Kara Struggles with OCD

September 10, 2023August 26, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I’ve known for a while that I have OCD. It’s a very common comorbidity with autism, and they feed off each other in the worst way by tapping into that obsessive, hyperfocused piece of autism and strapping an anxiety rocket to the back of it. Once it starts, it’s very hard to stop.

To me, anxiety feels like I’m overwhelmed; the world is too much. OCD feels like my brain is hurtling through my thoughts at 100 mph in a hyperfocused yet constantly shifting feedback loop. It makes it nearly impossible to focus on one thing for long, so I just hop from thing to thing until my brain exhausts itself, gets anxious again, and the process repeats because checking/obsessing gives it a dopamine pay-off to cancel out the anxiety. The worst part is that when it’s bad, I’m not always cognizant that’s what this is, especially if there is an active source of stress. The incident that has kicked off this post was caused by someone and a perceived (real or imagined) threat, so it wasn’t illogical to believe I needed to do something to stay safe. The problem was anxiety about feeling unsafe because it seemed like someone I had blocked was creeping on my social media quickly snowballed into an obsessive downward spiral (whether that was true or not doesn’t change the anxiety over it).

I don’t like who I become when I’m obsessed like this. You know in movies/TV shows where the detective is tracking someone through storms and ridiculous situations no matter what danger appears, that is how being OCD driven feels. My brain would happily sacrifice actual safety to get what it wants, and that is terrifying in hindsight. It makes me an unsafe person when I’m in that hypervigilant state. The minutiae I would typically be anxiety-ridden over go out the window if I can feed the thought engine to go faster. Somehow my brain thinks hurtling toward danger is how I can make myself safe, as if I can think myself into safety because the solution has to be there somewhere. I just need to think fast and hard enough to do it.

Part of the problem is that I have trained myself to do this by accident. When I was in high school and college, I could ascend to a higher test-taking plane by working myself into that frenzied hyperfocused state. If you’ve ever seen Michael Phelps getting pumped before a meet, that’s basically what it looks like but internal. I could fly through a final exam in less than fifteen minutes and walk out with an A because I worked my brain into a state it was never meant to be in. After finals week, I would collapse into a pool of exhaustion and mild anxiety until my synapses cooled. The same thing happens now with OCD.

I feel the rug pulled out from under me when the source of stress is removed or I snap out of it for whatever reason. OCD brain v. normal brain is a shocking contrast, but when it’s been slowly building for weeks, you don’t notice you’re in trouble until you’re in the thick of it, which is the scariest part for me. My OCD doesn’t manifest as external rituals, it’s just internal cycling, obsessive chaos, which makes it harder to pinpoint and harder for others to notice and intervene. Plus, despite all the rest, I try to hide it if I think my partner is getting concerned about me. I shouldn’t, but unfortunately, it’s hard to admit to ourselves and others that we need help. I’m open about having anxiety and being autistic, but OCD is always seen so stereotypically that it’s hard to discuss it when it presents as a whirlpool of brain chaos and refreshing internet tabs.

Truthfully, I thought I could will it away. If I tried hard enough, I could magically beat back the OCD or pull myself out without external help, but it’s obvious I can’t. The problem with treating OCD and autism together is multifaceted. The most obvious issue is the cost and availability of mental health services. A lot of places have wait lists for evaluations, and no matter where you go, it’s going to cost you unless you have good insurance (even then, it isn’t cheap). The other major problem is that a lot of psychiatrists are not equipped to work with neurodivergent/autistic patients, so they end up either being ableist and patronizing or totally useless because your brain doesn’t work the same way as a neurotypical person’s brain. When you have a combo plan brain and one without external ritualized behaviors, OCD gets a little tricky to treat.

My hope is that in the near future I can get anti-anxiety/OCD medication that will hopefully help to tamp down these feelings or make it easier to disengage. It will probably be a bit as I research psychiatrists and figure out what my insurance will and won’t cover. In the meantime, I’m going to try to limit my time on social media and active Discords because, now that I’m less chaotic, I know those are part of the under-over stimulated feedback loop that sucks me into a checking OCD spiral.

I got off balance this year back in July when I had the jury duty panel week, and it wasn’t my smartest move to throw an intensive summer class on top of it, knowing I was working on my book and that other things could come up, which they did. I need to figure out the balance between making enough to live and not putting my brain into stressed out, OCD hell. In the meantime, I’m going to work on finding some coping strategies and supplements that might muffle the anxiety until I can make an appointment with someone.

Personal Life

Kara’s Random Game Recs

August 13, 2023August 2, 2023 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

This may seem random, but since I’ve been discussing maintaining my sanity, I thought I might talk about some games that I’ve greatly enjoyed and others I’m looking forward to in the future. Let me be upfront about my taste in games, in case we are polar opposites: I like low stress games with some story or romance, puzzles, task completion, etc. If there’s customization in the game, I’m probably down. If there is required multiplayer, I’m out. With that out of the way, let’s talk about some games I loved and why.

Ooblets

Ooblets is low stress and a bit silly. It’s a sort of like Pokemon in that you collect creatures, but instead of violent battles, they have dance battles. It’s low stress, there are mini games, lots of customization. It reminds me vaguely of My Sims for the Wii, especially with some of the Gothic flavored goodies, but it’s for the low stress crowd for sure.

