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<11/09/2010 - 12:39 | Saffrin Middle School (Gym), Austell, GA, USA>

"Can we see more of a jog? Let's get some runnin!" The ear piercing whistle of Ms. Jennifer's device strapped around her neck motivated many to pump the lead out today, many except for one.

Ah, shut up already! I barely kept a pace of a jog at all, running inside the walls of the gymnasium. Today was supposed to be declared a free day, but both coaches wanted to warm everyone up with runs for about ten minutes before allowing us to be on our own. Right now, I couldn't care less for this stupid exercise.

Half of me didn't care either way, about getting to use that free time in the first place once this pointless jog is over. Like every other second of today, it's going to be excruciating agony and suffering beyond anything I could imagine for longevity. It was one of those days that I wished I could have stayed home and loafed in my bed. I'd be about as useful there as I am now.

I of course knew why I was in such a foul mood, why all of my motivation had been crushed into sand, leaving behind only aggravation for every conscious part of today. It's the reason why I can feel my heartbeat all the way through each side of my head, whether I am running or sitting. It's the reason every single noise around me above 30 decibels makes me want to eliminate every source of sound until the world is mute. It's why I'd rather be asleep than awake, in bed than to stand, unconscious instead of conscious. Nothing can be done about this now. I have nothing left to combat this tension headache.

We hear of headaches all the time, and this certainly is not my first, so me having one now is no surprise. The only unknown about my headaches is what causes them in the first place. Unfortunately, I've identified a chaotic pattern for myself; the fact that I suffer from an unusually elevated number of tension headaches compared to what should be average. I hear some people get between one and four every year, how lucky they all are. I get them far too often, at least a few in a month, ever since I turned twelve.

Physical pain like this isn't something easily remembered. No matter how much it might hurt, the brain doesn't bother deeming pain from a headache as necessary information when storing long term memories. As a result, even I forget how horrible these are once in a while, but the blessed ones are those who don't suffer more than four times a year at all. They'll never understand what this is like, how it feels, what it does to the mind, and what it does to people like me and my motivation. It isn't something that hurts for a moment and fades away. It's perpetual pain, on and on and on, lasting for the whole day but feeling like an eternity without relief. There's even a pain scale I can measure it on too, as most people do when they have to get used to this. Zero would be an absence of a headache, while ten would register as the worse pain in your life, or at the very least, lead someone to start screaming from the internal torture. I can say I've had three of these level ten headaches so far, so I know what horror awaits me later.

Of course, plenty also claim they get migraines. There is a difference, since I've had both before. But for me, migraines are rare. I remember their specific symptoms by now, but tension headaches are my unfortunate demon. The noise shift isn't that bad, and there is no nausea associated with my tension headaches, at least not in the beginning. But there is one terrible caveat I must also deal with; the hypertensive parable in each headache.

My headaches do not remain at the same pain level over time, as sweet as that would be. They usually start off small, and quickly grow themselves over time until the same headache evolves into a level ten, by which point I'm screwed. I know why they get worse over time. A migraine is bad enough and usually starts off strong, but a tension headache is aptly named because the pain it invokes causes the entire body to tense up, ever so slightly as to often go unnoticed and in such an involuntary way that we can't control. Of course, when the body becomes tense during a headache, it can cause the pain level to become slightly worse with enough time. When the pain becomes worse, so then does the frequency or strength of the body's own tension. That increased tension leads to increased pain, which leads to even more tension...

Get the point now? It's a closed loop. A level 2 headache can use this hypertensive parable to gradually shift itself all the way to a level 10. Once I get to level 6, I have some difficulty controlling the movements of my own body. At level 7, I can see my own arms and legs occasionally tremoring on their own, while a lightheadedness sensation kicks in, though weak. At level 8, trying to move becomes nearly impossible, and it hurts just to try since I have to tense slightly more just to do anything, which is why I prefer laying down at this point.

Since this pain persists for every micro-second of my entire day when it starts, I soon stop caring about almost everything and everyone else around me. All I can think about or care about is how to make this pain cease. It's far too distracting for me to put any focus into something like writing or schoolwork, and making me so much as jog is only adding to the invisible hell. The crazier aspect to it all is that most of everyone around me has no idea how much I am suffering, less I speak up and complain about my headache.

