I almost didn’t write this post because I feel like I’m always the person moaning about yet another problem. It’s actually one of the reasons I loved Cyberpunk 2077 so much. Everyone in Night City has problems, and they’re open about it. You wouldn’t find a single person saying, “Have you tried thinking more positively about things?” because everyone understands that not everyone survives Night City, and thinking positively doesn’t solve anything. Acceptance does instead.

Cyberpunk 2077 also taught me that you can still have a life even if your brain is trying to delete you via relic malfunctions every few minutes. That’s exactly what just happened to me. My gastritis had finally started feeling a lot better, just for me to arrive in the real-life version of relic malfunctions – cluster headache season.

Cluster Headache Season

I’ve written about my entire experience with Episodic Cluster Headaches before – you can read that post here – but the condensed version is that they’re severe, debilitating and excruciating headaches that I get every Spring and Autumn, because the trigger is seasonal change. Which, despite trying to stop the world from moving through time my entire life, I do not actually have any control over. The Earth continues to spin on its axis just to spite cluster headache sufferers. I have often wondered what would happen if I went to space. Maybe that would help. No seasons. Unfortunately, it’s a little out of my price range.

I get many attacks over a period of 6–8 weeks. The attacks of excruciating pain are worse at night, but the daytime is full of lesser migraine-level “shadow” headaches, and the inability to do much without triggering another attack. Triggers include being hot, strong smells, alcohol, and overexertion. I’ve been dealing with them for years, but I was only properly diagnosed in hospital in 2017. I use oxygen and caffeine to help. Painkillers do not work at all. Only caffeine and oxygen give me any sort of relief during attacks, and even then they don’t stop them completely.

I was feeling so much relief and hope that the proton pump inhibitor had finally started working for my gastritis, and I immediately began planning how to get back on track with recovery and food with a new sense of resolve. That night, the dreaded firework show of cluster headaches kicked off.

The first thing I thought was, “That figures.”
The second thing I thought was, “Bit early, isn’t it? I usually get them at the end of March”.

It turns out experiencing excruciating pain does not produce profound new philosophical thoughts. My brain is incapable of those during an attack.

I was hoping it was a one-off, but I woke up the next day knowing it wasn’t, because my body feels completely wrong during a cycle. It’s like having flu. Like I’m walking through tar. I’m exhausted, and my neck, jaw and shoulders ache from my body tensing so hard in response to the pain.

Why I Didn’t Want to Write About It

I have a value that I write real, authentic experiences of my life. If it is shit, I will say it is shit. I am a real person just existing with these conditions, not a content creator, and not here for people without my conditions to get healing inspiration from.

I also do not write for sympathy. There’s a strange expectation that if you mention a condition at all, you must be looking for sympathy. I’m not. I’m just describing my life. My life just so happens to do this one thing after another a lot. A lot of people question my intentions when I post about my life this way but cluster headaches are just a huge part of my life. They happen for 12–16 weeks of my year – that’s three to four months. I don’t want to hide away for three or four months of my life because I can’t mention them. The context of the next six to eight weeks of my life is that I am also suffering from cluster headaches. Anything I do will be shadowed by them – literally, because there are shadows.

I wish I could write more positive posts about healing, and seeing the best in every Sisyphus-sized rock I’m pushing up this hill. Unfortunately, cluster headaches come with side effects of mood drops, irritation, and anger. My brain chemistry has gone rogue. I wish there was a bath and candle that would solve it, but both a hot bath and a strong-smelling candle trigger cluster headaches. I wish I could write more positive posts, because that would mean I actually felt more positive, seeing as I only write from my authentic self.

I used to hide away. I used to say nothing, and then reappear months later for everyone else’s comfort. But it didn’t help mine. Isolation is terrible for mental illness, which I also live with. I’m just hoping to exist as I am, without hiding my experiences so they aren’t interpreted the wrong way. Hiding and avoidance are things that, in my recovery, I’ve learnt I need to move away from. And again, like Cyberpunk 2077 taught me, acceptance is the key. Acceptance includes acknowledging that this is simply something I have to deal with.

You Can Still Have A Life

In true Cyberpunk 2077 fashion, it is not all terrible or bad. Yesterday I celebrated my stomach getting slightly better with a Greggs sausage roll and a very strong coffee for my clusters. It did still hurt my stomach a bit – gastritis doesn’t like fat – but the taste was immense. My body is really missing fat. I really needed the glowing altar of Greggs.

My son recently went to Hay-on-Wye with uni and came home with presents for me: a pigeon pin and a Cyberpunk 2077 graphic novel. I was so excited. It was so kind of him to think of me on his trip. He absolutely loved it there and loved showing me the photos and telling me all about the bookshops. There was a bookshop called Gay-on-Wye which was a really big hit. He now wants to live there. It’s a book town and he absolutely loves books. I was so happy for him.

Between cluster headache attacks my brain sometimes does a “This Is Your Life” montage. It’s like parts of my life flash before my eyes. It’s very vivid, as if I am actually on that TV show.

The first night all I thought about was when my son and I were playing Minecraft and he was underground mining. While he was doing that, I filled his entire house with chickens. I could hear the sounds, it was so loud. He came up from underground shouting, “WHY IS MY HOUSE FULL OF CHICKENS?” and I was standing in the corner laughing like a witch.

Then I thought about the time I did it with pigs instead. He was so mad, but he refused to let them just run free because he loves pigs so much. “Oh great, now I have to make room for all these pigs. Maybe I should keep one as a house pig?”

It made me smile so much. I don’t even purposely recall these things – my brain just shows them to me. Almost as if the pain of the cluster headaches feels finite to my own brain. I just sat with those memories and feelings, and suddenly I really wanted to hug my son, but he was asleep.

My brain does have the ability to give me reasons to fight through cluster headaches. Shame it doesn’t do that for everything I go through. But it does make the pain more bearable. It reminds me why I have to keep going through it. Why this is the only option.

To watch my son be so happy about bookshops, and to flood his Minecraft builds full of pigs and chickens.

I can still have a life. But for the next six to eight weeks – hopefully shorter – it will also include pain.

As I’ve talked about Cyberpunk 2077 again, heres a song from one of my favourite scenes. I love this song.