There's this weird tendency to, hmm, diminish- I suppose- other people's struggles in an effort to highlight your own.
I find this something that happens regardless of the exact demographics. I've seen it in discussions of gender, race, color, class, ability status, and more.
For instance: I once stated that the Spiderverse movies are something that I can't really watch over and over because they cause me a fairly extreme amount of pain. I'm very photosensitive in my bad eye and while I understand that the constant flashing bright colors are an artistic choice, understanding doesn't make the movie magically disability-friendly.
They provoke a migraine that cannot be controlled with any amount of medication or coping skills, force me to cover my eye with a patch for the rest of the day, and guarantee that I can't really do more than sit in a dark room with as little stimulation as possible for several hours until my eye stops feeling like someone is carving it out of my face with a knife. There's... also not really any way to fix this problem either in a way that makes the movies as-is watchable for me- either I need a cut of the movie labeled epilepsy-friendly with less contrast and no flashing, or I can't watch.
As a result, I've seen the first Spiderverse movie twice and the second one once. Total, since they came out. This problem is also why I haven't seen Goat yet, since it's made by the same team, even though I would really like to. And why I've only seen KPop Demon Hunters the once, because it again is made by the same team and has the same problem.
For some reason, this is translated to "gives me a headache" and disregarded because I "didn't listen to epileptics" about the movie. Except, I did, because I am also... an epileptic. I am simply considered asymptomatic at this point in my life, but I was on phenobarbital with the rest of y'all until I went to middle school because my seizures suddenly stopped. I still have to be careful regarding what flashing lights I look at regardless of context, it's just way less likely to cause a seizure these days as compared to when I was 10. Why do you think I know how to aid strangers in the midst of having a seizure???
Instead of being content to share space with someone who is affected in a different way, who even shares a diagnosis even if the symptoms are different, it was treated as though I was both somehow guilty of stolen valor from Real Disabled People while also vastly exaggerating the symptoms of my own disability from my car accident. It's "just a headache" as compared to the Real Problem, even though I've spoken about how much my TBI changed and affected me and how this pain is very similar to the pre- and postictal stages of the seizures throughout my childhood. It's "just a headache" even though when I described it to my neurologist, he ordered EEGs and MRIs and sleep studies to ensure my seizures hadn't come back.
It's just weird to me. I don't understand the urge to diminish and brush off someone else's pain just because it's similar to your own. If anything, you'd think misery would love the company.
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