Stardew Valley

Pretty much everyone knows Stardew Valley is a farm/life sim, so I won’t go into too much detail. I love how they’re still updating it now after how many years since its release and how many mods you can download to make the experience truly unique to you. My favorite character you can date will always be Shane. I take no criticism for it.

Spiritfarer

Spiritfarer is a gut punch at times. You are a spiritfarer, someone who transports souls along their journey to the otherworld. You have to help them become whole before they can move on, and some of the stories will bring tears to your eyes. It’s part story, part asset management game, and all fun. The world is fairly open but not so open that it feels aimless.

Strange Horticulture

If you loved Jordan L. Hawk’s Widdershins, Strange Horticulture is right up your alley. You play as a horticulturist who has just taken over a flower shop in a very strange town. Queer plants, puzzles, a cult and an eldritch monster lurking in the woods, it has everything you could possibly want. This story is divided into thirteen days (I think) and there are multiple endings, so it’s great to play more than once to hit all the paths/endings.

Unpacking

Unpacking is about telling a story through objects. We follow an unseen character as they unpack their life throughout the years. We get to see how their lives change and follow objects through the years. It is super sweet, and the more you play, the more you discover hints of the unseen character’s story. It is so chill, though I wish it was longer.

A Little to the Left

A Little to the Left is similar to Unpacking in that it is an object game, but this is more focused on puzzles. This one can be challenging at times (I had to sneak peeks at a guide a few times when I got stuck), so it’s low stress until it isn’t. They also made an expansion pack for cupboard and drawer puzzles (some of my favorites). It scratches the autistic urge to sort things.

Games I am Looking Forward to Playing

Venba– the story follows a family who is now living in a new country and the story is told through recipes. It looks so cute, and it’s a great change to see a story from an Indian company. Out now.
Book of Hours– this feels in the same vein as Strange Horticulture. It’s a puzzle game where you restore an occult library and discover things about its history as you fix it. It looks deliciously spooky, and you all know how much I love a game with historical flare. Out August 17th.
Botany Manor– we have another plant-based puzzle game, but Botany Manor follows a botanist who inherits a house in the English countryside filled with rare plants. You explore the manor, solve puzzles to help the plants grow, and enjoy the 19th century atmosphere. It looks so chill, and the scenery looks gorgeous. No release date yet.
Tiny Bookshop– You run a pop-up bookshop in an asset management/narrative game. This combines my favorite things: books, customization, and asset management. This game is still in development, but it looks right up my alley with the beachy, cozy ambiance. No release date yet.
Moonlight Peaks– Spooky Stardew Valley. You play a vampire who moves to a new town, where you need to make friends with other supernatural creatures, grow plants, and do magic. You get to fly around town as a bat. Every clip I see makes my Halloween heart happy. No release date yet.
Dredge– I own Dredge but haven’t worked up the nerve to play because I’m a chicken and it’s horror. You run a fishing boat in a town where some secrets are best forgotten. As you explore the island and upgrade your ship, you find out more. I love fishing games and unsettling games, so I’m hoping it’ll be my taste. It is out now.

Personal Life

Neurodivergence and Jury Duty

July 30, 2023July 13, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Sometimes it’s easy to forget I’m autistic. I have sort of built a life for myself where my weaknesses are minimized and my strengths are (mostly) highlighted. My job allows me plenty of decompression time, I can sort of pick my time slot, and my schedule is very predictable 90% of the time. The problem comes when I’m thrown a curve ball, and I’m repeatedly reminded that the world isn’t built for my brain.

In the first half of July, I had jury duty. To be clear, I didn’t get picked, but I had to attend jury duty selection, which means a week of my life was put on hold with a metaphorical piano hanging over my head. The funny thing is, I think actual jury duty would be far easier for me to deal with than the selection process, but let’s talk about the ways in which this was not an accessible or smooth experience for me as an autistic person.

Faces on cameras

It is overwhelming for me to stare at 60+ people on camera and know they are staring back at me. When I taught remotely early on in the pandemic, I didn’t require my students to show their faces, and I didn’t show mine. Every face is a lot of data or background noise/sensory input to deal with. Being on camera, even if I’m meant to be idle while waiting, feels performative. I’m hyper aware of every micro expression I am or am not making. As autistics, we’re often penalized for our resting bitch face or lack of expression, so I sat there for hours schooling my face into something close enough to mild interest that no one would say anything. On top of this, there were no captions (if there were, I couldn’t figure out how to turn them on). It’s hard to understand people when Zoom is cutting in and out, and I assumed I could turn it on and never asked anyone to do so preemptively. Things got garbled, especially when I was trying to listen and not look at myself or other people.

Schedules? Don’t know her

This was honestly the worst part. I never knew when anything was supposed to happen, or we’re told one thing but other instructions contradict it. One paper says you will hear from us by 5:30 PM, the woman on camera says 5:00 PM. The orientation itself wasn’t bad, but it was 3+ hours of instructions and time killing followed by being stuck in OCD purgatory (more on that later). I didn’t know if I was allowed to get up and go to the bathroom or if I could run my dogs outside really fast. The same thing happened during the selection process when we were initially told they would tell us who was on-deck to speak to the judge, so if we needed to get water or pee, we could. Then, they stopped telling us and just started calling people. The flipflopping on the setup was frustrating because as soon as I thought I got a handle on what was going on, it changed. On top of this, you never know what day you can or will be called. They say check your email after 5 PM every day this week to hear about the next day. That’s a lot of time to have zero predictability in my schedule. By Wednesday, I had no idea what day it was and felt completely unmoored. I didn’t even know if there was a possibility of being called on Friday. The paperwork made it seem like yes while the judge that talked to us made it sound like it didn’t happen. Nothing makes sense in jury duty selection.

