I hate headaches. I really, really hate headaches. I especially hate how they’re genetic. How could I be so unlucky to be cursed with such a shitty affliction? Both sides of my family struggle with them. In fact, my parents and I often find ourselves receiving synchronized headaches. One of us will receive a headache, and then within a few minutes, the other two will receive it. Thankfully, we don’t receive full-on migraines. At least, not for the most part. There was one particularly horrible day back when I was still in high school. I was 17 at the time. It had been a very uneventful day, but I still managed to receive a headache. Normally, I get headaches from lack of sleep, or high levels of stress, but neither of those factors were relevant to that day. It started during lunch. The gigantic collective mass of voices was starting to make my headache worse, so I quickly finished my food and spent my last 15 minutes of lunch in the library.
I sat down at a table in the corner by myself, and didn’t even bother reading a book; merely keeping my eyes open was taxing enough. I resorted to breathing in and out deeply at a slow pace, in an effort to try and distract myself from the pain.
At this point, on a scale of 1 to 10, I was at about a 5.5 in terms of pain. Within a second, it shot up to an 8. I grasped at my forehead, moaning to myself. My eyes unfocused themselves, and both hemispheres of my brain felt like they were trying to separate from each other. I had never experienced any sort of headache this painful before. This was approaching migraine levels of pain for me. I lost my sense of time while this was happening, but when the pain suddenly died down, I realized that half an hour had gone by. I sighed in annoyance, and hurried my late ass to my next period.
After finishing school with no more issues (my pain level had even gone down to a 4), I came home to find my parents gone. They had left me a note saying that they’d be back late that night, as they had gone out with some friends. I headed straight for our medicine cabinet, hoping to find some sort of pain relievers. No aspirin, no ibuprofen, nothing. My parents had probably taken the last of the medicine while I had my little spell at school. I began to worry about having another library episode, so I sat down to watch some television as a distraction. Watching TV ended up agitating my headache (bringing me up to a 6), so I decided to just go ahead and take a nap. Naps have always been a guaranteed headache killer for me.
I awoke at around 10 at night, having slept for way longer than intended. My headache was still there, and my parents were still out on the town. After making a walk to the kitchen just to stare blankly into the refrigerator for a few minutes, I decided to try and go back to sleep. After what felt like an hour of tossing and turning, hopelessly burying my face into the pillows and flipping them over every few minutes just to gain access to a cooler side to rest my forehead on, the real pain began.
I went from a 6 straight to a fucking 14.
Within an instant, looking at my dim lamp was like staring straight into the sun. Opening my eyelids resulted in abnormally intense pain. Daggers of light pierced into my ocular cavities. Closing my eyes wasn’t any better. Keeping my eyelids shut was like trying to trying to pull a goddamned truck. Then, the voices came. They didn’t sound like any real language, but there were some words and phrases that sounded like they could be English.
"You’re not perfect. Die. Leech. Leave now. Hungry. Split. Locked. Torture. Crash. Die. Die. Die."
Instead of struggling to keep my eyes closed, it suddenly became a struggle to open them. It was like my eyes had been sewn shut by my own fear. My mind opened up and bled out a world of hallucinatory hells. My head split into three separate heads. I could feel the pain emanating from each individual cranium. The black void you see when you close your eyes began to ripple violently, like dropping a boulder into the ocean. There was something behind the void, trying to break through to come and strangle me. A fiery beast occupied my throat, flaring up its flaming flesh with every pained scream I let out. The tips of my fingernails became talons, with which I mutilated my cheeks and temples. Blood, plasma, bone marrow, and even my very soul leaked from the wounds. An eternity of torture filled up the span of 5 hours.
Then, as quickly as it had begun, it suddenly ended. The headache was still there, and still painful, but it was a blessing compared to what I had just gone through. I ran to my bathroom to look in the mirror, to find that I had scratch marks all over my face. Very, very deep scratch marks, some of which had drawn blood. I should have been shocked, but honestly, I was too drained to feel anything at this point. I washed my face very thoroughly, and decided to see if my parents had shown up yet. I figured I could have bothered them to run to the store and pick up some more medicine. Then it suddenly hit me; my parents must have received that migraine. I ran to the garage to find it empty. Our landline’s voice mailbox wasn’t empty, though.
A voicemail was left by the local hospital. My parents had been in a wreck. They were in critical condition. My ability to feel shocked returned. I called my neighbor, whose agitated tone of voice changed to one of concern once I’d frantically explained the situation. She drove me to the hospital, where I sat in the waiting room for 3 hours. I wanted to ask if I could see my parents, but I figured the answer would be “no” if they were in critical condition. When I finally got to speak to their doctor, she told me that they were going to live. They hadn’t even completely broken any bones; just a few fractures. Her main concern was their brains. They were showing abnormally high levels of cortisol output. She said that they’d probably end up dealing with some trauma after eventually being released from care.
By the time my parents had become more stable, my headache had disappeared.
My parents developed PTSD. The slightest head pains give them extreme panic attacks. They have to take a lot of Xanax to deal with it. They’re dependent on it. They’re not able to work full time jobs anymore, as their headaches began to occur more frequently after the accident. Not mine, though. My headaches stopped.
They don’t remember what happened that night. I don’t have any proof, but I’m certain that it was my fault. I know that I was the first one to get the migraine. There’s no way it couldn’t have been me.
I want to fucking die. But I can’t. I have to help pay the bills now. I have to look after them. It’s my fault. I want my headaches back. I want penance for my crime. I’ve tried everything. I’ve stayed up for extremely long periods of time. I’ve eaten loads of sugary foods and drinks. I’ve drank cups upon cups of caffeinated beverages. I’ve even banged my head against walls in frustration. But nothing happens. The pain never comes back. And I get the feeling that it never will.
Submitted February 19, 2016 at 11:28AM by DonoftheRed http://ift.tt/1QNbsX7 nosleep
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