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Hi I'm Serth, your friendly neighborhood epileptic and I'm here to guide you through the wonderful world of epilepsy: A lovely chronic illness that gives you lots of interesting ways to cripple yourself. So first off I'd just like to point out that I am exceedingly lucky to only have a light version of epilepsy that only triggers serious seizures if I am stressed, overheated and physically restrained. The visual stuff that I will be giving examples of have "only" managed to suppress my ability to think and form sentences for 20 minutes or less with an added bonus of leaving me lightheaded and nauseous for another 4 hours after that. Some of the stuff I post may have no effect on other sufferers of epilepsy, or it may straight up send them to hospital or the morgue, so please be real careful about who you show this stuff to. This already sounds like I'm basically planting a loaded gun and daring people to pull the trigger on themselves, but for someone with epilepsy, that's just any day spent on the internet or playing video games. (Seriously though, don't go showing this poo poo to someone you know who suffers from this, not even as a "is this really that bad for you as well?" kind of thing.) Most of the stuff I've collected has actually come from SomethingAwful posters in many different threads over the years. Other parts are from my work as a volunteer epilepsy consultant for game developers. So why do I collect this poo poo when I know it can gently caress me up? Because its important that people learn about the subtle stuff that messes with my head and the heads of the 50 million people out there who suffer from this. I do this because I can survive the experimentation process and live to give feedback on stuff that otherwise would be included in games or similar digital media by oblivious developers who never meant to cause anyone harm. I got a distant relative who suffers from a much worse case of epilepsy than me. She's in her early twenties and has already suffered permanent brain damage from seizures in the past. At this point she has about a 10% chance of her lizard brain simply shutting off, killing her instantly, any time she has a seizure. If I can save her from just one seizure by having several incidents of 2-4 hour nausea sessions, then it's all been worth it. Should anyone have any questions about this stuff or if you wish for me to check something out as a sort of epileptic food taster, go right ahead and post, but please please please spoiler or link all the flashing stuff. The difference between a warning and no warning is roughly the same as going into a boxing match, prepared to fight and parry vs just taking a right hook to the side of the head while minding your own business in a grocery store. Edit: putting in a link index so I can use this thread as a reference archive for devs, teachers, researchers, students and parents/caretakers of people with photo-sensitive epilepsy. Introduction and background How it all started Who I am and some brief examples off of memory where games have caused me troubles Describing some of the difficulties with gaming that aren't causing instant seizures Talking about the various games and gaming platforms I grew up with The insane rules and regulations of the American Disability Act What it feels like to get a seizure More talk about what it is like to have a seizure Suggestion for caretakers in case of a seizure Followup on the suggestion Learning that seizures add up permanently Reappraising the risk/reward balance of continuing to do this Calling it quits with actively seeking out cases to test Non-game related examples of visual triggers Internet memes and cartoons Anime Why I don't use a Smartphone Marvel Studios 2016 new logo and some talk about my specific seizure triggers Marvel Studios logo pre 2016 Feedback on a cartoon animation of a cat playing bongos Magic eye stereogram An art installation that SHOULD trigger me, but doesn't. Placebo effect does try to trigger me though How not to make a webpage banner Very bad background for a cat gif Game related examples of visual triggers Waves of Steel: Flag design and Waves of Steel: Ship dazzle camouflage Waves of Steel Emp burst animation Red Dead Redemption 2: Logo cutscene and Borderlands 2 Torque's Campaign of Carnage: Intro cutscene Super Metroid: Ingame lightning effect Infinitely looping pattern and Sacrifice in-game skybox The old days of gaming on a ZX Spectrum Developer animation showcase Waves of Steel: Repulsor effect Sometimes, putting up a warning saying this entire product is not for people with epilepsy is all you can do. This is one such case The Rosetta Stone of understanding epilepsy Giving feedback on a game in development The rules that usually govern what can and cannot be shown on TV and the reasons behind said rules EDF 5: second to last mission. No image, video or gif A warning from a friend about Lost Ark An example of lightning and shield effects Might and Magic 10 EA's accessibility campaign causing me to have a seizure Red Solstice 2 lightning strikes messing with my head. No image, video or gif Waves of Steel: temporary blindness from color contrasts Helping with epilepsy testing of Kandria How not to do blueprints in Dyson Sphere (this is a mod that causes the problem) and how to do a proper lightning storm in Sea of Thieves Nova Drift flashing and causing a migraine in no time Per Aspera bad times with a lensing/magnifying glass effect Per Aspera, how not to display wind flow and humidity Deep Rock Galactic planet loading scene and in-game map Long range scanner animation in X4 Rustler going drug trippy on me Texture uvs/normals pattern Stellaris solar systems being harmful to look at Examples of previous dialogues between developers and myself once I come across something that triggers my epilepsy Penny Arcade's new webpage. Several posts in a row Valve Store page seasonal event banner ad. Several posts in a row Commentary from devs that I have helped with epilepsy testing A post that sets the stage for the dev comments TooMuchAbstraction, developer of Waves of Steel, comment Shinmera explaining the dev side of the epilepsy testing of Kandria James Webb Space Telescope and subsequent conversations with NASA The start of my adventures with NASA, image link in the first post about JWST images no longer goes anywhere useful. Several posts in a row Events I've participated in DigiPen Colloquium panel talk, includes video recording of the event SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 11:44 on Nov 22, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2021 20:14
