I'm doing pretty well. Sorry if I haven't been active much, but Tumblr has been eating my brain. And only my mortal soul, fortunately - I have a couple of these buggers for safety reasons. ;) *points to immortal soul stashed away in a corner and quickly throws a tarp over it again*

Anyway, I have a reasonable amount on my plate. Research project, another research project (which I need to finish up), an in-class talk I need to give by the end of the semester...

On the fandom side, I've essentially abandoned my other Nuzlocke runs while constantly updating STOP! THIEF! I... just haven't had the energy for everything else. Ditto for sporkings and other projects. Mostly, on the creative side, I've been trying to unscrew my own head. (Which is going really well, actually! I'm feeling so much better than I have for a long time. It's just rough going while it's going on, and I'm too busy trying to adjust to it to really have the brains to do anything working out from it. :D;;)

Anyway, when things are more together, I should be more active. Hope you're all doing well!

For those interested in the details, it happens exactly one day a month, worsens in the evening, and often tires me out unusually early. And then I feel like crud warmed over for the morning after, but I'm fine after that. I honestly don't know if the tiredness is part of the [headache] or just that I have a low pain/frustration tolerance and get tired out by the stress of having it.

It's not even a headache so much as a stabbing pain around the back of my left eye. I am certain it's not a PHYSICAL issue because it only occurs ONE DAY a month, it doesn't affect vision at all, and the pain level varies depends upon light levels and such. And one-sided severe eyestrain would be awfully strange. (In context, I USED to have much better vision in my right eye than my left, but now I'm nearsighted to the same degree in both.)

I SUSPECT it's a mild, mild, mild migraine due to the eye-watering and nose-clogging side effects, plus the unilateral nature of the headache. And the monthly occurrence points towards a hormonal trigger.
(Also, if I can convince the nerves to stop being in pain for a short time, the sensation in that area is... weird. I don't know how to describe it. Like... it FEELS like I'm holding my left eye open wider than normal, even though, when I check it in the mirror or a quick selfie, my left eyelid is in fact slightly drooping.

This strange sensation is common to every instance of the monthly headache, and is in fact a precursor to the actual pain. I don't get it. If I have to physically pinpoint what's going on, I suppose it's that, when I raise my eyebrow with emphasis on the part to the side of the face, it's usually hooked up to the eyelid - you know, you raise your eyebrow and your eye gets wider? But on the left side, during these headaches, it's detached. If I want to widen the left eye, I have to use the muscles more towards the middle of the face. And, before you ask, the muscle that would ORDINARILY be involved in raising the eyelid when raising the eyebrow... is one of the ones that's hurting, yes. So it reeks of a neurological glitch fueled by a hormonal surge/drop rather than any intramuscular cause.

To articulate, I suppose THAT annoys me as badly as the actual pain, and doubly so when that area IS in pain. It just doesn't FEEL right, and it continues to monopolize some mental attention all through the duration of the irritating thing. Probably what tires me out, in the long-term...)

Anyway, I'm just complaining about it because it annoys me. Sympathies unneeded. Just trying to explain, in part, why I might be absent from my normal internet-addiction tonight. *grumbles and slouches off to do something productive while some mercifully small part of my neurology is malfunctioning on me*

So, because this particular episode of the monthly headache started early (noon rather than mid-afternoon), I'm actually awake to feel it drop off. So I have a more objective idea of its after-effects.

And it turns out that it isn't so much the exhaustion from the eyeache itself that causes me to feel wasted afterwards, it's a general feeling across the brain of emotional flattening and mental tiredness. I COULD work and/or go back on the internet if I so wished, I just really don't feel like it.

Presumably this continues into the next day.

Hm. Well, it's good to know that it's a mental thing rather than physical exhaustion from the eyeache itself, because the latter was hard to believe.

Anyway, I'll be back to normal by tomorrow afternoon or so. I only posted at first because normally I'm on Tumblr or the Nuzlocke Forums... probably more frequently than I should be, and so my absence needed mild explanation. After that, it was a matter of wanting to note down the feeling of general flattening for my own reference.

Sorry to not have interacted on anyone's posts as a result. If I see any interesting ones, I'll try to make up for it tomorrow.

And now to collapse face-first into my pillow. Byeeee... *clunk*