last night i had what must be my first true migraine. honest to god, full stop: what the fuck.
i have sinus migraines, that mostly feel like tension headaches, all stuffed and pinched and tight. i have cluster headaches, which are supposedly one of the most painful things that can happen to your head: the sharp, stabbing feeling that someone just drove a red-hot knitting needle through your eye and into your brain. but this migraine was ...jesus.
it came out of nowhere, the feeling that a giant troll had just clubbed the back of my head and my brains were about to explode out my skull. i literally thought at first that i was having some kind of strike / aneurysm / blood clot and that i needed an ambulance, my head was about to burst open in the back, i was literally dying. it wasn't the usual headache pain - like, the other horrible headaches i've had hurt, but they hurt in a more like ... cerebral way, cerebral meaning you can tell it's your head/brain that's aching, it's a separate kind of pain. this was true physical pain as if i had fallen and cracked the back of my head on a coffee table. it actually felt like i had been hit by a car. nothing brain about it, or at least not solely brain: this was my body, throbbing and ugly.
luckily the coven talked me through it, and once it started to improve i calmed down immensely, because even though it still felt like a fucking bruised and open wound, if it's getting better that means there will be an end to it: finite suffering theory.
i spent my evening laid out in my recliner, tears running down my cheeks from the pain as i tried to get water and trace caffeine in me and get my blood sugar up. i slow-cried for a constant hour and a half.
i'm used to chronic background pain: it's like someone playing loud radio static into your ear, a background distraction you're constantly aware of, but this was ... this was some of the sharpest, most awful throbbing pain i've ever experienced in this broken asshole of a body.
obviously i didn't and don't need this shit, but as it was immediately following a shit day at work where i received a talking-to about how much my health and absences have affected (read: let down) my commitments to others and etc -- and it was delivered kindly and appropriately, with maximum understanding and respect for my condition and the limitations a disability puts on my ability to contribute, but -- (a) even if it isn't your fault it's still stuff you fucked up at work and that's a crap feeling and (b) it's a reminder that you're fucking disabled and can't do what others do. oh, and (c) when one of the suggestions is, see if you can get things done earlier and beat deadlines so that even if you get sick work is in, that sounds great in principle but in reality it means the disabled person has to work twice as hard to keep up with the abled business schedule.
it was all best intent, how can i help you, i understand that you are ill and i am not saying you can't take the time you need -- but it still feels like shit to know you've failed at things at work, no matter WHAT the cause. so i came home feeling like shit from that and my body thought it would be a GREAT DAY to experiment with new and heretofore unseen methods of pain games.
i am, really and honestly, not in a great place right now overall.
