Migraines are the worst [Sean]

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo was fine, she really was...she couldn’t be any more relaxed. Well, that wasn't quite the truth;she could be pretty uptight. But her anxiety hadn’t really bothered her in a while. She couldn’t even remember the last time she had an attack, and she didn’t worry about silly things as much as she used to. But her parents wanted to make sure that it stayed that way, and Cleo would be lying if she didn’t enjoy her monthly meetings with Dr. Neville.

But today, she did have something specific to talk with him about, and as a fellow psychic she was really hoping that he could give her some advice. Her headaches were bearable at this point and usually only popped up after a particularly intense vision. Her migraines, however, were not.

They were less frequent than when she was younger, but still managed to pop up twice, sometimes three, times a month. And they always seemed like they came back with a vengeance. She usually spent more than a couple days a month locked in her bedroom with the lights off. It was like having a second period that she didn’t need. Advil didn’t help and she had preventative medications, but they didn’t really do much either. She usually just waited them out, but she was just so fucking tired of them.

She was tired of the nausea and the pounding, pulsating headache, and then everything else that came with it. She liked being awake and in the sunlight - not cramped in her teeny, tiny dorm room with all the lights off and the curtains drawn.

So Cleo was hoping that Dr. Neville would have some advice to give her on making them cease and desist permanently, and not just tell her that her migraines were an unfortunate side effect of her precognitive abilities and that there was nothing they could do.

She knocked on Dr. Neville’s door three times before opening it and poking her head in. “Hi, Dr. Neville.” She opened the door more. “You’re not busy, right?” She had an appointment with him, like she did at the end of every month, but it she always felt rude just barging in. He might be busy…

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Every month, near the end of the month, Sean had a standing appointment with Cleo Warren. These dated back several years, to when she had first arrived at Hammel and her anxiety had been such that she required more frequent sessions. Back then, their conversations occurred weekly, sometimes more frequently than that, while she adjusted and worked through the worst of it. The psychiatrist had been nothing but sympathetic and invested in helping her; he could be nothing but.

However, slowly but surely, and working together, she had gotten her anxiety under better control, and, as a result, their sessions grew less frequent, until, finally, they had dropped down to once each month. The psychiatrist penciled her in at the end of each month, on the same day of the week barring emergencies.

So he expected her for their session today. Right on time, he heard and sensed her arrival, and he turned to look at his door just as Cleo poked her head in. He offered her a smile of reassurance. “No, I’m not busy.”

Of course, he always had paperwork to do, but that had no bearing on the sessions that he scheduled, and he always had plenty of time to tend to it throughout the day.

“You’re right on time,” he added.

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo returned his smile, slipping fully into the room. “Great.” She was rarely ever late to anything. She usually left herself with plenty of time to get places, especially if it was something out of her daily routine. The odd days where she was running behind usually occurred because she’d lost track of time or had been held up somewhere else.

She pulled out the chair in front of his desk, sitting down and setting her bag beside her.

Now that they’re appointments were less frequent, Cleo would admit that sometimes their conversations could be slow to start. She always felt the need to make small-talk before they jumped right into everything. She never really did that with her friends, even with Maddie, who she only saw every couple of months when she was home. But her parents always taught her that it was the polite thing to do with adults.

“How’ve you been this month, Dr. Neville?”

Cleo had been cold this month. She figured she should be used to it by now. She’d lived here for four years and it wasn’t like Manhattan was warm. Yet, every winter the weather had just seemed to get more and more unbearable.

“So…I’ve still been getting my migraines like…two or three times a month.” It really averaged out at two; only every few months would she occasionally get three. Sometimes, if she was lucky she’d only get one. Those were good months. “The Advil hasn’t really been helping, so I’m wondering if you had any other…advice?” She said, fiddling with the end of her braid. Or anything.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean, too, was rarely late to anything, since his life philosophy held that it was better to wait for other people than it was to force them to wait for him. As a result, he appreciated when the students were punctual, and he liked that about Cleo.

He understood how and why she felt the need to begin with small talk, although he didn’t require it for himself. Left to his own devices, or, if he were in a position to change the social order to revolve around telepathic norms, then he would dispense with small talk. Many people found it uncomfortable, and, while he was happy to engage in it, he didn’t require it; his powers took care of that for him.

Still, she had asked, and thus he would answer. “I’ve been fine.” Which was the truth. “I took a lovely weekend getaway a couple of weeks ago.”

For Valentine’s Day, he and Josh had gone to a remote cabin for a four-day weekend. The memories brought a smile to his lips.

Then, before he could ask more generally how she had been, she specifically mentioned her migraines. Although they had different powers, both of them were classified as “mental powers” and thus there existed some crossover with the side effects. Specifically, migraines.