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All this consulting stuff all started out in March of 2021, when forums poster TooMuchAbstraction posted an animation he had made for his game Waves of Steel and then promptly went off to bed. I had been testing his game for him for about 6 months at that point and was used to work in progress stuff being uploaded for me to comment on while TooMuchAbstraction slept. Hes in California and I'm in Sweden, so there is a about a 6 hour time differential in our sleeping patterns. This is all fine and dandy, except this time...well I'll just post the chatlog: The following is the line of texts TMA woke up to 6 hours later: [12:25 AM] Serth: ....ow. the initial part of that effect is unbearable for me to look at. I'm going to have to ask you to extend the various color effects for about half a second each as they transform through the animation. [12:28 AM] Serth: Seriously, I...I can't look at it and keep a coherent train of thought. [12:30 AM] Serth: yuuup definitely need you to remove that animation from the chat. My right eye is still acting up about a minute after i last looked at it [12:31 AM] Serth: for reference, its the flashy bit at the start of the animation that fucks me up [12:32 AM] Serth: the latter part is just fine and would be no trouble at all [12:32 AM] Serth: but the actual burst is hurting my vision and imparing my thought pattern for up to several minutes after [12:33 AM] Serth: its the mix of light and dark colors changing rapidly over an expanding area that just makes my brain go "gently caress this poo poo im out" [12:34 AM] Serth: and my right eye still feels like someone is pressing a finger into it (not the owow finger in the eye feeling, just the annoying pressure feeling) [12:35 AM] Serth: And just to be clear here, I have absolutely no problem with you posting this sort of animations for feedback here [12:35 AM] Serth: But could you spoiler them and give me an epilepsy trigger warning when you do? [12:36 AM] Serth: Cause that was 10minutes of hosed up vision since i wasn't prepared for it (knowing that its about to hit me makes a huge difference in how my brain copes with it) [12:44 AM] Serth: okay there we go, eyeball is completely back to normal and i only have some light nausea left [12:44 AM] Serth: very effective EMP [12:44 AM] Serth: would not mount on my own ship So imagine waking up to that string of sentences and realizing that you caused that reaction on a person on the other side of the planet. If you click this link you can see the post where TMA also linked the before and after animations. It took us like 5 minutes to fix the issue once he got word of it being a problem. https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=1&threadid=3506853&perpage=40&pagenumber=1136#post513017601 This is the sort of thing that happens in way too many games across a vast range of genres and budgets, because aside from an algorithm that can identify the absolute worst cases? You either roll the dice or you find yourself a guinea pig. Fortunately I can be that guinea pig without (serious) risk of to my well being. Its not fun, and I don't get paid for it, but goddamn has it been worth it just to be able to say that I've been able to turn my biggest weakness into my most sought after skillset. SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 20:39 on Dec 17, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 20:26
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I'm 35 years old and I've been playing video games since I was about 7 years old. All I've known about attempts to mitigate epilepsy episodes in previous games have been: will fix poo poo that gets mainstream attention, will make disclaimer slightly bigger. Sometimes the effects are still there even years after an online game releases. There was a river in Everquest 2 that completely hosed with the heads of several of my friends even though they didn't have epilepsy or similar issues normally. (It was not fun for me, I had to point the camera in another direction and put myself on follow if we had to go anywhere near that thing.) There was also a Maelstrom/Tornado thing in one of the expansion zones that messed with my head, slowly but steadily sapping away my brain power until I needed help remembering how breathing worked. That thing was annoying as it was visible across the entire zone and it had a mesmerizing effect on me. Guild wars 2 had a couple of zone events in one of their swamps where the visual distortions made by a few specific bosses caused me to have strobe lights going off behind my eyelids for the next several hours. It was even worse if I tried to have my eyes open or do anything other than lie on my back with my eyes firmly shut. Black Desert Online and Final Fantasy 14 could both suckerpunch me by firing off about 10 player ability graphical effects on top of each other simultaneously. Many many games have had me forced to cover my eyes and ask a roommate to tell me when the cutscene or fancy event animation is over because the immersion was attempted by making all kinds of bullshit flashing of the lights with the camera warping around. Borderlands 2 had me in tears of visual pain during the intro to their Torque campaign dlc, (they do some colorful signal disturbance as Torque and Tanis fight for control of the transmission and it just makes my eyes bleed). So the tools might be there and the most deadly effects are (hopefully) screened out, but sometimes its the little things that just cause a small subset of people mild to severe discomfort and if I can help mitigate that by offering up my time and doing some testings in a setting where I am ready for the fuckery? That would mean a lot to me. Seriously all of those things I've mentioned have been more or less fine once I know about them and can use coping strategies or workarounds (including turning off the screen until i hear the cutscene is over). Its when it comes as a surprise that it just fucks up my entire day. My epilepsy is very mild (haven't had a full blow seizure in 20 years thank gently caress) and it is mostly stress induced. But some visual inputs can and will completely gently caress with my day in various ways. Its kinda like driving a car down the road you've driven for years and years, and when you get to the stop light you look up to to see if it is red, yellow or green. Instead you get a strobelight and bullhorn while someone puts pressure on your right eye with the blunt end of a pencil. The mindfuck from having that sprung on you leaves you completely unable to gather a train of thought, sometimes this keeps up for hours. I know others that suffer from color triggered epilepsy can get blindspots from seeing certain color contrast combinations. those blindspots (like staring at the sun for a few seconds) can last for WEEKS.
