This weather is stupid. Go home, Nature, you're drunk.

 Dear Reader,

It seems I've caught my son's cold and I'm dealing with pre-migraine symptoms because the temperature is going to jump from in the 20s tonight to near 50 deg F. These wild swings always give me migraines and render me useless. All I can do is lie in a dark room and wait for the medicine to kick in. And sometimes, it's not quite enough. It's all a crap experience. I have ocular migraines. The vision in my right eye goes blurry and then I feel like light is stabbing me in the face. I don't recommend it to anyone.

All of this leads me to confusion as to the arguments that the visions of Hildegarde von Bingen were because of chronic, untreated ocular migraines. I've read a fair amount about her visions and compared them to what we know of ocular migraines. There's only the loosest connection that she had a headache and had to lie down in a darkened room. The rest of it just doesn't line up. Her visions are intensely detailed and dreamlike in quality. But they are not the same as what modern evidence of ocular migraines are like.

Yes, I am one of those who fall on the side of the ledger who say that either the Saint had psychosis or her visions are legit. I lean more towards legitimate insights. They're too organized collectively and internally to really qualify as psychosis. (That's an experience I don't wish on anyone. Did that as part of my post partum depression, it was awful.) 

Now, let's take a moment to look at the psychosis argument. If you are having visual and auditory hallucinations that are helping you become a better person and encourages you in your faith, is this a problem? No, they're harmless and, actually, to some extend beneficial. If your psychosis experience is discouraging your efforts to be healthy, to be a better person, and encouraging you to grow in your faith, this is a sign of dysfunction. 

From everything I have read of Hildegarde von Bingen's writings, there is no sign of dysfunction. It leads me to question of the psychosis argument, I wonder if it is counting on the popular opinion that psychosis is bad/dangerous and is an attempt to discredit Hildegarde von Bingen posthumously.