Checking OCD trigger central

I have checking OCD (I came to understand that’s what it was during a therapy appointment during the pandemic). It used to manifest as checking my dad’s Fitbit all day while he was at work to monitor his heart rate because the fear was if I don’t check, he might have a major heart event, not realize it, and die. Since he passed, my checking OCD has been mostly under control. On the first day of jury selection, they said the worst thing they could have to me, “Check your email every 15-20 minutes.” Now, to normal people, this translates to check your email at least 2-3 times an hour. My paranoid, anxiety ridden self took this as check your email every 5-10 minutes, don’t believe it, refresh it, do it again, and check your phone. I was so afraid that I would get involved in something and miss an important email that I basically sat at my computer from 11-4:00 (when I got an email from them) doing nothing but futz around on Twitter and check my email. Once I realized I got an email AND a text if they needed me, that curbed my checking anxiety a bit, but the feeling of being yanked back into that spiral was horrible.

Yes or no questions

I hate yes or no questions, especially when people demand it be a yes or no under penalty of law for lying. Logically, I know I’m not being hauled off to jail for not 100% correctly answering a question (note: I don’t mean untruthfully, I mean not correct), but the fear is there. It trips me up in answering things because I don’t want to answer in haste and lie, but then, I think too hard about a question and get confused. Have you ever taken a standardized test or read a government form and had to parse it out for 10 minutes because you think you know what it’s asking, but you don’t want to be penalized if you’re wrong? That’s the autistic experience of dealing with the legal system, and people wrongly assume you’re lying if you spend too long thinking before you answer. I, unfortunately, was called to speak to the judge to see if I qualified for a case. The questions that were asked confused me, and I said as much. “Would you be prejudiced against a defendant just because they’re a defendant?” I sat there for a second not understanding why anyone would feel that way, asked the judge to explain it because it made zero sense to me, only to realize that was exactly what they were asking. My favorite was the judge asking if I had any conditions or anything that might make it impossible to fulfill my duty as a juror. I have never been a part of jury duty, so I honestly have no frame of reference as to whether or not I would be a functional human being in this situation or if I would just power down and dissociate. It’s hard to answer when I honestly don’t know. If you say that though, people look at you like you’re crazy, so I kept that to myself but said something else that got me disqualified from the case.

Bonus: misgendering!

Always fun when you have to use your full legal name for something when it’s a name you never use. I tried putting (Kara) next to it and still got full named. In a pre-service survey they ask if you’re male, female, or nonbinary. I put nonbinary. I’m 90% sure I did. On Zoom, I filled in my pronouns as they/them. I wore something gender neutral, I moved my computer to only show me from the shoulders up, I had my hair pulled back. I did everything I could and get miss-ed and ma’am-ed by the judge repeatedly. Once he said, “men and women” and “he or she” repeatedly during his warm-up speech, I figured it was a lost cause, but it still was like the moldy icing on the already stressful cake. Before someone says, “Why didn’t you say something?”, we all know rule one of jury duty and the legal system in general is don’t bring attention to yourself.

Kara, what was the point of this?

This was not meant to be a rambling complaint-fest. I wanted to point out that something most people find to be a minor inconvenience is actually stressful for some of us. Obviously, there’s always the financial stress of missing work when you get called for jury duty, but in this case, it’s more so the mental stress and anxiety this whole process causes in people who need clearly delineated information, consistency, and predictability. A week of constant anxiety feels like overkill for such a mundane process, but that’s what it was. The worst part is, I don’t even know what accommodations someone could ask for if the process is supposed to be random. Randomness inherently runs counter to what I need, but I wish the expectations and schedule could at least be more clear cut and not taken for granted by those who deal with jurors every day. For jury duty to be the fair and equitable process it hopes to be (though we all know its not), accommodating neurodivergent jurors would be a great place to start.

Personal Life

Maintaining My Sanity

July 23, 2023July 3, 2023 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

I have recently learned a valuable lesson: you cannot mandate relaxation.

My tendency is to be a bit of a workaholic when it comes to grading, writing, etc. to the point that I burn myself out. I rarely get to the point of actual burnout, but I definitely end up giving myself a time out or not being able to work for a few days due to my brain just being fried.

Of course, because I’m a workaholic, I got annoyed at the fact that I sometimes required a few days off every now and again, so what did I do? I added mandated relaxation to my to-do list. If you’re face-palming at this, you aren’t wrong.

What does mandated relaxation look like? At first, I put on my weekly to-do list that I had to play video games. At the time, certain games were doing it for me and helping me relax. The first few weeks of this, allowing myself to play games did help. Having it on my to-do list eliminated the guilt associated with playing games while fried instead of doing something “productive.” The problem came when I started to feel better, and gaming went from relaxing to another thing on my list that I didn’t feel like doing. Soon, I switched it from gaming to doing crafts.

Once again, it worked at first, and then quickly became a chore. I sat there being like how do I phrase this to allow myself to relax or force myself to break without feeling bad?