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Dec 17, 2021 20:46
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I remembered another example of how my specific issues can cause odd visual impairments: When Diablo 3 came out it was....well many words have been said about Diablo 3, so nevermind the gameplay and story and all that. What I remember the game for was the weird visual effects it had. I played a monk so I didn't even have all that much bling going on during combat. However if I was fighting 4+ enemies I would consistently loose the ability to see my mouse courser. There was simply too much bling going on that melted into one large clusterfuck. When I was fighting 10+ enemies I would no longer be able to see my character and would mentally have lost track of his position even though the camera obviously centers on him. Intellectually I knew exactly where he should be. In reality I could no longer distinguish his features from the mess of colors and explosions going on. He was in no way obscured or blocked it just seemed to me like someone had taken the lid off a lot of paint cans and mixed them all together. None of my friends had any such issue so I chalked it up to being a side effect of epilepsy and in the end I just played something else instead. But when you combine this experience with the others I mentioned, I am starting to see a pattern. Lighting contrasts work fine. Multiple arcs of intense activity works fine. Suddenly altered patterns in an animation works fine. Two of these combined is taxing but doable. Three of these combined is confusing, tiring and stressful but doable. Three of these combined without warning or expectation of this being a possibility will cause an instant repulsion of input between my eyes and my brain and will leave several physical signs of stress (pressure in the eyeballs, nausea, complete loss of higher brain functions, loss of life critical brain functions like remembering how to draw breath (note I'm not saying forgetting to breathe, I'm saying forgetting HOW to breathe. It loving suuuuucks). If you slow down the animation, reduce the intensity of the light or color contrasts, stagger the various effects in the animation instead of simultaneously triggering them, then you reduce the workload and thus risk on my broken brain immensely. If you get good at it, you will be doing it in ways that noone else will even notice, not even the people with epilepsy themselves. In the end I know that the onus is on me to not play games that I simply can't handle. Of course it is and of course it should be. Development work is a matter of allocating limited resources to meet a make or break deadline and honestly it is up to me to be the adult and look at the splash screen warning about things that might kill me and take it seriously. You should not be forced to risk the economic future of your company and your career because I ignore the warning signs put up in advance.
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Dec 17, 2021 20:50
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So that was a lot of the game dev side of things. Next up will be a long string of uncomfortable images and animations that I've picked up from our very own forums over the years with an accompanying description of each. (this does have to wait until I can get an assistant to help me upload or link the pictures, I really can't handle them myself)
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Dec 17, 2021 20:56
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Are you able to view "trigger images" (what is the term for that? Is there a term?) without having issues? I ask since you mentioned having saved various images/gifs, is there a "safe" way for you to view them?
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Dec 17, 2021 21:01
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ASAPI posted:Are you able to view "trigger images" (what is the term for that? Is there a term?) without having issues? Give me a warning that you'll be posting one and I can deal with it well enough. Its when they hit me unexpectedly that they can basically hypnotize me or just hit me like a freight train.
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Dec 17, 2021 21:03
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SerthVarnee posted:Give me a warning that you'll be posting one and I can deal with it well enough. Its when they hit me unexpectedly that they can basically hypnotize me or just hit me like a freight train. I'm not going to post any pictures/gifs, especially if they aren't spoilered. (If no one can help you over the weekend, PM me I can learn how to do the images/gifs, upload them and spoiler them for you. I'm going to be phone posting shortly for the rest of the weekend.) It is interesting that you can "brace" yourself against the effects. Are there hard/fast rules that help you prepare? How aware are you when you get an "attack"? Is it even called an "attack"?
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Dec 17, 2021 21:39
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ASAPI posted:I'm not going to post any pictures/gifs, especially if they aren't spoilered. (If no one can help you over the weekend, PM me I can learn how to do the images/gifs, upload them and spoiler them for you. I'm going to be phone posting shortly for the rest of the weekend.) When it first hits you its like watching a trainwreck. You know its bad, you know its going to get worse and yet you don't look away. If you are ready for it, its kinda like pressing a youtube link that you know is going to show you some nasty stuff you don't want to think about. So once you confirm it is indeed nasty stuff, you can quickly close the tab and go "nopenopenopenope". But if you weren't ready, you miss that window of being able to look away. And the longer you look, the more your mind gets locked away inside your head. You can sit there going "oh this poo poo is real bad, I need to look the gently caress away.....how the gently caress does looking away work again?". Eventually you get to the point where you certainly know that you need to breathe and your body is absolutely dropping less than subtle hints about the current state of your oxygen supply, but you don't remember HOW to breathe anymore. That poo poo is loving terrifying and you won't be able to shake it off without some sort of outside stimuli. Doesn't need to be much though, a light touch on your arm by a roommate or a puff of cold air hitting you from the front door that was just opened is usually enough to get you to shift your focus without thinking about it, breaking the hypnosis. So that is the "soft lock" kind of symptom. That is basically just a bad day, but nothing to really write home about. The "hard lock" seizure is not something I can actually describe how feels, because the first symptom indicating a seizure coming up? Sudden loss of consciousness. I've had a seizure where I was in a small room with a bunch of other kids who didn't agree with me when I said I wanted to leave the room (it was a small dark room filled with pillows and lined with padding on the walls that kids liked to rampage around in bashing each other in the face with pillows). They piled on top of me to keep me from escaping and the combination of overheating, being super stressed out and not being able to move triggered the seizure. So one moment I'm in a dark room, unable to move and feeling really really overheated, the next moment I wake up on the floor of the main room downstairs, froth covering my mouth and surrounded by a lot of slackjawed staring kids. Ambulance has had time to be called and arrive. EMT is looking down at me with a REALLY worried look on his face and the first thing he says as I wake up is "really lucky that he didn't throw up and choke on his own vomit". That was 23 years ago. Nausea still terrifies me because I keep thinking that seizure means vomiting, therefore vomiting means seizure and EMT man proclaimed that seizure plus vomiting equals death. People have asked me later on how a seizure feels and I've had to tell them that they would know better than me if I got one. I got a link to a video of a lady with narkolepsy who happened to catch one of her narkolepsy attacks on camera. It rung a fuckton of bells for me when I first saw it. Especially the initial surprise and then the waking up in complete confusion. This video was taken down by the lady who originally uploaded it and is featured in it. Which is entirely fair. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PuvXpv0yDM SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:17 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 17, 2021 22:27
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My girlfriend has epilepsy. https://www.wusa9.com/article/traffic/mission-metro/woman-hit-by-metro-train-court-house-station/65-b371878f-bd19-4fd3-8546-dc3097e6fb59 She got hit by a train last year after falling on the tracks while having a seizure. She would appreciate you making this thread. She has what is called a VNS in her neck. She swipes a magnet on it when she feels a seizure coming. I don't know the science behind it. E: this thing https://www.epilepsy.com/learn/treating-seizures-and-epilepsy/devices/vagus-nerve-stimulation-vns boop the snoot fucked around with this message at 00:07 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 17, 2021 23:59
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This thread is really neat and insightful, but are you sure GIP is the best place for it? I never would've found this thread if it hadn't been linked elsewhere. It might do better in Ask/Tell, or if you want to keep a games focus, Games.