One of the least pleasant aspects of having a psychic power, migraines.

His expression turned sympathetic. “Have you been getting them when overextending your powers? Or more generally?”

His advice differed based on context.

[Cleo Warren]

“That sounds like a lot of fun.” She nodded. She loved getaways and vacations. Of course, her parents thought she was still much to young to take them on her own with her friends, but her family vacations were always fun. The last one they’d had was short, a weekend skiing trip in upstate New York, but Cleo loved any time she got to spend with her family.

“More generally.” She answered, although they would ensue if she overused her abilities as well. She tried to avoid stretching her limits too much, but at this point she usually just got somewhat bearable headaches after her stronger visions.

“Sometimes they come when I’m overusing them, but I try not to stretch it that far.” She admitted. Personally, she didn’t think overextending her powers was worth the literal headache. “But I kind of expect them when that happens. They feel worse when they just pop up on their own, you know?” Which was true. She would only get full blown migraines if she was scanning the future on her own for longer periods of time, which she tried to avoid.

“I’ve been getting them for years, I feel like I should be used to them by now.” She brought her knees into her chest, trying to get more comfortable in her seat like she always did a few minutes into their meetings.

“But sometimes I can’t even go to class because of them.” She could, and usually did, power through her headaches. Her trusty bottle of Advil worked great for those. But her migraines were a different story.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

“It was,” Sean assured her, although he didn’t go into specific details. That would hardly qualify as an appropriate topic of conversation between a middle-aged psychiatrist and his teenage patients, not to mention the invasion of privacy and betrayal of trust by speaking intimate details about his partner.

Generally, he had always enjoyed travel, even when his destinations weren’t romantic getaways with his partner. As soon as he had been old enough to go on road trips – which was to say upon entering college – he had gone on vacations with friends. He valued the freedom inherent in that.

However, discussion of his travel plans wasn’t the point of today’s meeting; checking in with Cleo was, and she had a topic on mind.

Not that migraines were ever far from a psychic’s mind, since side effects were constant and ever-present.

That she still got them generally, as opposed to when overextending herself was a bit more concerning, but it also meant that his strategy of “don’t overextend yourself” would be meaningless in this context.

“My first idea is to switch you to something stronger than Advil,” he remarked, after she explained the situation. He wanted to steer clear of anything that warranted a prescription until they made their way through a few other formulas, but he could offer his preferred remedy. “I use Excedrin.”

A mixture of two different painkillers and caffeine.

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo frowned, not really liking the idea of using a stronger over-the-counter medication. They rarely used anything stronger than Ibuprofen in her family, not because they were against modern medicine, but none of them really got sick. She was already popping Advil like it was candy, especially on days that she was practicing with her ability.

But if that was one of the only options, than Cleo would take it. She’d come here looking for advice and she knew better than to question whether or not Dr. Neville knew what he was talking about.

“Alright.” She agreed, making a mental note to stop by the pharmacy this weekend to pick some up.

“Is there anything else?” She would take the Excedrin, but she also wanted to know if there was any other way to prevent them from coming. Cleo knew she was probably always going to get them. She’d been told a while ago that her ability’s side effects would never disappear completely.

However, she would like her migraines to at least lesson, especially when she wasn’t even using her powers. She could deal with them if they only popped up once a month, and perhaps the Excedrin would make them a bit more bearable.

“I know they’ll never go away, but will they always be this…frequent?” During her first couple of years at Hammel, Cleo had assumed that they would eventually die down. She had them much more often when she was younger, and they had died down since then. At this point though, she felt like she had reached a plateau.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean recognized that expression, had seen it on the faces of several students when recommending stronger painkillers. He knew that it wasn’t an ideal remedy, because all medications had side effects in the aggregate, and nobody wanted to be addicted to a medication – prescription, over the counter, legal or otherwise. However, side effects from meta-human abilities needed to be regarded as chronic pain disorders, where pain medication was an appropriate remedy.

“I’ll make sure the infirmary gives you an array of samples,” he promised her. If the Excedrin didn’t work, both he and Doctor Sherlock had the ability to prescribe Tylenol 3 or any other array of medication.

His powers didn’t work precisely the same way that Cleo’s did, although they shared similarities that most non-psychics would dismiss if they only heard their powers in passing. However, both precognition and telepathy involved frequently picking up on information that they couldn’t tune out completely, and to which everyone else remained oblivious. Without great control, it could become overwhelming, with the feeling of losing one’s grip on reality. He empathized with her for all of that.

In turn, this led to him wanting her to have coping tools, and he would share his.

