to find that out though.
I found that out after I woke up in bed at my own house, confused, disoriented, and very uncomfortable. I didn't know what day it was, I didn't know what time it was, I didn't know what I was doing in bed or why I felt so out of it. I thought I had some sort of massively out-of-it hangover, but I didn't remember drinking. I thought I had somehow accidentally overslept my own creative schedule. I walked out of my bedroom and there was a chair down on the floor and some paperwork flung off the counter and I had no recollection of why (in retrospect, I suspect I was on the brink of having a seizure, lost my balance, tried to grab the counter and knocked stuff off it, tried to grab the chair and knocked it down, and then crawled my way to the bedroom - but I have no way of knowing the details for sure). I walked back into my bedroom and noticed that I had randomly rearranged stuff on the bedroom floor, with no recollection of doing so. I had bunches of books positioned next to a suitcase.
I was mentally confused and disoriented and trying to figure out where the physical discomfort was coming from, and then I placed my hand on the back of my head and felt a massive welt. My first thought was that I'd randomly passed out and hit the back of my head against something. I called my parents and they came over to look at the back of my head. It looked pretty serious and since I felt pretty out of it and couldn't remember what had happened, my mom suggested we should go to the ER, to make sure I didn't have a concussion. I didn't want to go to the ER, but I agreed.
I ended up being admitted to a hospital for several days/nights, having to cancel an out of state plan and being stuck in a boring old hospital bed with an IV rammed into me, with a stupid TV dangling from the wall playing stupid shit on & on & on, with nothing to read, nobody to talk to, with my own mom upset at me and my disrespectful attitude for acting so unhappy and pissed off about being unexpectedly hospitalized. It was me getting various tests done, no specific personal communication with anyone doing the tests. It was me feeling confused and pissed off and unhappy as fuck, and then me eventually finding out that my reconstructed brain was now prone to seizures.
I had a low dose seizure pill prescribed to me - but low dose or not, it drained my energy and my passion and tripled my PMS. I remember laying in bed and sobbing during PMS and feeling like there was no point in even TRYING to work on anything. I remember yelling at a restaurant and walking out, and standing outside of the restaurant, crying. But other than those PMS-induced over reactions, I remember feeling like my passion for life and art was drying out and I didn't really care about anything anymore. I remember thinking that I would rather have occasional seizures instead of feeling this emotionally dead.
Fortunately, those side effects only lasted a few months before I became acclimated to the pill. I've been on the same generic version of the same pill for years now, and it barely has any side effects at all. Lately, I've been a little more stressed out than usual though, because the manufacturers version of my generic pill is no longer available at any pharmacy near me and so I have to switch to a new manufacturers version of my generic pill. I have five days left of my current pill before I have to switch. I don't know if everyone is aware that a generic pill with the same name made from a different company, even though it uses the same main ingredient, it also uses different fillers that can cause different side effects. One of the worst seizures I ever had, years ago, was when a pharmacy gave me a different manufacturers version of the same generic pill.
I was watching a singing show on TV, feeling fine, and then suddenly bright red strobe lights were flashing all over my house, no matter which way I looked, no matter whether my eyes were open or closed, I couldn't see the details of anything other than the bright red flashing lights, I couldn't see the digits on my phone, so I couldn't call anyone even though I thought I was dying, since I had never experienced anything like that before. I thought I was having another stroke.
On a side note, I'm a little more uncomfortable going to music concerts than I used to be, because what if I pay for a concert and then there ends up being strobe light effects flashing all over the stage and then I can't even look at the stage for most of the concert? Or what if the lighting is flashing all over the venue? That's another thing I wouldn't have thought much about or necessarily realized in the past, but strobe light effects are all over the place with a lot of live music performances. Even if I watch a televised singing show, such as "The Voice", I need to look away from the TV screen at times, because of all the strobing.
After that red strobe light seizure, I switched to a different pharmacy that was intent upon always giving me the same manufactured version of my pill, but now they can't get that version anymore. Fingers crossed that I'm not going to have unpleasant side effects at the beginning of the New Year.