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Dec 18, 2021 04:03
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This thread is gold. I have autism, and my sensory overload episodes have a lot in common with what you describe as 'soft locking'. This is interesting to me because I also get 'soft locked' by many kinds of visual stimulae, and that makes the overload much much worse. I've never thought to associate it with epilepsy but maybe I should? I always thought I was just dissociating really, really hard.
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Dec 18, 2021 08:09
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I had no idea such a device existed! I don't think it would be compatible to my specific version of epilepsy since I don't get to feel the seizures coming, but drat is it awesome that it exists. The soft locking might also be caused by my ADHD/ADD, my Tourettes or as an aftereffect of the time I had a ten year long depression going (although I highly doubt it in all three cases). It might be worth bringing up with your doctor at some point during a checkup, but remember that epilepsy is not a disease in itself. It is an umbrella term covering a truly vast range of afflictions that all present in a sort of similar manner. I did consider putting the thread in Ask/Tell, but I could feel my ADD wiggling its way into my drive to actually post this thing, so I just went "gently caress it, this will work well enough" and went with it from there. As far as I understand, admins can (if asked sufficiently nicely) move threads around, so I might do that in the future. For now I want to focus on actually putting up some content before putting myself up on the biggest scene I can find. I'm also more used to hanging out in GIP and trust the people here not to tolerate any driveby shitposting that could seriously gently caress me up with colors and flashing stuff, but that is just a fear of the unknown and a fear of expending any effort that is conspiring against me. SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 21:14 on Dec 18, 2021 |
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Dec 18, 2021 09:12
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Alrighty then, lets get this thing on the road! Thanks a bunch to my lovely assistant Ssthalar who helped me get around the issue with uploading all these digital tools of self harm. I'll start out with an extremely obvious one that everyone would be able to guess was gonna be a problem. I have no idea what the text in the middle says for reasons you can probably guess. Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. Do not loving click this link if you have epilepsy or similar sensitivities: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/879627109574803456/SPOILER_GXxT25I.gif This is the type of visual effect that the vast majority of people associates with epilepsy. - The second kind of animation commonly associated with epilepsy comes from the old Japanese cartoons that had blinking lights to symbolize energy weapons. The originals were quickly discovered to cause seizures in kids and adults unlucky enough to watch the show, but something people don't realize is how little had to be done to fix the issue. I fortunately never watched the original cartoons (likely would have sent me to the hospital at best, killed me at worst back then) This thing has been slowed down enough for it to be generally no problem for me, it might not be healthy for others with epilepsy (I am posting this on Chrome, I seem to recall that Firefox used to display gifs at 4x the speed. In that case, this might actually be lethal to an epileptic): https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/879629282849226802/SPOILER_fb1a933757b2327071b54b3b830e535b.gif In some minor instances, I have actually had a slight irritation with this particular gif, but it has been mostly due to me being a mixture of sleep deprived, overheated and having forgotten to eat and drink most of the day. At that point the fault lies a lot more with me than anyone else. Both of these gifs originally crossed paths with me via random posters on Somethingawful, who just happened to post them as part of whatever thread conversation was going on at the time. I do not believe that either were posted with the intent to cause anyone harm. If you are reading this and realizing that you were the one who posted that thing originally, don't worry about it. SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 13:37
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So those two have been rather obvious to all. Then we get into the less obvious stuff. At one point during the development of TooMuchAbstraction's game Waves of Steel (check it out on steam, its something really special), one of the other testers made alternate flags of real world nations. This resulted in a bunch of really great flags for a lot of different nations. He submitted many suggestions for each nation's flag and the rest of the community commented and suggested changes and such. Then he got to the Italian flags. I was throwing suggestions at him whenever he solicited feedback. I foolishly asked him to add a diamond shape in the middle of a design, which mirrored the existing colors horizontally and vertically. Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. I can't look at the dead center for more than a second or two. Seriously its massively uncomfortable. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/879630916463493180/SPOILER_Screen_Shot_04-19-21_at_02.21_PM.PNG I'm honestly not sure if it was my epilepsy or something else that made this thing physically hurt to look at, but yeah...lesson learned. - Then we got the contrast colors effect. Another play-tester at one point uploaded an image of his newest and fanciest ship design. This was done in the correct channel and he did absolutely nothing wrong. Except that the dazzle camo happened to gently caress up my ability to form a sentence for like 10 minutes, and left me unable to place letters in the correct order while otherwise spelling the words correctly. It also left me light headed for an hour or two Not safe, do not click if you are sensitive to this stuff https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/879632395584815124/SPOILER_SPOILER_20210807224415_1.png The cause of this effect from the dazzle camo was simply the thinness of the lines causing the colors to switch too often between two vastly contrasted colors. having each color take up a larger area before switching again would have made it a non issue, but he had no way of knowing this could even be able to cause any discomfort. SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:18 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 13:50