It feels like a very obvious answer now, but I need to unpack my own productivity issues and allow myself to enjoy myself, rest, do relaxing things instead of void staring until I’m productive again. Fixating on productivity and what I can do or get done isn’t healthy, and it’s ultimately what’s holding me back from maintaining a more realistic healthy schedule. Sometimes I also like to forget that I have chronic conditions that make it so I’m not 100% on or at the same level all the time. I would never beat someone else up over having to take it easy when they don’t feel good, but with myself? I take no quarter and am very mean to myself.

Listening to my body isn’t easy, but I’m trying. I’m trying to pay attention to when it needs rest or to do something creative because creativity is as nurturing to me as food. When I say creative here, I mean something besides writing. I like to do art, crafts, puzzle games. Anything intellectually stimulating that isn’t my writing or grading. I tend to think I’m at peace with having chronic conditions since I’ve had them in some form for the vast majority of my life, but when the condition becomes more internal (versus being very outwardly obvious as it used to be), it’s harder to face the expectations people put on you when they assume you’re running at normal/full steam all the time. That’s the part I need to work on: advocating for myself with others while listening to my body and brain rather than punishing it for its needs.

Personal Life

Being the Professor I Needed

May 28, 2023May 16, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

As an adjunct professor, I have a few guidelines for myself that aren’t in any university handbook. They include

Never be the horror story professor students remember for the rest of their lives.
Be the professor young me needed as an undergrad (even if I didn’t know it).
Institutional/systematic change begins in the classroom.

The first one is probably slightly selfish on my part as I like being well-liked, but number one trickles down to the next two. While I know not every student is going to like my class or me, the goal is to teach them as best I can, support their learning, and have them leave my classroom knowing more or feeling better than when they went in. Will students sleep through my class or play on their phones the entire time? Absolutely. But in regards to my third guideline, I’m no longer calling those students out, and I’m doing my best to continually learn, grow, and create a less ableist classroom for my students.

I’m neurodivergent, but I’m [generally] the kind of neurodivergent teachers like. I hyperfocus, I’m type A with my classwork, I ask questions and participate if I’m comfortable, and I have been the kid who is “a pleasure to have in class.” My partner is also neurodivergent and spent his entire school career with unmedicated ADHD. No matter how hard he tried, he struggled to pay attention or take notes, he fell asleep in class (due to struggling to sleep), and his ability to memorize things despite trying to hours was abysmal. He couldn’t help it. I watched him struggle, and I watched professors get frustrated with him or treat him like a terrible student who didn’t want to be there, a student unworthy of college. This was hammered home by coming from poverty, being Latinx, and not fitting traditional masculine standards for someone AMAB. One of my favorite teachers (now a friend and mentor) helped him a lot in her class, and I never forgot how much he appreciated her help and compassion. She could see he was trying when others wrote him off.

When I graduated with my MFA and started adjunct teaching, I decided I wanted to be a professor like my friend/mentor. I wanted to be the professor students looked forward to like I did her classes. The problem is, it’s easy to fall into hard-ass mode. Students are human. They’re obnoxious, they push your buttons, they don’t pay attention, and it was easy to see them as just trying to make my life difficult by not doing what they’re supposed to do. I took it personally when they didn’t do their work, especially when I knew they were fully capable of doing the work and turning it in. It was an incredibly stupid way to look at it, and I didn’t see it until I was sitting at an adjunct meeting at the one university I worked at and heard the older adjuncts talk about their students. I hated how badly they talked about their students, how they automatically assumed they were all trying to pull a fast one on them, but especially how no one seemed to care about the ones who were trying.

There are two things that changed my attitude real quick: how they spoke about international/non-native English speaking students and how they spoke about neurodivergent students.

I had a class that was 75% international students, and to this day, they were one of my absolute favorite classes. I stopped knitpicking their grammar flubs. I corrected them, but I didn’t take points off or factor it into their grades. These eighteen year olds had been in the US for like two weeks and were expected to write essays in perfect English. It was an absurd standard, so I didn’t hold them to it. Toward the end of the semester, one of my students mentioned how they were glad they didn’t have to stress so much in my class because other professors were taking points off for every mistake. These bright, wonderful students I bantered with and were proud of were being penalized for not being native English speakers. Then and there, I decided I would never take off points for grammar or spelling. There’s a difference between careless typos and other language-isms if you’re willing to pay attention. Besides, big picture essay issues are far more useful to correct than knitpicky grammar checking.

When we began to suspect my partner had ADHD, I dove into research for how to better support him and myself. We’re a neurodivergent couple, so what works for us doesn’t work for neurotypical people. After doing more research on autism and ADHD, I started to notice that a lot of what other professors complained about like not paying attention, doodling, having earbuds in, etc. are often neurodivergent coping mechanisms. Often ND people are paying attention, but they aren’t performing listening or focus in a way that NT people recognize. When I was a college student, I spent a lot of my time with my head down, but because I was taking copious notes, my professors didn’t criticize me for it. My doodling partner got in trouble. While I couldn’t easily listen to background noise back when I was in school, nowadays, I probably would have headphones in. I stopped bothering students when I thought they weren’t paying attention or they appeared to be multitasking. At this point, I say to myself they are adults; if they are just f-ing around instead of doing something to help focus, that’s on them.

