shelley's recent activity

  1. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Thank you! I will let you know, I am working on getting this first issue printed now. And yes, sure, share aware. It is published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, check the bottom of the page,...

    Thank you! I will let you know, I am working on getting this first issue printed now.

    And yes, sure, share aware. It is published under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, check the bottom of the page, you should be okay as long as you attribute and don't sell it :)

    2 votes

  2. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Thanks, this is very encouraging! I will look into the comics you mentioned, as I have not read any of them. My primary compositional inspirations are probably Blankets by Craig Thompson and...

    Thanks, this is very encouraging! I will look into the comics you mentioned, as I have not read any of them. My primary compositional inspirations are probably Blankets by Craig Thompson and Epileptic by David B, and sometimes I see my work as just a bastard imposter hybrid of these two works. But that's how one learns, I suppose.

    Yes, most depictions of mental wards that you would think to be outdated really aren't outdated at all. Things like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest only differ from current reality on minor details, such as the substituting of indoor cigarette smoking with prescribed nicotine patches.

    Thanks again, I will let you know once it reaches printing :)

    2 votes

  3. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Thanks! Some of the quotes are intentionally misattributed or mistated, I'm not even sure sometimes! A quote is a creative medium too, I think. Borges and David Foster Wallace did a lot of...

    Thanks! Some of the quotes are intentionally misattributed or mistated, I'm not even sure sometimes! A quote is a creative medium too, I think. Borges and David Foster Wallace did a lot of semi-fictional quoting in their work, and I just think it's such an interesting way to blur the fourth wall to convey subjective realities.

    2 votes

  4. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Yes, the experience was significantly impacted by understaffing and underfunding, and overbilling (a uniquely American combination). I would frequently have to wait 40 minutes for a nurse to...

    Yes, the experience was significantly impacted by understaffing and underfunding, and overbilling (a uniquely American combination). I would frequently have to wait 40 minutes for a nurse to become available to dispense my medication -- literally just standing there blankly watching the clock in front of the front desk. Most of these places don't have adequate funding for effective therapies, so they go the psychiatric route. Private institutions are different and may provide additional therapies.

    The term is "neurodiverse."

    Yes, informing people of triggers is very helpful. The fight-or-flight states are more or less automatic, we don't decide to go into them (ask any combat veteran or ambulance technician). Just asking people not to be triggering isn't an end in itself though, there are effective cognitive and traumacentric therapies that help reduce one's response to triggers, which would be a more permanent solution than making trigger lists.

    Yes, most homeless people have symptoms of PTSD and/or schizophrenia, and are more common in big cities. Homelessness and mental illness is a self-perpetuating cycle that isn't addressed well by most municipalities, obviously.

    In smaller communities with more social support, people who are more prone to these sorts of illnesses are more likely to be incorporated into the group somehow, even if it is just someone's crazy aunt. However, many smaller communities are insular and self-protecting, and push out diverse individuals (psychologically or otherwise) unless their differences are already accepted. Meanwhile big cities endlessly bus their homeless around to different urban centers, so often nobody is getting help except the ones who already had it.

    2 votes

  5. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    This is the first chapter and was meant to be a bit fast-paced/overwhelming, because that is sort of how being committed feels. Do you think the dense/overwhelming nature of the pages lends itself...

    This is the first chapter and was meant to be a bit fast-paced/overwhelming, because that is sort of how being committed feels. Do you think the dense/overwhelming nature of the pages lends itself to this impression, or is it simply too chaotic? I don't mind it being a bit avant-garde/difficult to read, just so long as those qualities help communicate the experience through the medium.

    I will think about the clinical format! I can't really speak that much to clinical expertise but maybe I can interview a nurse or something.

    Yes I think the situation you've described with people not wanting to be committed is a big problem. In my opinion, the psychological health care system shouldn't be so traumatizing that people don't want to get help. I recently cited this paper (which may trigger you), Perceived Coercion During Admission Into Psychiatric Hospitalization Increases Risk of Suicide Attempts After Discharge, which definitely puts the issue into perspective. My hope is that by communicating why these experiences are retraumatizing or unhelpful, people can begin to imagine better alternative or protocol changes.

    Another issue is that many "crazy people" have brains which function differently than neurotypicals', and often go into fight/flight/assault modes as you describe, which is totally an issue that self-perpetuates stigma against disinhibited sick people. It is generally handled as a personality problem to be sedated. I would argue it really should be treated through patient- and trauma-centric modalities that rehabilitate autonomic nervous responses to social and environmental triggers so that nervous system doesn't get thrown into violent or dysregulated and dissociated states. But that's expensive.