“I meditate,” he admitted. “Clearing my mind, breathing slowly and deeply, relaxing, I do all of that, and I’ve found it helpful. I also drink a fair amount of tea and coffee.” Caffeine helped generally, and when he needed to cope with pain in his temples, tea did well, in addition to a handful of Excedrin.

As for her descriptions of her migraines, he remained thoughtful, listening attentively. “Mine eventually died down to less frequent than that, but I know one of the trainers still gets them somewhat often.” More often than Sean did, at any rate.

[Cleo Warren]

Cleo blew out a puff of air, some of the shorter strands of hair that had escaped from her braid flying out of her face. “Okay.” She agreed. She was hoping the Excedrin or whatever else they would give her helped. Cleo really didn’t like the idea of taking prescription medication, although she would if it came down to it.

She made a mental note to stop by the infirmary later today. Or tomorrow…probably tomorrow.

She wrinkled her nose at his suggestion out of reflex. Meditation was not something that she thought she’d be good at. If anything, she figured it might make her more fidgety. “I think we both know that I’m not patient enough to meditate.” She said, with a light laugh. Relaxing and breathing deeply were never really something she could bring herself to do. She didn’t even have the patience to walk behind her peers in the halls on the way to class. She was constantly trying to maneuver around everyone else; one day she was sure she was going to belt someone over the head with her binder for moving too slowly.

And don’t even get her started on lines.

She didn’t like tea either, but coffee she could do. She didn’t drink it often, only when she had a ton of stuff to do in one day or woke up particularly tired, but she wouldn’t mind drinking it more. Especially if it was another excuse to go to Starbucks.

“Because you drink a lot of coffee and take medication?” And meditate, but Cleo knew right now that that remedy probably wouldn’t go too well. But she just wanted to know if they would die down on their own, or if they would only lesson because of outside remedies.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Sean, too, hoped that the Excedrin would help. He swore by it, which was how he had come to rely on it as his go-to medication on those rare instances when he had a migraine, and those somewhat more frequent instances when he had a stress headache. That was why he kept multiple bottles in his house in different rooms, why he kept a bottle in the glove compartment of his car, and why he had a bottle in his desk drawer. He simply couldn’t offer her any from his stash due to laws regulating giving medication to minors in schools.

Regarding meditation, he spread his hands. “I know it can take getting used to,” he replied, and he also knew that it wasn’t for everyone. The psychiatrist had a deep well of patience, and his natural personality involved going with the flow (for the most part). He enjoyed the silence and the focus, and thus he found the practice relaxing. However, he acknowledged that it wasn’t for everyone.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have a magic cure-all that could take away migraines from psychics. If he did, he would have patented it and started distributing it for free long ago. He hated to see younger psychics struggle and suffer the way he had those decades ago.

Sean shook his head. He could hear the hope in her voice, but it wasn’t that simple. “Not just that, although I’m sure it helps.” If nothing else, the meditation did wonders for his stress and blood pressure. “My migraines naturally subsided in my late teens and early twenties. I was lucky that way.” Lucky because he knew that Chase Campbell still had more intense symptoms.

[Cleo Warren]

Hmm…maybe she’d try it, though as she pictured it in her mind she couldn’t say it was going too well already. Sitting still for long periods of time just wasn’t something she was good at. Even in class she was constantly fidgeting in her seat and moving around. Her family was the same way. Both her parents never stood still while they were teaching lectures, always walking back and forth in the front of the classroom, pacing like maniacs. Cass was a little bit better, though Cleo thought it was because he got all of his energy out through sports.

She blamed the New Yorker in her. The city’s constant gogogo was enough to put anyone on edge, and living in it bred people with an extremely small amount patience and little attention span. At least, that’s what Cleo thought.

She didn’t think patience was really something that could grow. Well, maybe it could, but Cleo always just assumed it was something that you just had. Or didn’t have. But Dr. Neville said that it helped, so she figured she could at least attempt it. “I’ll try…” She told him. Although the activity would probably last for five minutes before her nose started itching. Or she got bored.

The fact that her migraines subsiding was based on luck was not comforting. Not that she considered herself unlucky, but that meant that there was at least half a chance that they would continue on into her adult life. Great. But maybe she’d be one of the lucky ones, like Dr. Neville.

“So…Excedrin, coffee, and meditation?” Her nose wrinkled again on that last one. And then pray that they would subside naturally over the next few years.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Although Sean tried to give students some semblance of privacy, and, barring, that, the illusion of privacy when in his office or elsewhere in his presence, he couldn’t help but overhear the thought. The image popped into his mind, completely unbidden, and he agreed that it might be difficult for her to adapt. However, as he wasn’t a Yogi and didn’t practice for form religious reasons, he thought there was nothing wrong with fidgeting or imperfect form, as long as she found it relaxing after a while.