And back to what originally got this long post started. For quite some time now, I've been considering submitting some of my poetry to a certain online lit mag that has published quite a few poems/poets I enjoy. I like the name of the magazine and from the bits and pieces I've read, I like the overall aesthetic of the magazine too. Numerous times, I've wondered why I haven't submitted there yet. Then I'll go to their website again to read a few poems and remind myself of their guidelines, and within less than three minutes, I'll remember why I haven't submitted there yet, and probably never will (at least not with their current format). Little strobes are flickering around all over the place. Giant eyeballs are rolling across the screen. Tiny white dots are crawling up and down all over the page. It's not that I think it looks unappealing. It's that it's prone to triggering seizures in my brain, so I need to leave the page after just a few minutes - and it seems silly to try to have my poetry published at a site where I can't even spend time reading other stuff. And then I feel a little bit bummed out.
Other lit mags use these types of flickering visuals too, but I can handle a GIF or visual that only covers part of the screen, so that I can scroll past it to read the actual poetry. Heck, I can even handle a GIF or visual that I can cover up with one hand. But if it's all over every part of the screen to the point that it can't be moved beyond and can't be covered up, and I'm too nervous about triggering a seizure to even take the time to read their guidelines? Well I guess that lit mag doesn't work for someone like me.
It's a bit of a bummer, but since I couldn't submit poetry to where I had planned to submit poetry tonight, I wrote this instead.
I suspect this is something that most literary magazine editors don't particularly think about or consider.
Heck, it's something I probably wouldn't have thought about in the past before I started having seizures. My seizures are not a result of epilepsy; they're a side effect of another brain-related health issue that happened to me, so I've only been having them for about 7 years or so.
Visually speaking, I used to like strobe lights. But the first seizure I ever had happened at a bar/dance club writhing with strobe lights above the ceiling. I didn't realize what had happened at the time. I thought I had just passed out, fallen down, and peed my pants (which happened to be the back of a skin tight, one piece lioness costume). It's not like I had been over drinking, but the place was crowded and being wedged together on every side causes me to feel claustrophobic, and in the past, I had this phase where I would semi-randomly pass out in crowded spaces.
I've passed out at a busy concert. I've passed out at a crowded bar. I've passed out at a packed church, which is actually kind of funny, because I think I had been talked in to going to some church service I didn't even want to attend, I think it was some sort of group confessional, the church pews were jammed full of people, and then I passed out and had to be carried out. I guess that's what you get for semi-forcing me to go to church. I'm partly kidding though, because it's not as if I passed out on purpose.
So when I came to at that strobe lit dance club, I thought maybe I was backtracking to my days of passing out, which had ended about ten years prior to whatever happened at that strobe lit dance club. But as it turned out, I wasn't backtracking. I was experiencing something new, seizures, somehow related to my brain's neuroplasticity after my stroke. It took me months to find that out though.
I found that out after I woke up in bed at my own house, confused, disoriented, and very uncomfortable. I didn't know what day it was, I didn't know what time it was, I didn't know what I was doing in bed or why I felt so out of it. I thought I had some sort of massively out-of-it hangover, but I didn't remember drinking. I thought I had somehow accidentally overslept my own creative schedule. I walked out of my bedroom and there was a chair down on the floor and some paperwork flung off the counter and I had no recollection of why (in retrospect, I suspect I was on the brink of having a seizure, lost my balance, tried to grab the counter and knocked stuff off it, tried to grab the chair and knocked it down, and then crawled my way to the bedroom - but I have no way of knowing the details for sure). I walked back into my bedroom and noticed that I had randomly rearranged stuff on the bedroom floor, with no recollection of doing so. I had bunches of books positioned next to a suitcase.
I was mentally confused and disoriented and trying to figure out where the physical discomfort was coming from, and then I placed my hand on the back of my head and felt a massive welt. My first thought was that I'd randomly passed out and hit the back of my head against something. I called my parents and they came over to look at the back of my head. It looked pretty serious and since I felt pretty out of it and couldn't remember what had happened, my mom suggested we should go to the ER, to make sure I didn't have a concussion. I didn't want to go to the ER, but I agreed.