The pandemic and moving online made me reevaluate if the policies in my classes were ableist or cruel or absurd. As an undergrad, I dragged my half-dead corpse to class when I was ill because we were docked points if we were absent too much and professors wouldn’t provide notes if you missed class. In my junior or senior year, my grandma got brain cancer and died not long before finals. I was spending all my free time at the hospital and not missing class because I was afraid my professors would think I was making stuff up (the joke was that grandmothers died a lot during 8 AM classes). Thinking back on it, I hate that I had to worry my professors thought I was a liar and not that I was young adult going through shit I never asked for or could have foreseen. I didn’t want students to go through that in my classes. I’ve made it my policy that you can basically miss as much class as you need as long as you stay active in regards to doing your work (which feels like the basic consequence of your actions). If a student asks for an extension, I give it. If a student who was otherwise active in class disappears, I reach out to see if they’re okay. The demographic of students in college classes is changing. It isn’t mostly upper middle class white kids with no job apart from school. A lot of my students are taking care of their siblings, their children, their disabled relatives, or their working full-time jobs (or the equivalent of). On top of that, some of my students have chronic illnesses. I have my own inflammatory issues where I have flare ups, and I know how to feels to have anxiety that makes leaving the house feel impossible. My policy has become put your health and well-being first, and we’ll figure it out if you need to catch up.

The worst thing is that I feel like what I’m doing is the bare minimum. There are things I know I could do that would make my classes more accessible, but I haven’t had the time or spoons to do it yet (like recording all my classes again and posting them on Youtube or somewhere else). I can’t make universities more accessible on a whole to those who aren’t native English speaking, neurotypical, or those unaffected by illness. Academia is notoriously ableist, and while some universities are trying to be less racist, they are sorely behind in making academia accessible as the student body changes. My hope is that if enough of us start to enact policies that support our students, we will bring about structural change within academia that helps not only the students but professors who need those same accommodations but aren’t comfortable to ask.

Personal Life

Prioritizing My Dreams

April 23, 2023March 13, 2023 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

I have quietly come to the decision that I want to work toward becoming a full-time writer or creative. I’ve been thinking about this for a long-time and have been prioritizing my goals over the past few quarters to reflect this. At first, I wasn’t sure if this was even a tenable goal since my author income was pretty low after I derailed my marketing and such during the great burnout of 2018-2019. After reorienting myself to market my backlist better and publishing The Reanimator’s Heart, I’ve seen my income increase. It’s nowhere near what anyone would consider full-time, but it’s beyond what I ever expected to make this past year.

What I would like to do is incrementally move toward this goal of being a full-time creative, and I am taking that first step. I’m only working at one university in the fall. I won’t rag on my past employer, but I find working at this particular university is more stress than its worth. The class sizes are very large, the parking is miserable, and they have a tendency to cut my class like two days before the semester starts, which means I get left in the lurch and unable to make up that income anyway. By only working at one university, I will have more room to focus on my writing while, typically, dealing with smaller class sizes and a more predictable schedule. This university is better for me as I know and am friends with most of the full-time faculty in my department, the vibe of the students is different, and generally, I leave work feeling good rather than frustrated. This is the school where I teach creative writing classes, so I feel like my skills are valued there.

The hope is that I can write more while only teaching at one school. For my writer friends, this part is obvious, but more writing means I can publish more books, which, hopefully, means an increase in author income. Right now, I have decent momentum going with The Reanimator’s Heart and its sequels. I’d like to continue that, but if I’m bogged down by 3-4 classes, I can’t do that.

I know there are some of you out there who are like, “Kara, are you out of your mind? You are willing to trade guaranteed income for hypothetical income.” Yes, I am, but working in academia is never truly guaranteed income. Sadly, this is something I’ve learned a lot over the past few years. Classes get cancelled last minute, you get ghosted by universities, or suddenly a school decides to swap class times and your commute is now 2 hours longer than it needs to be. This costs me gas money, tolls, and my time. The last one is really what has been bothering me. I waste so much time driving between multiple schools or dawdling between classes where the schedules don’t line up perfectly. And I don’t want to do it anymore.

I’m still keeping an eye on the scant academic job listings, but more and more being an indie author feels like a realistic option. I don’t need to make a million dollars. I just want to make enough to pay my bills and occasionally go out to eat or buy myself something nice. That bar feels doable, though I hate that I need to figure out quarterly taxes. On top of all of this, I’m neurodivergent, and I think working for myself, eventually, would be a good option for me. I’m self-disciplined, driven, and willing to work hard to become a full-time creative in the future. Something I would love to do now that I’m dabbling with art again is make planner stickers. I absolutely love using them, and I love drawing objects. The intersection of two of my passions would be a great thing to explore, and this is why I initially wrote in this post that I’d like to be a full-time creative. A writer who also draws and has a little sticker store would be something I would certainly be interested in pursuing.

For now, I’m definitely still working at the small university as long as they’ll have me, but ultimately, being an author is the star I’m steering toward.

Personal Life

I Want to be a Mushroom, Not a Bird

April 9, 2023March 19, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

The one thing academia and business have in common is the belief that everyone wants to be a bird. They want upward mobility. They’re willing to go where the jobs are, even if the promiseland is filled with people who absolutely hate your guts.

But that’s where the jobs are.

“You can easily find a job in the Midwest,” they say, or “You should apply to universities down South! The South is much more liberal where the universities are.” Considering I drove past a bunch of Confederate flags on thirty minutes away from a conference at a college in Upstate New York, I somehow doubt that.

