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Photophobia, Migraines, And Discord Pings.

By someone with photophobic autism & migraines.

What is photophobia? ¹ — Photophobia is the eyes extreme sensitivity to light, resulting in discomfort and/or pain. This can be anything like flashing, ebbing, or pulsing lights, or bright lights. What constitutes as bright differs from person to person.
— Photophobia is caused by anything from eye conditions like color blindness, astigmatism, and dry eye, to neurological conditions like migraine headaches or traumatic brain injuries. Photophobia can also be caused by autism, as a symptom of hypersensitivity.

So, what's this have to do with discord pings? — Discord has a feature called "pinging," which notifies the user of a reply with a sudden alert sound. These pings also light up a yellow color to differentiate between other messages. There's a few reasons this may be uncomfortable for some, and those reasons are gone into more detail in this carrd, but the main one I'll be focusing on here is photophobia and migraines.
— The yellow light can and will irritate photophobic eyes. This will overwhelm and cause pain to autistic individuals, as well as trigger migraines very, very easily. It can hurt photophobic eyes to the point where one cannot even stand to look at the message, because it's physically painful to the reader.

What's the big deal? It's just a headache. ² — Incorrect. A migraine is worse than just a "bad headache." It's debilitating, throbbing pain, that can last for days on end. Bright lights, loud noises, sudden movement, and motor functions can both trigger and worsen a migraine. Hemiplegic migraines can paralyze and/or numb victims for extended periods of time.
— Other varying symptoms of migraines include: nausea, vomiting, dizziness, temporary partial blindness, slurred speech, confusion, tinnitus, fainting, and burst blood vessels. These symptoms, along with the pain of a migraine, can be disabling for the victim.

How can I be more respectful of photophobia? — Turn off pings if asked. Usually, photophobic individuals have "NO @" / "@ OFF" / "NO PING" / some other variation in their Discord display name. It's respectful to just, turn it off.
How to turn pings off on Discord ver. 211.0:
— iOS:
Image ID:
A screenshot of the Discord message bar on iOS. The pop up above the bar reads "Replying to Bot" on the left, and reads in highlighted blue text "@ ON" on the right.
End ID.
Image ID:
A screenshot of the Discord message bar on iOS. The pop up above the bar reads "Replying to Bot" on the left, and reads in grey text "@ OFF" on the right.
End ID.
— Windows 11:
Image ID:
A screenshot of the Discord message bar on Windows 11. The pop up above the bar reads "Replying to Bot" on the left, and reads in highlighted blue text "@ ON" on the right.
End ID.
Image ID:
A screenshot of the Discord message bar on Windows 11. The pop up above the bar reads "Replying to Bot" on the left, and reads in grey text "@ OFF" on the right.
End ID.


— That concludes this Rentry. I hope that this helped, and that you continue to be accommodating and respectful to people with migraines moving forward. I appreciate the time you took to read this.

Photophobia Resources

Photophobia by Cleveland Clinic
What is Photophobia (Light Sensitivity)? by Vision Center

Migraine Resources

Migraine Headaches by Cleveland Clinic
Migraines by National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

BRIGHT WARNING.
A (jokingly) accurate representation of what Discord pings look like to photophobic users:

Image ID:
A GIF of King Neptune from SpongeBob SquarePants removing his hat. Blinding light reflects off his head, burning someone's eyes. The caption above the GIF reads "ping on discord".
End ID. (( Thanks, Klaus. <3< ))

Edit
Pub: 16 Jan 2024 19:41 UTC
Edit: 13 Jul 2024 23:15 UTC
Views: 4974