Truth

Health Update January 2025

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Hello Friends, Fans, and Family;

It’s been an interesting couple of years for my health. I last talked about it in July 2024.

In short, I’ve been dealing with:

  • Pain in both my forearms
  • Dizzyness
  • Fatigue
  • Brain Fog
  • Tingling in my hands and feet
  • Numb and tingling on my left cheek
  • Blurry vision in my left eye
  • Pain in the joints of my hands and feet

Arms and Spine

I am doing exercises and stretches to help avoid pain. It still there in my arms but it’s manageable. I sometimes get pain in my neck that radiates down, but I double up my exercises and it usually goes away within a week.

Migraines

This is the big one. I’m currently taking Amitriptyline to try and prevent the migraines. So far I’ve been on it for two months with an escalating dose, and it hasn’t done much beyond make me sleepy and have terrible dry mouth. If this doesn’t work, there are other drug options.

I am starting to identify my triggers better. I know the following will trigger me:

  • Big change in caffeine consumption (If I have no coffee or if I have 4+ cups)
  • Alcohol (I noticed it with red wine and with cream liqueurs but I’m just cutting it all out.)
  • Changes in eating routine (If I don’t eat every 2-3 hours I start to feel faint and it can trigger)
  • Changes in sleep patterns. (Especially if the change is often)
  • Fluorescent lights
  • Strong smells (Mostly anything floral or going close to a soap store in the mall. Although someone had a poutine at work and the smell lasted all day. I loved the smell but ouch)
  • Changes of 10+ degrees in the weather and rainstorms. (I have no control over this one.)

Stress doesn’t seem to make the migraine worse but it does make the side effects worse. I had a really stressful day in December and for the next two weeks the muscles in my hips hurt like they were on fire. It’s caused by the migraine, the brain, and the two causing muscles to tense too far (probably what happened to my arms.)

I see my doctor on Wednesday and we’ll see what happens. I think this is a long haul.

Allergies

I have restarted my allergy shots and one week hasn’t cured me yet. I’ll be taking them weekly for 22 weeks. My allergist’s office prefers that I do the shots elsewhere so I’m thinking of going to an Appletree near my house on my lunch break.

Neurodiversity

As I mentioned in Friday’s post, I am Autistic and have ADHD. This explains a lot about how I burn out and how drained I feel in certain situations. It, with the migraines, explains a lot of why I feel like crap at certain times.

I’m not sure how this interacts with my other health issues but I’m sure that they interact and make things more complicated.

Sleep apnea and asthma

I have taken an asthma test and I am scheduled for a sleep test this summer. Hopefully these will be eliminated as concerns.

In Conclusion

Despite everything on this list, I feel better than I have in years. With my doctor’s help and hopefully finding the right thing to help with my migraines I should be even better by next year.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

I am Autistic

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Hello Friends, Family, and Fans;

A few years ago I started looking into getting diagnosed with ADHD and/or Autism.

Last year I was diagnosed by a quick online service with Inattentive ADHD. I found out afterward that most employers and insurance companies don’t accept the results of this sort of testing.

I decided that I wanted to know and got tested properly. As you can guess from the title I was diagnosed as Autistic. I’m considered level 1 which isn’t a cool RPG system but just means that I need little to no support in day to day life. (Until recently it was called Asperger’s after a Nazi-Eugenicist).

I was also diagnosed as ADHD mixed type, suspected Dysgraphia, and Rejection sensitive dysphoria.

A small build your own booknook that I got for Christmas. It was a lot of fun to make. If you’re wondering why I put this in the post, its for reach and because I`d say books are one of my special interests.

It’s been almost a month and I’m still processing what it means. Currently, I’m relieved to be able to look back at times where I thought I was broken and understand that I wasn’t. So much of my life makes more sense now that I know.

The more I learn about Autism and ADHD, the more I feel better about myself. I’ve spent so long being told I was lazy, unreasonable, not applying myself, melodramatic, picky, annoying, or just weird. Over forty years of being told things like that, it starts to become part of your own inner monologue. My whole life, I’d wonder why certain things were so hard for me and those were the only answers. Now I have a better one, and I need to start being kinder to myself.

It’s a disability, and I’m starting to understand how it affects me and my life.

The big take away, for now, is understanding that I’m not broken but I am disabled.

Feel free to ask me any questions.

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Allegiance to the Truth?

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Hello my Friends, Family, and Fans,

Last week I made the foolish mistake of commenting on a comment. The original post was a variation on, “Always punch Nazis,” and the comment was something along the lines of, “Come and punch me.” I decided to be snarky and say, “Wow. Admitting to being a Nazi… wow.”

I should have ignored it. He and the other people who commented didn’t want to have a discussion, they wanted to be angry. They seem angry that people call them Nazis or dismiss their beliefs because they’re associated with Nazis. (At least that’s what I get.)

I tried to reason with them and say that they just have to keep hate groups out of their protests and that’s all there is to it. (Before you ask. Yes. If I’m ever in a protest and the person next to me flies a Nazi or KKK flag, they’re going into the trash, and the flag too.)

This is obviously an extreme example, but it illustrates a trend. I like to be right, I also like to know the truth, but most of all I hate false information. It often gets me in trouble like I said in this post. The misinformation itches like a rash and I need to say something.

Unfortunately, people don’t see correction as a dislike of misinformation, but as a personal attack.

The want to be precise is something that runs in my family. Persnickety is a family hobby and it’s both frustrating and understandable. Sometimes you just want to get to the message and when people nitpick the details, it feels like they are purposely missing the point. (I also realize this is all a trait of neurodivergence but that’s a whole other post.)