It’s the same thing we tell people who live in red states. “Just move!” like it’s so easy. Sure, if we hate our families, have plenty of desire and/or disposable income to visit, are free from disabilities or chronic illnesses, aren’t queer or trans, I’m sure it’s very easy to uproot ourselves and fly off to a job that could fire us at any moment and leave us stranded somewhere we never truly wanted to be.

Maybe I’m a cynic. I think in worse case scenarios because someone has to give those shiny-teethed, business-minded bastards a reality check. Some of us don’t want to fly. Some of us don’t want to go someplace far away where no one knows us and we don’t know if we’ll ever feel like we truly belong. The threat of violence is always in the back of my mind. What if there are people who hate queer people there and they’re vocal about it? What if someone finds out I’m nonbinary and fires me? What if I need medical attention and no one will give it to me because I’m still potentially a viable incubator even if my partner had a vasectomy years ago?

But the people who suggest uprooting our lives for a job never think about that.

The sad thing is, I don’t even want upward mobility. I don’t want to be the boss or make six figures. I have no desire to soar so high that I lose sight of the humanity of others or that my grossly oversized paycheck is a sign of other people being underpaid. Other people have to be on the lower levels of the pyramid for it to stand, and I don’t mind being down there. I want to work to live, not live to work. I want to put it my time and go home to play video games and hang out with my dogs.

I want to be a mushroom, not a bird.

Mushrooms are just the fruit of a fungus. The important part is what you don’t see. They can have miles upon miles of roots where they feast upon dead material, gather resources, and stay connected to each other.

I want to be where my roots run deep. My family has been in New Jersey since the 1800s, and I like it here. I like going on boats down the Navesink in the summer or seeing the NYC skyline on a clear night while driving home. It feels like a place that wants me to be there and wants me to thrive. I feel safe enough that I can mostly be myself. My healthcare is protected, and my partner and I can both get our medications easily enough. I grew up here, my family has lived here for two hundred years, and to continue to be a part of my local area to make it a better place is what I want. NJ is good in many ways, but there’s always room for improvement.

Moving somewhere for a job where I’m not invested in the area feels shallow. I care about the students who live here or have come from across the world to be here. I want to show them that we’re nice here, that we want them to succeed too. I want them to have all the good things I had when I went to these universities and the things I wish I had. They’re all part of that root system, those little hyphae and connections that help us all to thrive. If I left for supposedly greener pastures, I would be torn out of that ecosystem. It would heal itself, but would I be able to reconnect in this new place. Would I always be a weaker, more damaged version of myself in this new environment?

I don’t need people to know me or even have local friends to hang out with, I just need to feel safe and supported. Mushrooms can grow alone if they have all the things they need, but is trading those known supports for a paycheck worth it if you need those things to flourish?

Personal Life

My Blind Dog

March 12, 2023February 21, 2023 Kara Jorgensen2 Comments

This post was inspired by a Twitter post about ableism in veterinary medicine and how people treat disabled animals, so CWs for discussions of ableism, medical treatments of a pet, eyeballs.

picture of a black dog with a grey muzzle. His tongue is out and his eyes are a little asymmetrical as the right one is cloudy and a little smaller than the left eye

For a little background, my dog Finn developed uveitis sometime between 2019 and 2020. Uveitis is inflammation of the interior chambers of the eye, and for most pets who develop it, there’s no known cause. At first we thought maybe he had allergies because his eye looked red. Then, we realized his eye was bulging, so we took him to our vet, who sent us to a veterinary ophthalmologist. He got drops, but they weren’t enough and the uveitis progressed into secondary glaucoma, which is basically high internal pressure inside the eyeball due to the eye not draining properly. Glaucoma can be very painful, and the vet gave us the option of removing Finn’s eye or trying to get it under control with drops. Finn is pretty old. He’s a rescue, so we aren’t really sure how old he is. He’s probably older than Edgar, who is now twelve, and we were hesitant for him to be under anesthesia if we could help it. I decided I would try the eye drop routine, and if it didn’t work, then we would discuss removing his affected eye. This kicked off the several month journey of sixteen eye drops a day. The only good thing about this was it happened during Covid, so I was home and able to give him drop four times a day and have them be fairly evenly spaced.

It was a lot of work. I understand why some people would have opted for the eye removal from the start, and I don’t begrudge them for that. I was lucky in that Finn is very cooperative about getting his eye drops (apart from flopping back to sleep mid drop), I was willing to shell out the money for all the drops and vet trips, and my job is such that I could do his eye drops on a regular basis. After many months and many not cheap trips to the ophthalmologist, Finn’s glaucoma went into remission and his uveitis is stable. He only gets steroid drops twice a day and we no longer need to visit the vet unless something changes (knock on wood it doesn’t).

What weirded me out the most during all of these vet trips is that during one of the final trips before the vet said we didn’t have to come back, he emphatically pointed out that Finn’s eye would never be normal. My partner and I were like, “Yes?? Okay.” An eyeball that’s been swollen with fluid to the point of losing some of its traditional structure isn’t going to magically fix itself. The vet repeated that his eye would never look normal and reminded us he would always be blind. The vet obviously doesn’t know that I have a degree in biology, so we just nodded along looking confused as to why this needed to be stressed to us.