I ended up being admitted to a hospital for several days/nights, having to cancel an out of state plan and being stuck in a boring old hospital bed with an IV rammed into me, with a stupid TV dangling from the wall playing stupid shit on & on & on, with nothing to read, nobody to talk to, with my own mom upset at me and my disrespectful attitude for acting so unhappy and pissed off about being unexpectedly hospitalized. It was me getting various tests done, no specific personal communication with anyone doing the tests. It was me feeling confused and pissed off and unhappy as fuck, and then me eventually finding out that my reconstructed brain was now prone to seizures.
I had a low dose seizure pill prescribed to me - but low dose or not, it drained my energy and my passion and tripled my PMS. I remember laying in bed and sobbing during PMS and feeling like there was no point in even TRYING to work on anything. I remember yelling at a restaurant and walking out, and standing outside of the restaurant, crying. But other than those PMS-induced over reactions, I remember feeling like my passion for life and art was drying out and I didn't really care about anything anymore. I remember thinking that I would rather have occasional seizures instead of feeling this emotionally dead.
Fortunately, those side effects only lasted a few months before I became acclimated to the pill. I've been on the same generic version of the same pill for years now, and it barely has any side effects at all. Lately, I've been a little more stressed out than usual though, because the manufacturers version of my generic pill is no longer available at any pharmacy near me and so I have to switch to a new manufacturers version of my generic pill. I have five days left of my current pill before I have to switch. I don't know if everyone is aware that a generic pill with the same name made from a different company, even though it uses the same main ingredient, it also uses different fillers that can cause different side effects. One of the worst seizures I ever had, years ago, was when a pharmacy gave me a different manufacturers version of the same generic pill.
I was watching a singing show on TV, feeling fine, and then suddenly bright red strobe lights were flashing all over my house, no matter which way I looked, no matter whether my eyes were open or closed, I couldn't see the details of anything other than the bright red flashing lights, I couldn't see the digits on my phone, so I couldn't call anyone even though I thought I was dying, since I had never experienced anything like that before. I thought I was having another stroke.
On a side note, I'm a little more uncomfortable going to music concerts than I used to be, because what if I pay for a concert and then there ends up being strobe light effects flashing all over the stage and then I can't even look at the stage for most of the concert? Or what if the lighting is flashing all over the venue? That's another thing I wouldn't have thought much about or necessarily realized in the past, but strobe light effects are all over the place with a lot of live music performances. Even if I watch a televised singing show, such as "The Voice", I need to look away from the TV screen at times, because of all the strobing.
After that red strobe light seizure, I switched to a different pharmacy that was intent upon always giving me the same manufactured version of my pill, but now they can't get that version anymore. Fingers crossed that I'm not going to have unpleasant side effects at the beginning of the New Year.
And back to what originally got this long post started. For quite some time now, I've been considering submitting some of my poetry to a certain online lit mag that has published quite a few poems/poets I enjoy. I like the name of the magazine and from the bits and pieces I've read, I like the overall aesthetic of the magazine too. Numerous times, I've wondered why I haven't submitted there yet. Then I'll go to their website again to read a few poems and remind myself of their guidelines, and within less than three minutes, I'll remember why I haven't submitted there yet, and probably never will (at least not with their current format). Little strobes are flickering around all over the place. Giant eyeballs are rolling across the screen. Tiny white dots are crawling up and down all over the page. It's not that I think it looks unappealing. It's that it's prone to triggering seizures in my brain, so I need to leave the page after just a few minutes - and it seems silly to try to have my poetry published at a site where I can't even spend time reading other stuff. And then I feel a little bit bummed out.
Other lit mags use these types of flickering visuals too, but I can handle a GIF or visual that only covers part of the screen, so that I can scroll past it to read the actual poetry. Heck, I can even handle a GIF or visual that I can cover up with one hand. But if it's all over every part of the screen to the point that it can't be moved beyond and can't be covered up, and I'm too nervous about triggering a seizure to even take the time to read their guidelines? Well I guess that lit mag doesn't work for someone like me.
It's a bit of a bummer, but since I couldn't submit poetry to where I had planned to submit poetry tonight, I wrote this instead.
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