Visual stimuli from blog caused anxiety and rage just now

[minkeygirl]

Someone gave me a link to a blog where someone talks about inosine dosing since I have just started taking it instead of Immunovir.

Anyway I go to the blog and one look and I am immediately angry. WTH I say to myself, I must be tired or something. So I wait awhile until it passes and try again. One look and I am in a rage and had a huge anxiety attack. I can still feel my adrenalin pumping now.

This blog, written by someone who has CFS, has weird small font and then colored dots all over the background. I have never had this kind of reaction from a visual stimuli. I can't even think about the page now without getting upset.

There is a huge problem among the community between those who don't have neuro issues and those that do. I am forever begging people to use paragraphs. Posting on a forum doesn't mean you forget the rules of writing. Blinking emoji's are torture. Function over form. No one cares if your blog looks pretty if we can't read it. It's a known that we have neuro issues. Why do that?

I can't go back and get the link without looking at the page to tell that person how just that glimpse screwed me up. All I remember is it's a woman with CFS since 2002?

I'm not looking for a diagnosis or advise or what supplement to take or what is wrong with my HPA axis. I am just venting. People need to remember who their audience is.

The first time I looked at this was on my phone so none of the dots where there

Please see @Antares in NYC post for the correct link. I can't seem to go figure it out

 

[ahmo]

Strange, when I use your link, I get a plain white page with text.

 

[Antares in NYC]

I think minkeygirl is referring to this gaudy trip back to the 90s:
http://livewithcfs.blogspot.com.au/

 

[minkeygirl]

I think minkeygirl is referring to this gaudy trip back to the 90s:
http://livewithcfs.blogspot.com.au/

I'll take your word for it. Pastel dots all in the background? Wasn't the font in multiple colors too?

 

[picante]

That's really interesting, @minkeygirl. I'm going to have to pay attention to that issue when I look at websites. I do get mildly annoyed looking at the page Antares linked, which has the spots. But it's a blog dated 12/8 and entitled "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend".

I wonder if the page with the measles-type illness is the page where the most recent blog is posted. The one you linked is indeed about treating ME with Immunovir, and it looks clean & healthy today, at least on my browser.

 

[minkeygirl]

This is what I see. Who in their right might puts that on a CFS blog?

@picante

 

[picante]

That's the "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" blog. Antares' link goes there. It's a pretty cluttered page, but no ads, at least for me (I use Adblock Plus).

Your link goes somewhere else for me. I copied the URL: http://livewithcfs.blogspot.com.au/2012/01/treating-mecfs-with-immunovir.html?m=1

When I open your link in your first post, there are no spots.

 

[Sea]

Who in their right might puts that on a CFS blog?

Someone who most likely doesn't have the effects from it that you have, and is completely unaware of the effect it can have on some people

 

[TiredSam]

When you click on the link in the first post there are no spots, but from that page if you click on either of the blue text hyperlinks in the first sentence it takes you to pages with the spotty background, eg:

http://livewithcfs.blogspot.de/2012/01/how-i-improved-in-2011.html

 

[Strawberry]

I clicked on the link two times. Both times I got this very uncomfortable brain sensation. Its hard to describe it, but something about that page is overstimulating! It didn't give me anger or anxiety, but I completely understand that it could. I don't dare try to read that page, just 3 to 5 seconds was all I could take.

 

[Effi]

@minkeygirl My worst nightmare is a black page with tiny white font and fluorescent blinking/sparkling images everywhere. This sounds very specific, but I've run across it so many times. If I read just a few lines of that stuff and then close it, the lines keep dancing in front of my eyes for at least five more minutes. Whenever this happens on a page about CFS, I just think how is that possible? They must have no neuro symptoms at all.

the measle page is bad too! I guess they don't want us to read the info...

 

[minkeygirl]

Someone who most likely doesn't have the effects from it that you have, and is completely unaware of the effect it can have on some people

That was rhetorical. Even if you don't have problems it's ugly as hell.

 

[taniaaust1]

Someone gave me a link to a blog where someone talks about inosine dosing since I have just started taking it instead of Immunovir.

Anyway I go to the blog and one look and I am immediately angry. WTH I say to myself, I must be tired or something. So I wait awhile until it passes and try again. One look and I am in a rage and had a huge anxiety attack. I can still feel my adrenalin pumping now.