In the car on the way home, my partner and I started talking about how weird it was. How many people were thoroughly convinced their dog’s eye would magically return to normal or that their sight would return after internal damage was done? How many people were mad that their dog’s eye was no longer perfect? Frankly, neither of us could care less what Finn’s eye looks like as long as it isn’t causing him pain. He’s totally blind in his right eye, and it looks a little recessed in the socket and cloudy as if he has cataracts. But he isn’t in pain, he’s happy, and he’s a (knock on wood) healthy senior dog, albeit toothless. I imagined our vet getting angry calls from pet owners who were now “stuck” with disabled or non-aesthetically pleasing pets due to various eye ailments. Looking at my sweet boy, I cannot imagine being mad or loving him less because his eye is a little messed up. It’s part of him, it adds character. As someone who has been an “unsightly” chronically ill person, it strikes a cord with me that people even think this way about their pets. So much so that people will actually get prosthetic eyes put into their dog’s sockets after an eye removal. Your dog doesn’t care it’s missing an eye. The other dogs don’t care. The only one who is upset is the owner, and that feels like something one should spend some time examining.

On top of all this, Finn is blind. His right eye is completely blind and his left eye has limited vision. We are fairly certain he can see about 2-3 feet in front of him, and he sees better when the sun is of middling brightness or not at a direct angle into his eye. Too bright or too dark and he can’t see well. Because of this, he bumps into stuff. He bounces off of things outside, he overshoots the patio and gets lost, he sits on his siblings, much to Katie’s dismay. To us, it isn’t a big deal. We always go out in the yard with the dogs, so someone always keeps an eye on Finn to make sure he doesn’t get hurt. We carry him down the deck stairs and follow him up them to make sure he doesn’t fall. Every accommodation we make for Finn to keep him safe is minimal effort on our parts. The scariest thing is going down the stairs with him when it’s icy because we’re always afraid of potentially falling and hurting him, so we go down on our butts with him in our lap. Once again, not a big deal.

It’s upsetting for me to think of how many people would think any of the minor accommodations we make for Finn are a burden or too much to deal with. He’s my dog, and when we got him, there was the implicit understanding that I would do everything in my power to keep him safe, happy, and healthy for as long as I could. Pets end up in the dubious category of living being and property, which I think is what leads to this weird brand of ableism with owners being upset that their pet is “defective” or not aesthetically pleasing. If my pet isn’t picture perfect, people will assume I’m a bad owner or that I don’t take care of them or that I bought a dog that was “defective.” I friggin hate the word defective. My dog has a medical condition. He isn’t defective because he’s blind in one eye, his eye isn’t a source of embarrassment or shame, and his smooshy little face has been and always will be Instagram worthy. Your disabled pet doesn’t have a design flaw and should never have the same language applied to them that you would a broken TV or ripped pair of pants.

In the back of my head, I always wonder what people who say these things about their pets would say about other people to their faces or behind their backs. If you call a creature who loves you unconditionally defective because they’re disabled, what do you say about disabled people or how would you treat people you know if they suddenly became disabled? The worst part is knowing that vets also perpetuate this language and attitude. I don’t think my vet brought it up for any reason other than to temper our expectations, but in the post I mentioned at the very beginning of the blog, this person’s vet said cruel things about their disabled cat and treated the non-disabled cat better. Vets and pet owners need to do better. The chronically ill and disabled people in your life hear what you say when you don’t think there’s anyone around to get offended, but not all issues are visible and we hear you.

Personal Life · Writing

On Rest

December 11, 2022December 7, 2022 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I fucked up. That’s due to the belated realization that I didn’t listen to my body when I really needed to rest.

If you read last week’s blog post, you may have noticed the section on writing where I mentioned I struggled and was a bit fried. Historically, November is a bad month for me. It’s a yearly clusterfuck where lots of grading and keeping track of all the things my classes have due intersects with the time change and the days getting shorter, which also intersects with seeing giant NaNoWriMo word counts (this is a morale sapper since I write small-ish daily word counts). I logically know that November is a bad mental month for me as I tend to use up more brainpower between work and Christmas prep and have less spoons in general. And yet, my dumb ass continues to do what it has been doing at a pace it is not capable of without consequences.

I feel like I dragged my tired corpse through November while chanting the refrain of “You did it in October and September, and you can do it again.” Am I more organized and driven than I’ve been in previous years? Yes. Does November still kick my ass despite all that? Apparently so.

Since the end of last year, I’ve been using the HB90 method for goal setting, project planning, etc., and it has been very helpful. The problem is that I blissfully forgot or willfully ignored that November kicks my butt. Somehow, I thought, I have my shit together this year and am doing well. Surely this won’t happen this year.

Sadly, I felt it coming before I was aware of what was happening and still ignored it. I struggled at the end of October to get through my word count goals. I chocked that up to my book launching and not really having my head fully in the game due to launch anxiety, which was a reasonable assessment. The problem was that the feeling persisted into November and only got worse. By the middle of November, I was drained. I had edited a bunch of research papers (longest and most thorough paper my students write, which means it takes the most brain power to give feedback on), I was struggling to read books with any consistency (a major red flag for me), and my writing was only happening in fits and starts. I would fall behind, then pound out a thousand words, then not write again for several days in an endless cycle of misery and disappointment. The biggest, most obvious indication should have been the all-consuming yearning to play Stardew Valley. Yes, my friends, my desire to play that video game usually means my brain is shot and needs serotonin. I can mindless do tasks, play for hours, and feel accomplished as my crops grow and I romance Shane, my favorite hot mess. It’s something I know is basically my check engine light coming on, but I ignored it anyway because I was already behind on my writing and I couldn’t fall more behind playing video games.

