I Hope OP Doesnt Mind Me Reblogging And Adding On, But I Thought A Little Variation In Experience Might

I hope OP doesn’t mind me reblogging and adding on, but I thought a little variation in experience might help the anon, too. My family has a long history of migraines, and both my little sister and I experience them around the same time (though with different symptoms). 

Migraine attacks are typically divided into four stages: prodrome, aura, pain, and postdrome (x). The length and intensity of the stages differs between individuals; for instance, I tend to have a long prodrome and aura, but the pain and postdrome are luckily very short, and my sister has a vary short-to-nonexistant prodrome but a long and excruciating pain stage. 

The prodrome itself has a variety of symptoms involved, such as depression, anxiety, sensitivity to light/sound/smell/etc., fatigue, rapidly changing mood, difficulty concentrating, etc. In my case, the prodrome is the worst stage for me--the depression is unrelenting, and I usually am so dizzy and lightheaded that doing anything is nearly impossible (assuming I can string thoughts together long enough to do more than the most basic tasks in the first place, which doesn’t happen often during the prodrome). This is all before the pain starts, and once I get my first wave of depression, I know it’s only a matter of time (and usually get annoyed because I wish it would just start so I could get it over with already). 

Aura is a fascinating (though annoying) part of migraine attacks, though not everybody experiences it (basically what OP described above). Some people see light or color, but I think you can also experience other senses. For me, it’s little waves of... something that disturb my line of sight. They’re not exactly shadows, but they’re not light, either. Sometimes I pick up on little sounds and they turn into music (which is the closest thing to a ‘favorite symptom’ I have). 

The pain itself is just as described above. It can last between 24 and 72 hours (mine usually between 24 and 36; same with my sister). 

The postdrome is usually the “recovery” stage. Here, people are generally weak, still having trouble concentrating, and probably act like they just got thrown off a truck in the middle of the interstate (believe me, at this point, you would’ve preferred it). For me, I usually have to spend a few hours napping or doing mindless tasks (I often try to use the postdrome to catch up on missed household chores since they don’t take a whole lot of concentration, though I generally have to take long breaks between each task). My sister will get something to eat, and she acts very subdued for the few hours following the pain. 

My sister and I vary most in terms of migraine onset. For me, I generally know I’m going to get a migraine 24-48 hours ahead of the actual pain. It often starts with depression, though I’m lightheaded and have difficulty concentrating shortly after. I’m never surprised by the pain--it just slowly builds, getting worse and worse until all I can manage is to grab a cold washcloth and collapse in bed with it over my eyes until the pain recedes again (sometimes pain meds help... sometimes). Then, it’s just a little bit of recovery, and I can typically jump back into life. My biggest problem is that from the first symptom of the prodrome, I’m virtually incapacitated. I lose two to three days out of the week, which isn’t good for holding a job or keeping up with work, especially if I’m having a particularly hard time and experiencing multiple migraines a month (which... is so much fun hahah ah a ha). 

My sister, on the other hand, doesn’t have much of a prodrome. She wakes up in agony, and it’s so bad she typically vomits. The pain almost always recedes in the early afternoon, though, and she rarely (if ever) loses more than a day to the migraine (though that’s still a problem, obviously). For her, it’s sudden and intense, and she typically doesn’t get more than a few hours warning (assuming she doesn’t sleep through the prodrome, which she often does). 

My point is, you could play around with symptoms and effects for your character. Depending on treatments and pain relief, you might actually have a character who faces little disruption in their life (I’m writing this through a migraine treated with Excedrin Migraine, caffeine, and a shitton of water... and if the organization of this is really bad, that’s why lol), so it’s not technically impossible to function with a migraine (just difficult and Not Recommended). If your character is trying to function through a migraine, they’ll probably have difficulty thinking things through (like, almost comically so), will be horribly miserable, and will be very easily overwhelmed (e.g. earlier today, I got annoyed and snapped at my cat because he wouldn’t stop meowing--usually, I love when my cats are chatty, but each noise just built and built until I lost my patience, raised my voice at him, and locked him out of the room, which went over about as well as you might expect). 

Hope this helps!

Hey...how do you write someone who was a splitting headache or a migraine? I’m having trouble with that... ;w; Thank you

They are slightly different. Everyone has had a bad headache at least once, but most people never get migraines.

For both, loud noises or constant noises increase the suffering. The sufferer wants to lie down or sit down somewhere peaceful. Sufferers sometimes put pressure on or cushion the part of their head that hurts to alleviate pain. They can get short tempered if pain makes them cranky. If it’s a caffeine headache (caffeine withdrawal for an addict) having a drink of soda, coffee, or tea can relax it. If it’s heat-induced, a.k.a. heat exhaustion, the sufferer should sit down somewhere cool immediately and drink lots of water.

With a migraine any noise, light, temperature change, or movement can drastically aggravate the pain. When I or a family member gets a migraine, we go to bed with a cloth over our eyes and the curtains closed while the whole household stays quiet for 4-6 hours. Nausea/vomiting can accompany a migraine as well as a constant aura in the corner of your vision. Flashes of light are another symptom of a migraine, usually preceding the actual pain. Thankfully, migraine meds are extreme pain relievers that often put you to sleep and/or relieve nausea.

TL;DR—One can generally continue functioning with a splitting headache, but a true migraine is temporary hell.

can we take a moment to just think about how incredibly scary magical healing is in-context?