“You can always make a playlist of some light music.” Easy listening or classical might work best. Long ago, he has to use the radio when he used music to drown out noise – as though that could drown out the mental chatter of everyone in his range – but technology had advanced so much through cassette tapes and compact discs so that now they had digital playlists that contained hundreds of hours of music. More than enough for a thirty minute meditation session.

The psychiatrist offered her an encouraging smile. “We could always give it a try together,” he suggested. She could turn him down, of course, but he had meditated with Ann Hudgins long ago, and with a few of the telepaths over the years. Sometimes students found it helpful.

He nodded to confirm her list, and then he added, “I’d also schedule an appointment with the Side Effects Specialist, if I were you.” They might have better suggestions.

[Cleo Warren]

She supposed music might help. Maybe. To be honest, it would probably depend on her mood at the time. If she was feeling particularly fidgety and anxious, then the whole activity would probably go south. But if she was in a good, relaxed mood then there was a better chance it would go smoothly.

But she couldn’t imagine ever doing it outside of Pilot Ridge. It was almost always quiet here, so it would be a lot easier to concentrate. At home though, there was always noise going on outside regardless of what time of day it was. If she could manage to get her focus somewhat together, than the noise would definitely shatter it.

She’d see though. Maybe she was just a complainer who had know idea what she was talking about. Maybe it would help. It definitely wouldn’t hurt to try.

She gave a light laugh at his offer. She appreciated it, but she knew that she should probably try it on her own the first few times. “Thanks for the offer, Dr. Neville, but I really don’t think you’d want to meditate with me.” She would definitely distract him from his own meditation. And that would make her feel bad. And annoying.

“That’s probably a good idea.” She would do that, make an appointment with the Side Effects Specialist. She didn’t know what else they would be able to tell her that Dr. Neville couldn’t, but she’d take all the advice she could get. Whether or not she acted on it was a different story. "Thanks for your help." She really did appreciate it.

[Dr. Sean Neville]

Music helped Sean. He tried not to universalize his experiences, beyond the basics (telepaths needed additional glucose for brain fuel, psychics suffered from migraines, nobody liked being the victims of prejudice...), but after interacting with enough people over the decades, and having random songs stuck in his head because of close proximity to other people’s thoughts, he thought it was worth trying.

His expression turned sympathetic. “The offer’s on the table, even if you don’t take me up on it.” She could change her mind, if she decided that meditation was worth pursuing. They needn’t meditate together each time, but having someone there to help her during the first or second attempt might work wonders.

The psychiatrist had learned from his mentor, after all, and he had benefitted from the elder telepath’s presence, knowledge, and experience.

Then again, he wasn’t Robert Hopkins, no matter how hard he tried to live up to his mentor’s memory.

He nodded when she agreed to contact the Side Effects Specialist. He thought that was the wisest course of action; while the psychiatrist could prescribe medication, and, as a telepath, he understood the nature of psychic side effects on a personal level, he thought that Cleo would benefit most from someone who had made side effects their specific area of study.

At the very least, an appointment couldn’t hurt.

“You’re welcome,” he replied, and he meant that. His door was open to the students to help with whatever they needed, and he truly did empathize with her in this area. “I hope one of these ideas works.”

[Cleo Warren]

Perhaps she would take him up that offer. Maybe. Really, she probably would only take to meditation as a last resort. Cleo had never been into yoga and had never really considered herself to be ‘zen’ or anything like that. But…she supposed there was a first time for everything. She didn’t want to be doped up on all different kinds of prescription painkillers, so if the Excedrin didn’t work, then she figured it would be worth a shot.

Her brother would probably laugh at her if he ever saw Cleo giving it a go, but hey…you’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do. Plus she’d probably beat him up if he made fun of her…and then she’d lose because now that he’s over six feet tall that’s been really hard to do. But it’d be worth it because she always managed to get at least one blow to ribs in with her bony elbows.

Cleo was also hoping an appointment with the Side Effects Specialist would help as well. Perhaps they had other remedies that would help her out if the new medication didn’t work. She’d been there a few times, when she was younger and had just started out at Hammel, but it had been a while.

And even though she wasn’t thrilled with her options - since she neither wanted to meditate or take stronger medications - she was happy that she wasn’t given something. In the back of her mind she knew there wasn’t going to be one miracle remedy that cured her migraines. And she was grateful that it wasn’t just something that couldn’t be helped, that had to be just endured.

“Me too, Dr. Neville.” She said, with a small smile. She really did. She stood up, picking up her backpack off the floor. “I’ll let you know if I need any help…meditating.” That was definitely going to be a sight to see.

-out-