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SerthVarnee posted:All this consulting stuff all started out in March of 2021, when forums poster TooMuchAbstraction posted an animation he had made for his game Waves of Steel and then promptly went off to bed. This is the original animation that TMA posted before going to bed: Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. This is not healthy to look at for epileptics: https://imgur.com/zPZAjEF And this is how it looks after we spent 5 minutes doing feedback and revision This second link is completely fine for me, the same may not be true for all epileptics. If someone has an issue with this one, please let me know so TMA can do another rework of it. https://imgur.com/kXSkd9T SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:19 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 13:55
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SerthVarnee posted:
As an example of the having to look away while the cutscene runs, here is a link to the logo video for Red Dead Redemption 2: This one will hurt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wWxO7pJjk0 This is how much awareness you can expect from the video game industry. A triple A publisher like Rockstar made a video displaying their logo in a way that causes me physical pain. From a marketing perspective, the damage done by these 11 seconds of video has the potential to be catastrophic. A second example is from the aforementioned Borderlands 2 dlc Really really hurt https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DANmrG3cQHM&t=17s Goddamn, even when I'm ready for it, that poo poo hurts. They might as well have punched me in the eyeball. I absolutely loved borderlands 2 and especially that particular dlc, so please don't think that I am just dragging on this game or something.
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Dec 19, 2021 14:02
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I had made an epilepsy triggers channel on the Waves of Steel Discord server so I had a place to archive all these kinds of images and videos and so I could direct people to one concentrated location of information when they asked me about various potential triggers. Naturally people were welcome to post spoilered stuff in there (still are) for me to give feedback on. One of the posters linked this video and asked me about an effect happening on the timestamp 26 minutes, 40 seconds. This one is honestly not too bad https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp5CWxZoIZ8 The following is my stream of consciousness replies: "Nah the bomb thing is nothing" "But!" "Timestamp 0:01" "See that lightning going on?" "gently caress that" "That lightning effect is actually a great representation of the differences between a warning and no warning" "I knew I was going into some sort of flashing so I was ready, except I noticed it didn't go to the timestamped part so I just managed to start relaxing again" "Was an interesting experience having the halfway on guard protection thing going" "That lightning only managed to give me the slightest of an eye strain in my right eye (interesting that it is ALWAYS the right eye)" "Good find though! I really appreciate getting more stuff put in here to give people a sort of library of dos and don'ts" So yeah, this is likely the best example of the difference between bracing or not when it comes to watching something problematic.
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Dec 19, 2021 14:11
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Not long after the previous video had been linked, I was sent another one with the warning that this one was quite likely going to be a problem. It certainly was, but curiously it was on something of a delayed timer regarding the actual backlash I suffered. I would not recommend looking at this thing if you got epilepsy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7djmrRc1Rv8&t=45s once again I'll simply copy/paste my immediate stream of consciousness replies: "So in windowed mode, the color flashing stuff at 46s is not an issue at all. in full screen its annoying my peripheral vision slightly." "This is actually an instance of the cartoon makers adhering to acceptable standards with regards to epilepsy" "....aaaand here comes the dizziness. So yeah! Nevermind my first reply! Good find!" "It did take about 4 minutes between viewing and any noticeable reaction though, so its still very mild on the scale of things"
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Dec 19, 2021 14:16
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Then we got the normal day to day stuff everyone and their dog uses in their lives. Mobile phones and similar gadgets. This is how protected epileptics are when it comes to consumer electronics: https://twitter.com/vaspider/status/1454665467835019267  Also known as either noone has a loving clue about what is dangerous or noone gives a poo poo if their product causes potentially lethal harm to up to 50 million people worldwide.