You get your insides ripped open but your friend waves his hands and your flesh just pulls back together, agony and evisceration pulling back to a ‘kinda hurts’ level of pain and you’re physically whole, with the 100% expectation that you’ll get back up and keep fighting whatever it was that struck you down the first time.

You break your arm after falling somewhere and after you’re healed instead of looking for ‘another way around’ everybody just looks at you and goes “okay try again”.

You’ve been fighting for hours, you’re hungry, thirsty, bleeding, crying from exhaustion, and a hand-wave happens and only two of those things go away. you’re still hungry, you’re still weak from thirst, but the handwave means you have ‘no excuse’ to stop.

You act out aggressively maybe punch a wall or gnash your teeth or hit your head on something and it’s hand-waved because it’s ‘such a small injury you probably can’t even feel it anymore’ but the point was that you felt it at all?

Your pain literally means nothing because as long as you’re not bleeding you’re not injured, right? Here drink this potion and who cares about the emotional exhaustion of that butchered village, why are you so reserved in camp don’t you think it’s fun retelling that time you fell through a burning building and with a hand-wave you got back up again and ran out with those two kids and their dog? 

Older warriors who get a shiver around magic-users not because of the whole ‘fireball’ thing but the ‘I don’t know what a normal pain tolerance is anymore’ effect of too much healing. Permanent paralysis and loss of sensation in limbs is pretty much a given in the later years of any fighter’s life. Did I have a stroke or did the mage just heal too hard and now this side of my face doesn’t work? No i’m not dead from the dragon’s claws but I can’t even bend my torso anymore because of how the scar tissue grew out of me like a vine.

Magical healing is great and keeps casualties down.

But man.

That stuff is scary.

date a selkie, but don’t hide her cloak. let her go home and visit her family now and then, knowing that she’ll come back and hang her seal cloak in the closet like she always does. trust is important.

Untitled#1,  Untitled#2 & Untitled#3 by t*tomorrow

botw is such a beautiful game and i had a hard time picking just one landscape to draw!!

20 things I want more of in fiction: strong female characters

To quote TheMarySue.com, strong female characters are rarely strong and rarely characters. Strong Female Characters™ are leather-clad, emotionless, “independent,” defined by their relationships to men, and often have a tragic backstory (often involving abuse at the hands of men). More often than not, they are portrayed to be just as powerful or even more so than male protagonists, but in the end are relegated to fighting the secondary villain(ess). 

So here is my list of 20 things I want to see in strong female characters. 

Strong female characters who are girly: Not “feminine,” girly. They don’t wear tight leather bodysuits, they wear pink dresses and curl their hair and are excited when Sephora comes out with a new blush product. 

Strong female characters who are funny: I mean, come on. I can count on one hand the number of strong female characters who could be comedians. 

Strong female characters who support other women: Don’t make them hate the girls who have sex or wear makeup. Don’t support the idea that femininity is weak. 

Strong female characters who are not traditionally attractive: Make them fat. Give them acne. Maybe they have bushy eyebrows. Who knows? 

Strong female characters who fall in love and remain strong: If she can lift a truck at the beginning of the story, getting the man will not change that. Being strong is not undesirable. 

Strong female characters who are not physically strong: Why do they need to lift a car to be strong? Women can be mentally and emotionally strong too. Example: A WWII nurse who has to deal with recent amputees and vets with PTSD. Do you know how much strength that would require? 

Strong female characters who are tomboys/manly: Be cautious with this one. There is a whole list of harmful tropes surrounding this idea. For more information, see TV Tropes’ Tomboy page.

Strong female characters who don’t use long-range weapons: Let them be the smasher for once. I want to see them throw punches. 

Strong female characters who become stronger on their own accord: Have them want to do more, and train to become better or strive to learn more. BUT (and this is a big but) don’t make them do it because they were abused. Don’t. 

Strong female characters who are LGBT*QIA: Enough said. 

Strong female characters who are POC: See above. 

Strong female characters who are older and not hardened by war: give me an prankster grandma or a general who is known as “mom.”  

Strong female characters who have feelings: Please stop making them emotionless or merely snarky/sarcastic. I mean, have you ever met anyone who was only sarcastic and nothing else? People like that don’t exist. 

Strong female characters who are strong because of women: Maybe their moms taught them how to fight. Maybe they were inspired by a warrior queen. Stop giving them five older brothers. Seriously. 

Strong female characters who aren’t lone warriors: Give them a badass crew (bonus points if they’re all women) whom she considers her friends. Real people have friends. 

Strong female characters who have a family: They need at least one family member that they love and want to protect. Stop making them estranged from their parents or orphans. 

Strong female characters who cry: Please, let them have feelings. 

Strong female characters who aren’t defined by men: Don’t give them emotion only when they fall for the male protag. Don’t make their backstory all about when they were abused by a man. Don’t give them mentors who are all men. Don’t attribute her abilities to men. 

Strong female characters who don’t define men: Stop having her strength be the measure that the male protagonist must surpass. Stop having her death give motivation to the male characters. This must end. 

Strong female characters who weren’t abused: Having rape/abuse as a motivation is a disgusting cliche. Stop it. Just don’t. 

Read more about strong female characters:

Geekfeminism

The Mary Sue

TV Tropes

Huffington Post