Hank Green is a Youtuber I’ve been following for almost twenty years and I’ve always had a great respect for his dedication to the truth, to the point of making correction videos when he gets things wrong.

He posted these two videos recently discussing the truth and the quest to have an allegiance to the truth. Basically fact checking yourself and making sure you’re not just accepting things that fit into your bias. They are extremely entertaining to watch and I love that he is able to admit when he was wrong.

With the American elections last week, the upcoming Canadian federal elections, and the upcoming Ontario provincial elections; we need to be on our toes to avoid getting caught up in bias, falsities, and outright lies.

In this age of near infinite information at our fingertips, it’s important that we check to make sure we aren’t propagating false information.

But what do I know?

Stay safe and be kind,

Éric

Good and Bad

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

We’ve been watching Falcon and the Winter Soldier. No spoilers, I promise. My daughter is having a really hard time following it, which is interesting on its own, considering she had no issues with WandaVision.

Her biggest problem, besides the sheer quantity of military, political, and racism language; is figuring out who the bad characters are.

Television, books, and movies normally have very well defined good and bad characters. She understands the twist baddie, but this show’s characters are all so ambiguously bad that it’s hard to tell.

Even the main characters do some bad and dumb things.

I’ve been trying to explain to her that in real life, bad or good isn’t what you are, but what you do. We’ll get to how it can be hard to tell the difference later, but right now she needs to understand that its not an innate state of being. No one is Good and no one is Bad. We are defined by our actions.

It’s important to me that my kids understand the difference both for themselves and for others. Because once you decide people are one way or another you put them in a box and start to paint their actions based off of your preconceptions. It leads to hero worship and accepting bad things because someone is good.

It’s a hard concept, but we have a lifetime to discuss it.

Stay safe, and be kind,

Éric

Santa (or should we tell children the secret?)

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Hello My Imaginary Friends,

Let’s talk about the most imaginary of friends, Santa Claus. I read an article called “In Defence of Santa Claus” and it made me think. (Sorry, no angry rant)

MerryOldSanta

I’m not sure what to do when I, eventually, have children. I discovered the truth about Santa when I was relatively young. It wasn’t a shock or really much of anything. I just realized that my mom and brother had put out the presents.

My wife, on the other hand, was told on the bus and got into a fight (not physical – it involved a lot of yelling) about it and wouldn’t believe it even when her parents told her.

Why was it harder for her than for me? I don’t know. Maybe it was the level of honesty of our parents? My wife’s parents were always completely honest with her.

My mom, on the other hand, reveled in telling fanciful lies. She had me convinced for a long time that one of our ancestors had created French Fries. She even had a long elaborate story to go with it. It was her way of both teasing and training me not to believe everything I hear. They were always interesting and fun. (I miss her.)

So what does that mean? What does a little fib matter if it brings magic to the holidays? Saying that Santa brings magic, makes it sound like those who discover the secret don’t have magical holidays. That’s simply not true. There’s something special about the holidays that is more than the sum of its parts.

I’m leaning towards letting my future kids know that it’s a story. Does that make me:

What’s your opinion on Santa? Malicious lie or Fanciful fib?

Éric

Diversity in Writing

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My brother, who is a great guy, has always loved performing and after our mother died he started taking classes and seriously throwing himself into acting. It was roughly the same time I started writing seriously.

Authenticity

When he talks about the craft of acting he often brings up “truth” or “honesty” in reference to a performance. It got on my nerves until I understood that he was talking about authenticity or making a character feel like a real person. (My English teacher would say three dimensional.) It’s a concept that brought his acting from talented but hammy to truly good. He’s been getting better with every project by always keep that idea in his mind.

Writing and Authenticity

In writing it’s just as important to make your characters authentic and relatable. As a writer (I’ve written 5 books, fifty plus short stories, and over 200 blog posts. I’ll call myself that and if this guy has a problem with that I’ll gladly challenge him to a write off.) Sorry… As a writer, I concentrate as much as I can on characters. My favourite scenes are usually domestic ones, how someone eats, cleans etc. tells me more about a character than all the clever quips in the world. (I like those too though)

The problem with being authentic is trying to understand and represent characters that are completely different than me. Let’s face it, I’m a 30 year old white, middle class, male, who rates a 2 on the Kinsey scale. I am what 90% of books, movies, and television portray as the norm.

This makes me worry that I’m not being authentic in my writing. If I’m not the best case is that that characters come off as unbelievable, at worst they come off as sad stereotypes. I don’t want to misrepresent my characters or my (eventual) readers.

Why Does Diversity Matter

I’ve heard the old saying of, “Write What You Know” it is a platitude handed down from the gods of writing years ago. It’s also wrong. It’s an attitude that says only aged, world weary, grizzled writers should write.

So why do I want to write about characters who don’t resemble me? Why is it important? It just is. As a kid I had hundreds and thousands of characters that looked and thought like me, that I could relate too. I want that level of relatability for everyone. I want a world where you can pick up a book and see a character that you fully understand and a whole bunch that teach you that as humans we are all fundamentally the same.

Learning about other sexes, cultures, religions, nationalities, sexualities, sexual preferences, and disabilities helps make them more understandable and breaks the “Us vs Them” mentality.

It’s also more interesting.

Conclusion

I haven’t lived as a Polynesian girl with anorexia, or a transgendered boy raised by a conservative family but I have written about them.

In Parasomnia, (AKA the book that is taking me way too long to edit) I tried my best to be authentic and to make each character feel real. I hope I succeeded but I’ll only know by finding beta readers who can call me out on anything that is wrong or stereotypical.

 

What’s your opinion on diversity in books?

Éric