Well, guess what, I never caught up. At some point, I hit 8,000 of the 10,000 words and said, we’re good. I admitted defeat after blowing a tire on my car in a near accident. I’m now starting to wonder if the brain drain contributed to that as well, but it was the wake up call I needed to stop for a bit and try to refill my creative well. Since the very end of November, I’ve been reading more, just sort of vegging while watching shows I like, and playing a bit of Stardew Valley before bed. It has helped a lot. I’m starting to feel like I can think straight again, though I know some of that is because the semester is also about to end.

If there’s one thing I need to get better at, it’s listening to my body when it comes to productivity and writing. It gave me so many warning signs that I need to pause for a day or two, but I ignored them to avoid “falling behind” on arbitrary deadlines I set for myself. Now, instead of taking a day or two off to reset, I’ve had to take a full week off. It certainly isn’t the worst outcome, but I’m annoyed at myself for making things needlessly worse. In my bullet journal for 2023, I’m going to make a signs of burnout page to remind myself that sometimes I need to just rest and decompress, that the work will be there tomorrow, and the only one putting pressure on me is me.

If you’re like me and starting to feel the chafe of burnout, please, take a step back, do something that brings you joy, and just exist for a bit. Don’t do or try to force, just rest. Whatever resting looks like to you, take this as the universe’s way of telling you to go rest. You deserve it, you don’t need to earn it, just give the well a chance to refill.

Personal Life

On Autistic (Un)masking

November 20, 2022November 18, 2022 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

Something I have been trying to do these past few months is mask less. Masking in this case is not trying to act neurotypical. Most autistic and neurodivergent people fake it til we make it. We know there is a social protocol that we should follow, whether it makes any logical sense to us or not. If you aren’t sure what I mean, here’s an example: When someone says, “How are you?” they really aren’t asking how you are. Unless they are a very good friend or your partner or someone on that level, they don’t care. It’s an empty small talk question, and the only acceptable answer is good, okay, or to complain about something you both don’t like (like work or a sports team losing). If you say, “Ugh, my IBS was acting up over the weekend and I’m exhausted,” they will look at you like you have lost your mind or stop asking you how you are. Or my absolute favorite, they will ask and keep walking. Tell me you don’t care without telling me you don’t care.

Anyway, masking is somehow equal parts passive and purposeful. There are times when the mask just automatically appears, like someone catches you off-guard or you say your automatic responses to things. For people who may not realize they’re autistic or can’t unmask, it will be far more automatic but still completely exhausting. Most of the time, masking is something we feel keenly, especially if we’ve been doing it for a long time. It’s the mental equivalent of unzipping a tight pair of pants when you get home or tossing off your bra after work. When I’m masking, I’m constantly doing mental calculations. Am I holding eye contact long enough? Am I doing it too long? Do people think I’m being shifty? Am I talking about something inappropriate? Have I said something by accident that will make my friend hate me? Masking makes any prolonged social interaction something I need days to recover from. Being “normal” is exhausting, and even masking, I don’t do a terribly good job.

What I’ve tried doing is essentially “coming out” as autistic to my students. Quite a few of them are neurodivergent, which helps. I don’t lead with it day one, but I make it clear that I accept self-diagnoses and self-made accommodations for people who are neurodivergent. Once I start talking, I’m sure some have an inkling. Eventually this semester, I came out to both classes sort of by accident, and it was a MASSIVE relief. I still watch my words and make sure I don’t accidentally hurt someone’s feelings, but not having to worry about eye contact or modulating my speech patterns makes teaching so much less exhausting. Personally, I think I’m more engaging when I loosen up and allow myself to be weird in class (especially knowing the laughs I receive are not mocking). The hope is that it will also make my students more comfortable, and for some, meeting a neurodivergent professor and/or writer may also be affirming.

The problem is that because I’m masking less, when I feel like I need to mask due to the situation (doctor’s office, grocery store, extended family, etc.), it is exhausting. It is so much worse than it usually is because I’m not accustomed to doing it as much. It’s like not exercising and being told to run a mile. I just want to collapse in a heap of social exhaustion after masking now. I used to be able to sort of hold it off until I totally fried myself, which is not great, and it sucks because I want to mask less. I need to. It’s better for my mental health to not be “on” constantly, especially when being “on,” is being akin to being a different person. But I can’t not mask all the time because it isn’t safe to, and the social repercussions of being unmasked around people who don’t understand are not worth the backlash. I absolutely dread the times I need to socially mask now, and I hate how much I’m not looking forward to holiday gatherings because of it. You would think family would be the people you could be yourself with, but when they think of autism as only non-verbal people who have high needs, they don’t believe you, even if you meet the criteria in spades and they think you’re weird.

I’m already still semi in the closet with being queer and nonbinary around my family, so compounding it with not outing myself as autistic, creates a day full of exhaustion and stifling un-Kara-ness. The stiff smiling, awkward(er) version of me feels so pale in comparison to the vibrant weirdo I know I can be when I’m with my students or my friends/partner. I just wish I felt comfortable letting that version of me out more often.