<rant>
So I had a wonderful day planned last Friday: I'd booked the day off work so that I could drag my flabby behind to the gym, and then I'd treat myself to the new
Thor movie afterwards, possibly followed by a pizza. For someone who hasn't had a holiday this year, that sounded like bliss!
Sadly, fate had other plans for me. My youngest daughter decided to play
Bioshock Infinite before going to school, so I sat in the room with her watching the game... but then I started to feel a little 'zoned out' after she'd used her sniper weapon a few times. Eventually she moved with her sniper weapon into a bright red, hellish arena but I can't tell you much more about that because I pretty much lost consciousness at that stage. I was kind-of aware of my surroundings but I couldn't move or speak. Eventually I was hit by a wave of extreme nausea that forced me to rush out of the room to be sick. That's right, ladies and gents (and non-gender-specific peeps): I'd had a photoepileptic event due to the rapid zooming movement of the sniper weapon in
Bioshock Infinite, possibly exacerbated by the bright red colour in that hellish landscape.
This meant that my trip to the movies was definitely off the cards, because I'm sensitive to the flickering of the cinema screen so if I've had a photoepileptic event I have to avoid anything that could trigger another one. Instead, I spent all day Friday in bed trying to recover, and I asked my family to help me by keeping the noise down, keeping the brightness on the TV down, and not expecting a great deal of sense out of me for a few days.
Did they help me? Did they heck!
I won't bore you with the details, but their responses ranged from the ignorant (hubby playing loud, repetitive, strobing music) to the downright malicious (my eldest kept singing, which is something she never does, to
deliberately fill in any precious moments of silence I needed to recover from my illness).
I've had photoepileptic events before. I
know what is needed to recover, and how long it takes to recover (about 4 days of calm & relaxation). I'm not asking for the moon on a stick; I just need people to be a bit considerate for a couple of days and to, I dunno, maybe show me a bit of care whilst I'm unwell? But to my family that is asking
way too much. According to my family's attitude towards me, I'm just being a massive, attention-seeking drama queen by asking other people to be considerate of my needs during a dangerous medical event.
My family has
no sympathy for me.
Zero. No matter what illness or disability I might have, asking them to take my needs into consideration is asking way too much. And the horrible thing is: as much as I hate doing it I
have to ask, because they'd never do anything proactive to make sure my needs are met. I'm not entitled to have needs: I'm just supposed to be the cash cow that finances all the stuff they want to do, without asking for anything in return. Because if I dare ask for anything in return, they make darn sure that I don't get it. I deserve to be punished, apparently. Is it for coming out as trans*? Possibly. Or maybe it's just the way they are.
Last night, to finish things off, I had insomnia due to aura. When I did eventually manage to drop off between bouts of flashing lights, I had a nightmare about feeling unsafe in my own home. Because that's exactly how I
do feel at the moment: that nobody cares about me or my welfare and if I were to lie bleeding on the floor, they'd just step over me to get to the sofa so that they could see what's on TV.
I am so. heartily. sick. of living with a bunch of people who treat me with utter contempt. The lack of care they show towards me is disgraceful, and in this instance, downright dangerous to my health.
</rant>
TL;DR: My family are dicks when I'm sick.