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Dec 19, 2021 14:21
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Next up: the wonders of optical illusions. Someone sent me an image depicting a pattern that continues into infinity. Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. My sensitivity to this particular image depends massively on the amount of screen the image takes up. Since this link will take you a fullscreen version, I do not recommend looking at it if you have epilepsy. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/907445553539985458/SPOILER_unknown.png When I first viewed it, it was as a small image because the poster had taken a portion of the image and uploaded only that. As a small image, its not really a problem, but if you were to expand it to take up the whole screen and thus all of my attention? That would be really effective at "soft-locking" me. Not seizure bad, but certainly "who thought this was a good idea gently caress!" bad The conversation from there lead into a discussion about eternally zooming mandlebrot screensavers and similar images. This quickly lead to another one of my stream of consciousness posts (sorry about just copy/pasting old chat dialogues alot, but I feel like it is important to display the original formatting. It gives a bit of insight into the way my mind stops being able to access my entire vocabulary and I end up reduced to shorter words and sentences). "Yeah stuff like that messes with my head" "Mostly because that effect is always on in the first place" "like, I've had incidents where I was staring at a heavily pixelated .bmp file depicting earth seen from orbit" "And I could see the clouds moving even though they obviously stayed in place" "So if you include an effect that does this movement for me? it is indescribably confusing" "Closest I can get is when you see someone who has had enough to drink that he has to hold on to something to be able to lie down" "Or rather when you yourself have had that much to drink" "And you are looking at a painting and it just won't stop moving around" "So you are desperate to smack your hands onto it in order to get it to hold still" "This is usually frowned upon in most art galleries" "Another poster even provided me with a perfect example recently" This one might be fine for you, might be a problem if you look at it for too long https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/205696291454320641/906902269306482708/unknown.png?width=843&height=632 "That image is obviously not moving" "But it is to me" "Now if you then boot up the game (Sacrifice I believe it was) and that sky is actually moving? brain just goes "gently caress this poo poo, I'm gonna stare at this until it behaves" (this is bad if it is an infinite loop)." "The longer I stare at it, the more resources I'll be allocating to processing the same catch 22" "Until I no longer remember how breathing is done" "I will certainly remember to breathe" "Just can't anymore, cause we're doing a staring contest with a whirlpool" "Now imagine not having any sort of control valves to help you go "right, too much info, stop accepting input"" "You're just along for the ride now" SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 14:35
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This one is a real killer: So someone sent me a video to check out of the very old ZX-spectrum cassette-loading border flicker. I had fortunately never experienced those things as a kid and I am honestly not sure I would have made it through such an experience unscathed. This thing kills epileptics DEAD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtBoRp_cSxQ&t=9s REAL DEAD the ones of you who foolishly looked at that video or who remembered the good old days before the invention of eyeballs will likely be able to guess that the flickering disco lights of death around the whole border are not compatible with epileptics and life. I looked at it for just about a seconds before going "nope nope nope nope nopenope": "hoookay yeah yes no gently caress that noise" "I got to 11 seconds in and that was quite enough for me (hosed up color movement didn't start until like 10 seconds in)" "eaughhh its like some put a tiny electrical current through my right eye" "loving hell" "Wonder no more my friend, yes that stuff is not compatible with epilepsy" "gently caress" "I mean I looked at the initial effect for literally one second" "and it took about 50 minutes before I could state that I was no longer affected" So remember that warning splash screen when you start up a game? "The might cause trouble to people with epilepsy, user discretion is adviced"? I don't mind the "might kill you" part. I certainly mind that they don't give a hint about which part of the game might kill me "here: have 80 hours of existential dread."
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Dec 19, 2021 14:46
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I've played games since around 1990-1992 up till present day. Only on pc and playstation 1 though. Those two platforms were basically problem free for the vast majority of my life I think the first two games I had any issue with was World of Warcraft (specifically the drunk effect) and Everquest 2 (there was an expansion zone that had a huge tornado just spinning infinitely in place as well as a super problematic river in....Nectulos Forest or something like it) I never got into gameboys or the other consoles so I can't comment on the inherent problems with those platforms. In general it feels like the problem has been escalating as graphics got more detailed and busy over the years. The closer you get to a realistic look, the worse it'll be for me if you then take the visuals in an unexpected direction Someone asked me the following question: "How does your brain like non-euclidean geometry? Since i think you mentioned stuff not looking "right" can also set it off sometimes." Depends on whether or not it starts out non-euclidian. If its like that from the word go like in a painting its fine. If it morphs into that while I need to focus on a part of it? varies extremely. You know those psychedelic morphing animations that happens in shows/games where someones mind gets messed with/drugs kick in/space travel through the chaos dimension? Those range between "eh could have been worse" through "loving hell tell me when its over" all the way down to "unintelligible noises escaping from Serth."
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Dec 19, 2021 14:55
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So this might give you the impression that the world is a scary and dangerous place to be an epileptic, but at least its restricted to just video games and phones and tv right? wrong. Someone told me about a new way to experience the joy of sudden seizures: Quote: "I work on a paint department and our old color matcher just shined a bright light on the sample we were matching but our new one flashes an even brighter light repeatedly and fairly rapidly and it hurts my brain. Like, a lot. I don't think i have epilepsy but one of my coworkers does and she absolutely can not look at it when its running because it made her have to go home early the first time she used it I would have expected there to be a shield or something to put over it. Its kinda annoying because technically its amazing, it can pick up colors from samples far smaller than before, but to do so it like... physically hurts everyone who has to work with it. She generally drives her own car, but she was given a ride by another coworker at that time. I didn't inquire further if that ended up in a hospital trip since it wasn't really my business, I just know she's alright now and she did talk with management about it. She, along with a few of my paint department compatriots, now cover the front of the machine with a piece of cardboard we fashioned as a shield. I'm just disappointed it didn't come with one given... well, the violently bright flashing light. I also tend to cover it and keep the front of the machine pointed towards myself just to make sure since it's only opened in the front. Although matching large/awkward shapes still presents a hassle and a hazard. Just kinda gotta look away and hope you hold it steady enough to get a good match. The matcher also gets angry if we forget to calibrate it when we move it around. Despite all that trouble it is still far better than the old one in terms of speed and match quality. The last one was heavier and more awkward. But, they do seem to care about safety. so I wouldn't be surprised if we get like... probably some 3d-printed prototype cover or something, since my supervisor was pretty adamant about getting something more proper. I'm in the USA. /Quote. So I went digging through the ADA and this was all I could find: "okay so having read through the relevant sections of the ADA, the employer needs to provide a lot of....bizarre accommodations as needed, but something like a screen blocking off obvious triggers from machinery is not mentioned... on the other hand: a private area to rest after having a seizure a rubber mat or carpet to cushion a fall is totally something the employer should provide if needed what....the....gently caress..." Don't you just feel safe now?