This blog, written by someone who has CFS, has weird small font and then colored dots all over the background. I have never had this kind of reaction from a visual stimuli. I can't even think about the page now without getting upset.

There is a huge problem among the community between those who don't have neuro issues and those that do. I am forever begging people to use paragraphs. Posting on a forum doesn't mean you forget the rules of writing. Blinking emoji's are torture. Function over form. No one cares if your blog looks pretty if we can't read it. It's a known that we have neuro issues. Why do that?

I know how you feel, I'm not too bad with that now but this used to be a huge issue for me. Not rage but a massive brain overload hit which would leave me unable to deal with the page.

When I got some instructions on how to do some legal stuff for court, I received it in italax writing, not even full cursive as though curvy letters they were separated but my brain couldn't handle it so I couldn't work out the instructions though it wasn't messy at all. I do far better with normal typed block letters.

Shopping online sites, overwhelm my brain too with all their little pictures and stuff, I cant handle it well or look at it for long. and the blinking or things moving across top of a page, I cant handle that well either as it distracts my brain too much so I cant focus well on other things. It like takes my full brain to focus on whatever I'm trying to focus on without any of these things.

Its a huge issue as I cant get non ME people who I have to deal with to understand this, why please do not send me anything in cursive etc

 

[taniaaust1]

This is what I see. Who in their right might puts that on a CFS blog?

@picante

Oh my, I agree, that is sooo terrible that page. I myself wouldn't even attempt that with those dots all there. Just looking at the page gives me that brain strain feeling (I guess many here would know what I mean) as ones attention wants to stay on the dots and it would take a "massive effort" to stay on the writing part. I'm not kidding but its like my brain starts to hurt the moment I look at that page.

 

[taniaaust1]

I clicked on the link two times. Both times I got this very uncomfortable brain sensation. Its hard to describe it, but something about that page is overstimulating! It didn't give me anger or anxiety, but I completely understand that it could. I don't dare try to read that page, just 3 to 5 seconds was all I could take.

exactly the same as what that page does to me, but I cant look at it for even 3-5 seconds. Its like an instant brain hit the moment one tries to look at it. I wouldn't dare to even try to read it, it would crash my brain and head. (Ive actually notice I have blurred vision some now just for the 1-2 seconds I studied that page)

 

[Valentijn]

It's pretty horrific. No rage, but definitely not something I would attempt to read.

I think it has to do with filtering input. On a sane page you can focus on the text pretty well, especially if you use ad-blocker or similar. But this has stupid dots and stupid images and stupid fonts and stupid formatting overwhelming the small print in the narrow column of the actual blog.

Basically my ME brain can't focus on the words because everything else is distracting me from them. I'm more accustomed to the audio version of the experience, where background noises can't be filtered out to focus on someone speaking, or whatever else I'm trying to listen to.

 

[picante]

I'm more accustomed to the audio version of the experience, where background noises can't be filtered out to focus on someone speaking, or whatever else I'm trying to listen to.

Me too, me too! I can't hear my husband over the noise of the fridge or the furnace. Sometimes my own brain is louder than his speech. But when he's on the phone with a friend, I can hear him from any room in the house, snork! That's when he turns the volume up.

I can't hear my tango students over the music. They probably wonder why I talk so loud.

 

[wdb]

If you have a bad reaction to colours or patterns then you really ought to look into installing a browser add-on that allows you to override those with colours you find more pleasing.

I think no-squint is a popular one but there are loads of others.

problem fixed.

 

[PatJ]

One look and I am in a rage and had a huge anxiety attack. I can still feel my adrenalin pumping now.

I didn't get rage but I did get an increased heart rate and nausea. This is just from a several second look at the page. I quickly clicked a browser bookmarklet that I use to darken pages and remove background images. Then I was able to look at, and read the page without difficulty. It took a couple of minutes for my heart rate to slow and the nausea to fade.

The dots are the main problem (for me.) They set up an optical illusion where the areas without dots appear to have them when my eye isn't looking directly at the empty areas. I think this is considered a Grid Illusion. (Beware the linked page if optical illusions make you feel odd.)

 

[minkeygirl]

@PatJ Aside from the dots I found the page was too cluttered. The pictures on one side, the font was hard for my eyes. It was just generally not user friendly at all on my computer.

I use F.lux. I shudder to think about what it would have looked like if I didn't have that to tone it down. Yikes!