    4 votes

  6. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Here is the link to the first page. That is just sort of how the website is setup, I will look into making the beginning more obvious, thanks :)

    Here is the link to the first page. That is just sort of how the website is setup, I will look into making the beginning more obvious, thanks :)

    2 votes

  7. Comment on I'm writing an autobiographical comic about trauma, psychosis, and clinical protocols. Looking for feedback in ~health

    shelley
    Link
    Hello, for the past year and a half I have been writing a comic book about being involuntarily hospitalized and treated in psychiatric wards, as well as the trauma and experiences that led up to...

    Hello, for the past year and a half I have been writing a comic book about being involuntarily hospitalized and treated in psychiatric wards, as well as the trauma and experiences that led up to being committed.

    I am writing this because I think it is a pervasively suppressed narrative: the mentally ill patient's own experience of being impersonally funneled through a largely coercive system. This is often difficult to relate to neurotypical people, who have not had the same psychological nor institutional experiences as a person with behavioral or developmental diversities, or who has been labelled "treatment-resistant" by various bureaucracies. Feel free to discuss the merits and shortcomings of psychiatry and institutional treatment, that's part of the point.

    The comic is drawn with a sable brush and sumi ink on bristol, in the vein of traditional execution. They are then scanned, lettered, and bizarre footnotes are added.

    This is the main website, mismedicated.com, and there is also an associated Instagram. I made a Tapas too, but I'm not really sure if I want to be on that platform or Webtoons, and I feel like I'm spreading myself thin. If anyone has advice on how people read comics these days, that would be great -- after a few more pages I'm hoping to do a print run :)

    Thanks for reading.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Do you use gender-neutral pronouns? Which one do you prefer? in ~humanities

    shelley
    Link Parent
    This is a bit of a red herring. Unlike a given gender identity, being a Tildes user is not usually a fundamental aspect of one's social identity and psychosomatic processes. It is usually better...

    I think the bottom line of this conversation is that singular "they" has baggage just like "he" does, and even referential terms like "a Tildes user" don't solve the fundamental problem of using "he," which is that people always get offended.

    This is a bit of a red herring. Unlike a given gender identity, being a Tildes user is not usually a fundamental aspect of one's social identity and psychosomatic processes. It is usually better not to assume that people will get offended as you say, but rather to try to facilitate respectful and open lines of communication. This will get you much further toward your apparent goal of understanding how to mindfully interact with people who are different from you.

    Take a moment to contemplate why others might prefer pronouns you are not accustomed to using regularly, and how those use cases might serve them. Defending your values surrounding what you perceive to be the etymologically and syntactically ideal means of pronoun gendering... that's just going in a thought loop. Personally I prefer to exercise some neuroplasticity as I get older. If you want to cling to conservative modes of expression as you age, that's your choice, but take note that it will reduce the occasions in which some people will take you seriously.

    10 votes

  10. Comment on Looking for artists/bands/albums that feature a piano in ~music

    shelley
    Link
    If you like Regina Spektor, you should definitely give the Dresden Dolls's self-titled album a spin!

    If you like Regina Spektor, you should definitely give the Dresden Dolls's self-titled album a spin!

    2 votes

  11. Comment on Raccoons bust into Toronto woman’s home, stare her down while defiantly eating her bread in ~news

    shelley
    Link
    The news story I needed today.

    The news story I needed today.

    1 vote

  12. Comment on Thoughts on Free And Open Source Software in ~talk

    shelley
    Link Parent
    Personally, I appreciate that Libre/OpenOffice haven't changed for the better part of two decades. Once Microsoft started redesigning Office (which has always been buggy and unintuitive) to use...

    Personally, I appreciate that Libre/OpenOffice haven't changed for the better part of two decades. Once Microsoft started redesigning Office (which has always been buggy and unintuitive) to use ribbons and other touch-friendly design elements, I became a lot less interested in using the software.

    By comparison, LibreOffice is extremely responsive and customizable, takes up far less memory, has better cross-platform compatibility, and doesn't rely on internet access. I can still keep my documents synced using Dropbox and a media server.

    The way I use word processing/spreadsheet software has been exactly the same for my entire life, and I don't see it changing any time soon. Not sure why Microsoft always insists on reinventing the wheel.

    1 vote