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I can't even be myself in this state, only a shell of what I'm supposed to be. Most people take medicine for this kind of stuff, but the only thing that ever works on me is Aspirin, and that stopped doing the trick about five months ago. A tolerance to the medicine maybe? Anyway, I don't have anything to take because nothing over the counter really works, nothing I know about anyway...

But this is ridiculous! I should be allowed to just stay home when this happens. I'm getting almost nothing done even by attending class, because I can't easily retain any new information when all I can concentrate on is the pain itself. I can write slideshow notes down, but not comprehend them. I can start the frame of a class project, but give no critical thought to any of it. And even if I were at home right now, it's not like I would be able to really enjoy it either.

These headaches suck the fun out of everything, and I mean everything. Even the joy and dopamine from playing a fun video game is no match against the brutal persistence and onslaught of this automatic, unstoppable torture. It's perpetual, relentless, never-ending and only getting worse by the minute. If it reaches a level ten again, I might have another trip to the emergency room. All they do for me there is give me something to force me to sleep through the pain. Luckily, if I can find a way to sleep, that resets everything for me, like nature's cure all. So, if I ever did stay home from one of these nasty ailments, I could never feel guilty about it.

All said so far isn't even the biggest drawback to this problem. It's been much more silent for me in school today. Lumina and I have not connected once since the start of today, despite the fact that the weather outside is in the upper forties. Lumina told me about the two aspects that would either kill or prevent a telepathic connection from happening between us, but as it turns out, there are actually three.

The first and most obvious is necessary energy. It took me a long time to figure out what was meant in the differences of physical energy, mental energy, and psionic energy, while all three are needed. While physical energy is self-explanatory, mental energy isn't exactly energy at all. It refers to a person's state of mind in terms of excitement and alertness; their current capacity to process more simultaneous thoughts, solve complex problems, sense multiple emotions, and to do so at a reasonable speed. It sounds complex, but it's simple enough to say that most people walking around on this planet have more than enough of this brain energy always going, unless they are asleep, sleep deprived, have the morning fatigue, or have developed brain fog. All I have to do for mental energy is simply to be awake and eat right. My mind feels alert and alive, and that's what is required. Because of my ADD, my thoughts are almost always flowing without effort, so sustaining that is easy.

Then, there is psionic energy, which can feel quite similar, but it relates only to the Cora sector of the brain. I don't know what this Cora sector is, but it apparently allows people the ability usage of any psychic ability. Psionic energy waves in a sense are projected from the Cora sector, so the source of psionic energy is a mix of both physical energy and mental energy. If the brain isn't in an excited enough state, then the Cora sector also won't function well. A slow metabolism for example could make it more difficult to project psionic energy.

All of that is one aspect of telepathy. An insufficient amount of this can prevent myself or Lumina from contacting each other. Since this is something I never have issues with, I don't even worry about it. However, there is another variable that I cannot control here; the weather. Warm temperatures that surround me apparently make it totally impossible to contact Lumina. Or, if the weather was cold to begin with but warms up during a connection, that connection will drop on its own once the outdoor temperature rises to about 65oF, or 59oN. The effects extend to a one mile radius, which means walking into a freezer would not solve this problem for me. But by Lumina's own words, if I were to hypothetically stand inside a geometric dome that has the radius of one mile in all directions, and then this dome were cooled to a lower temperature while the temperature outside the dome were too high, telepathy would then not be interrupted.

I have not had a problem with the temperature once. Ever since I met Lumina, it's been nice and cold, as it should be for November. But now, I'm learning about this third restriction. Lumina never mentioned it, because she was never expecting it, and I simply forgot about it until now. Headaches...

The amount of pain these headaches puts me through forcibly distracts my mind from whatever it is doing, no matter the task. The distraction isn't so bad that I can't function, assuming I'm not at a level 8 or higher. But right at level 4 and higher, it becomes impossible for me to concentrate or focus deeply on that internal sense that I've become used to, the process of contacting Lumina. At the same time, keeping an existing connection alive also requires constant background concentration the entire time too, something I can't keep up for more than a few seconds with this forced pain. As a result of this, any moment that I'm in this kind of pain, telepathy with Lumina will be utterly impossible.

Guess I'll have to let her know to expect this randomly, because I'm certain this will not be the last headache I have. It's annoying to no end, a feeling I'd rather die to evade if I felt I would be in this agony for eternity. Luckily, I know already that sleeping it off is the best method. But even this release is denied me, thanks to this stupid school environment. The next time I get one like this, I'm staying home.