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Dec 19, 2021 15:04
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And finally (so far) we come to the currently last exhibit in this little museum of bad days being had: Someone asked me about patterns also being potential triggers and I gave them sort of an "it depends" reply. Well I've found a good example of a brainfucker courtesy of a dev post in the Awful Jams discord. This one had a quick and painful response as well as leaving a slightly blurry afterimage effect on my right eye Harmful links are intentionally made unclickable, copy/paste them into to an address bar to see them. Don't even think about showing this to an epileptic No seriously. Don't. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/879412580098121739/914426851152265236/SPOILER_pinwheel.gif I didn't really get the chance to study the conversation going on while that thing was messing with my head so I can't tell you what purpose this abomination served in the first place. When I posted that (spoilered) on the discord, someone asked me how much of that is the pattern and how much is the fact that it is clearly flashing? I couldn't give a better answer than: "dunno contact with the thinking part of my brain rapidly devolved from "oh hey moving pattern" into "gently caress gently caress gently caress fuuuuuuck fuckfuck gently caress"" SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:20 on Oct 30, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 15:10
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That's all I got in my archives for now, but I am certain that more exhibits will be making their way to me eventually, until then, please feel free to throw any questions you have at me. If you have files like the ones I've linked lying around that you'd like me to check for any potential dangers, feel free to send me a link in the thread, through PMs or on discord where I can be found as Serth#1224.
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Dec 19, 2021 15:13
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Wait… you experience actual, physical pain while looking at some pictures/video? Many of us often remark that particular patterns “give us a headache” but you feel immediate (or close to it) pain?!? Is that in addition to seizures, instead of, or combination?
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Dec 19, 2021 16:40
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yup it can happen in the form of the "staring into the sun" kinda of discomfort, "having the blunt end of a pencil pushed into my eyeball" pressure buildup, having a weak electric current running through my eyeball, and "my head hurts like I'm severely dehydrated and have gotten a headache because of it". Actual seizures all start by knocking me instantly and unexpectedly unconscious, so I got no clue what kind of signals are being sent during the seizure. I suspect its a series of subconscious defenses that my brain has developed in an attempt to protect itself from visual inputs. Sort of a Pavlovian response to negative stimuli.
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Dec 19, 2021 16:46
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What about Magic Eye stereograms and similar? Hell, have you ever played a 3DS? This is really fascinating; thanks for making the thread! I'm a nursing student and one of my daughter's friends has a form of epilepsy, so I like learning about this stuff. Teketeketeketeke fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Dec 19, 2021 |
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Dec 19, 2021 17:33
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Magic Eye stereograms being those "its a sailboat hidden inside this 3d image" things? Those are generally no problem for me at least in book form, and the vast majority of the ones I've seen in digital form haven't been a problem either. Only when the pattern itself is made out of "gently caress you" and "eyeball defiance" do I have any problems with them. Never owned or played a 3DS. Only played on: PC Amiga (very rarely at friend's house) PS 1 Nintendo...gamecube I think? and maybe a later Nintendo thing (the whichever ones had Jak And Daxter as well as Final Fantasy X) No problem! As you can tell from the various posts, its not something I feel should be hidden away or glossed over entirely, so go right on ahead with the questions, technical or personal I don't mind.
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Dec 19, 2021 17:40
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How many meds are you on? Do they work? Please define “work” however you want, and share what your baseline for that is.
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Dec 19, 2021 18:00
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The only meds I'm on are 108mg of Metylfenidat daily to control my ADHD/ADD. Epilepsy meds...I've no clue what if anything they gave me during a seizure, but I do recall my mom telling me later on that she had specifically declined any preventative medication for me due to not trusting big pharma and all that kind of stuff. Mom is a person who trusts a lot of "psychic" "mediums" and is willing to try out the most insane natural remedies (colloidal silver is one I've had a lot of arguments with her about in the past few years). She found something or another back then that she decided was the cause of my epilepsy getting worse and through what she claims to be her correct choice and I claim to be dumb loving luck, my epilepsy gradually stabilized. I later reasoned out what my specific triggers were and lucked into a lifestyle that meant I could avoid said triggers entirely. As for how well my ADHD meds work? When I first got them it was the most awesome experience of my life. Suddenly I could do anything I set my mind to and keep doing so for however long I needed instead of being distracted before even getting started. Fast forward a few years and the meds had gone from "can do anything while I got my meds" to "can't do a loving thing if I haven't gotten my meds". Fast forward another 7-8 years and I've finally hit the mellowed out point of "things are working just fine, but if I don't get my meds, its just gonna be a boring day reading a book or doing some yard work." SerthVarnee fucked around with this message at 12:00 on Apr 11, 2022 |
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Dec 19, 2021 19:09
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There are several medical conditions that are photosensitive. I have photosensitive migraines, and I'm in the same boat as SerthVarnee. I only looked at one of those pictures, the flag with a diamond in the middle, and God am I regretting it. I already had a bad migraine today, but now it's worse. SerthVarnee, do you have to look away from the Marvel logo at the beginning of a movie? That one was an absolute killer for me. I'll never watch the last Star Wars sequel because apparently the last 30 minutes are solid flashes. I rely on warnings from friends on Twitter for warnings about media that may be photosensitive triggers. The name brand needlework community, the formerly much-beloved Ravelry, did a redesign about two? years ago. Complaints immediately poured in about the new design triggering photosensitive users. There were multiple reports of actual seizures. What did Ravelry do? Closed the threads where people were complaining, said they'd bring on an accessibility consultant (they didn't), and, although they allowed an opt-out, made the new, dangerous design the standard. As far as anybody could tell, the reason for their insistence was that they'd worked really hard on the redesign and didn't want to lose their hard work. In migraineurs, photosensitivity often goes with motion sickness. There are several video games I can't play because the limited field-of-view gives me motion sickness that becomes a migraine.
