That feeling when you’re trying to write and suddenly… scintillating scotoma time!
What is that, you ask?
Well, it’s related to migraines and looks like an upside down comma built from pulsating, cut-glass, fractal triangles, exactly in the middle of your field of vision.
Scintillating scotomas start out too tiny to hardly notice, unless you’re reading. Then it makes whichever word you look at dance and jumble, while all the words around it look normal.
You wonder if you’re imagining it. But then it grows larger.
Over half an hour, the scintillating scotoma grows larger and larger, sliding to the side, until it fills the entirety of your peripheral vision on the left. It’s visually noisy and exhausting to see, but you can’t get away from it, even by closing your eyes.
The first time I had a scintillating scotoma, it was TERRIFYING. Now it’s just a rare half hour inconvenience.
I just have to wait until it slides all the away.
That said, if I wanted to spend that particular half hour writing or reading…
It forces me to change my plans.