Ok.  Let's get the spelephant in the room out of the way right away.  When writing an advice column, it is important to spellcheck.  especially the word "advice".  Especially if that word is in the title of your post.   Message received.

*warning.  from here on the post gets graphic.  end warning*

i have a sty.  and it is wondrous how a small ingrown hair under my eyelid has the ability to physically and psychologically break me down. i have been soaking my eye--with a washcloth, in the shower, with homeopathic anti-sty drops-- for the better part of 48 hours.  So much so, that now, in addition to a swollen eyelid, i have my own red badge of courage circling round the entire eye-socket.  I may have even burned the eyelid itself with the constant cycle of hot compresses.  The sensation is one of having a minuscule piece of fiberglass embedded, sword-in-the-stone style, adjacent my tear duct.  the human inclination is to try and kneed the enlarging bubble of puss out the duct.  My slightly more OCD approach is very similar except the manner in which i attack the problem more resembles an animal with it's paw catch in a trap.  in my attempt to kneed the lid, i am half-peeling it off my face.  The red zone around my eye deepens to a more crimson hue.

I try to ignore it.  go about my business.  play some video games. write.  talk on the phone.  but none of it is normal.  i do all these things distracted, always half-paying attention to the scratch scratch scratching against the back door of my corneal lens.  99.9% if my body is operating at maximum capacity, and yet the entire machine is incapacitated by this well-placed ingrown invader.

 It has me collapsing in on myself.  Doubting my ability to help others as i act out my Möbius strip of obsessive compulsiveness, like a glass cleaner seeking the perfect spit-shine from the tinted windows of my soul.  And the whole process leaves me feeling weak.  Weak, as this tiny non-sensient invader has taken over my life without permission.  Weak, as I awake beaten, as a boxer, eye swollen shut with the crusted over reminder of yesterdays defeat at my own hands.  the hands of my enemy.