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Dec 19, 2021 21:52
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Arsenic Lupin posted:There are several medical conditions that are photosensitive. I have photosensitive migraines, and I'm in the same boat as SerthVarnee. I only looked at one of those pictures, the flag with a diamond in the middle, and God am I regretting it. I already had a bad migraine today, but now it's worse. I'm really sorry to have caused you any pain. That was never my intention with this thread. I hope you don't feel that I failed put up sufficient warning about the images. It has been ages since I watched a movie, do you have a link for me to check out? I'd google it, but actively googling for things that might gently caress me up feels...well it doesn't feel like the smartest thing for me to spend my day doing. Especially if google decides that I like this kinda of related images and tries to help out by spamming more of them at me.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:06
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This is amazing info and I'm glad you shared! Have you by any chance read BLIT?
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Dec 19, 2021 22:19
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Soul Dentist posted:This is amazing info and I'm glad you shared!  You have no idea how awesome it is to hear that. 35 years of having a lovely illness and over the span of a single year it has been turned into a niche specialty enabling me to do good and a subject where retelling some of my worst experiences gets treated as a treasure trove of information. Goddamn that actually makes the whole ordeal worth going through.Haven't read the short story before. Interesting plot though, I may have to dig that up over the christmas holiday.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:26
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SerthVarnee posted:I'm really sorry to have caused you any pain. That was never my intention with this thread. I hope you don't feel that I failed put up sufficient warning about the images. No, no, you put up TONS of warnings, and I was the dumb one to click. You told me, and I did the bad thing. I'm uncomfortable, so I'm warning you in your turn. I absolutely guarantee this one will trigger seizures. Don't watch it. Read my description. It's a close-up of a sketch of Captain Marvel, pulling back into a flickering set of comics pages, one replacing another in rapid succession, pulling back into a rotating cube of flickering comics pages. When I'm in a movie theater, I have to look at my lap and put my hand over my eyes until it's over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXRJ7ozUJb0 e: I put that inside the spoiler tag, I have no idea why it's showing up.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:27
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Do you have time to look away if it catches you off guard? Or does it impact you immediately? Also, do you know what all of your triggers are? Is it something you can probably guess at? Or do things catch you off guard? Or all of the above?
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Dec 19, 2021 22:32
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Being a sucker for punishment I went and watched the linked video. The text description actually helped a lot. Just knowing whats coming around the corner makes a night/day difference with this kind of stuff. Interestingly, the flickering comics were too slow to bother me. Only the brief flickering between 0:14 and 0:15 registered as distinctly uncomfortable for me, but it was over quickly enough to not matter. Had it lasted for like 5 seconds I would be rolling in an ocean of nausea by now. If stuff catches me off guard it will generally impact me like a right hook to the jawline. might be a knockout blow, might just send me staggering, but in both cases I'm locked in for the ride. In my case the seizure triggers are stress, overheating and being unable to move either my arms or my legs. The more of these you combine the higher the likelihood of a severe seizure happening. To give an idea of how long a seizure can last: last seizure I had was the fun I described earlier in the thread. Basically I was out long enough for my mom to coincidentally arrive at the after-school club thing within 5 minutes of my seizure beginning (according to what I was told later on anyways), mom figuring out that I was having a seizure, either convincing staff to call 911 or grabbing a phone herself (this was before cellphones), whatever time it took to spell out the details to the 911 operator, whatever time it took the ambulance to drive the ca 10km from the hospital to my town and tracking down the correct building. I came to just about the time when the EMTs had gotten to me and was making their initial assessment. (I have no clue when I was moved downstairs or who did the carrying). Actually now that I think about it, I have had a couple of minor incidents since then. One where I passed out after having a blood test drawn, likely passed out because I was really dehydrated and really malnourished, plus I hadn't slept the night before. I sat in the waiting room feeling very lightheaded and not really ready to walk down two flights of stairs yet, when suddenly everyone else in the room started shouting and just generally causing a ruckus. I remember being really annoyed with all the people who couldn't manage to stay quiet in a doctors waiting room, then wondering why it was so dark and my head hurt a bit, then wondering where the floor had come from, since it was suddenly up in my face. Turns out I had just slid out of my chair and plopped onto the floor like a sack of potatoes, hitting the floor face first with my glasses taking the brunt of the impact. This has obviously freaked everyone out and they had started to get up in order to get a doctors attention. Then my arms started doing the fencing response and everyone went apeshit to get a doctor to me right now. I was out for like 5 seconds at most. Another time I was lying in bed with my little dog snuggled up next to me. As I gradually drifted off to sleep I was still gently petting the dog. At some point I passed the point where conscious thought is yielding control to subconscious thought and the continuation of dog petting was attempted, except the attempt was made at maximum strength like you'd see in a fencing response. So basically I just smacked myself in the nuts as hard as I possibly could just as I was falling asleep.
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Dec 19, 2021 22:54
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| # ? May 2, 2024 17:33 |
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Arsenic Lupin posted:
The phone apps sometimes have weird spoiler tag interactions, it likely is hidden in a browser. To be safe, paste the link as a url rather than as a video and it'll be behind a link. The earlier Marvel Studios eyecatch may have been even worse, it had an accelerating flipbook of comic book panels that sped up and faded out into the Marvel logo over the course of a few seconds. I don't have an epilepsy diagnosis and it always annoyed me to watch the first few seconds. Linked here.
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Dec 19, 2021 23:08
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