u/idkwat

Hey all. I was on .5mg to 1mg of Clonazapam as needed (usually every 3 to 7 days) for a good two decades. Over the past 9 months or so I have been on an incredibly slow taper and haven't had too many issues. I have a lot of fatigue, muscle pain, some heightened anxiety, but generally it hasn't been horrible.

However the one thing that is absolutely killing me is light sensitivity and headaches. Basically, whenever I'm playing a video game that is action oriented or an FPS, I can only play for a very short time before getting an intense pain right between my eyes under my eyebrows, sometimes accompanied by nausea and sweating. The fix for it ice packs on my eyes followed by heat followed by a good long sleep. I've had to dim my computer monitor significantly and wear blue light glasses but sometimes even just using the computer for work is taxing on my eyes.

This has been going on through the entire taper. I've gotten a clear eye exam, a clear ENT exam, clear bloodwork, even a fucking MRI that showed no issue so all my doctors think it's just part of the taper. It has gotten slightly better. When I started my taper I couldn't even watch TV without having a major issue, now it only comes up with certain high intensity games but, as someone who games a lot, I'm just so worried I will never get back to normal and be able to enjoy my passion again.

I officially had my last dose of clonazapam a little over a week ago and while a lot of my eye/headache issues were not too bad for awhile things have gotten really bad once more. Anyone have any experience specifically with headaches or migraines like this or have any words of hope here? I just get so concerned this is going to last forever.

I've seen some weird thing happen in Crusader Kings over the thousand or so hours I've put into these games. A King sleeping with all his subjects to prevent a war, a Viking adventurer becoming a king of a distant land because everyone loves him, tyrants murdering countless children to secure their line.

Sometimes I thought to myself that some of this was a bit ridiculous, but recently I started reading a history of Scotland in preparation for a trip there, and holy shit you guys, real life history is just as goofy and stupid as some of your runs.

Here's some things that actually happened in history, and it sounds exactly like Crusader Kings.

Alexander III of Scotland: If there ever was a "I lost the run to RNG" king it was this guy. He basically made all the right moves. Married a woman to secure an alliance, married off his children to secure alliances, acquired some land, but everyone died. His wife and all his children died, so he reluctantly married again to sire an heir, but while riding his horse through a storm to go fuck his wife and hopefully make a son he was riding near a cliffside and a wave hit him and he drowned. Literally made all the right moves but those 1% of death events ruined him.

James I of Scotland: Instantly changed a lot of laws to be more like England and France and surprise, the nobles didn't like that, so he butchered them. He was a known tennis enthusiast, and one day he noticed a lot of his tennis balls were rolling into a nearby sewer hole. He angrily ordered his people to put a grate on it. A few weeks later the kin of those nobles he killed came to kill him, but he had an escape plan! He went down to the sewers and, whoops, the grate was there so he couldn't escape. He got stabbed 16 times and died.

James II of Scotland: He had a red birthmark on his cheek and loved to play with cannons. He had a banging wife and brought her out to a siege where he was about to blast apart an English castle. He lit the fuse and got that 1% chance of death when his cannon exploded and the metal shards cut him in half.

James III of Scotland: You ever have a run where you just amass gold and fuck over your people? That was James III of Scotland. He was basically Scottish Trump and surrounded himself with yes men while hoarding gold. His son James IV rebelled against him and he died after a battle.

James IV of Scotland: This is the golden child. You ever have that heir that is like, a hale genius with amazing stats? That was James IV of Scotland. Dude was a literal genius, an insanely good administrator, and basically led Scotland into the renaissance because he had insanely high stats in every category.

Reading this shit has me laughing so hard because it's literally just like Crusader Kings so I wanted to share.