More on migraines
These migraines. Strange, how the word conveys so little of the meaning. You think of a headache, severe, with sensitivity to light. Someone hiding in a dark room, like my mother, while we walked through the house as softly as we could. On of the reasons I never thought I had migraines was because it never seemed that bad.
Now, I realise how much they have influenced my life. If pain is a daily thing, you do, in some ways, become accustomed to it. And yet these migraines are one of the main reasons that I thought I was going crazy. Because during a bad attack, I do feel I am losing my grip on reality, drifting away. Not just because of the pain, the sensitivity or the hallucinations, but because I cannot keep myself together.
Those are bad days, in which I used to feel, and sometimes still feel, that I had some mysterious illness that I was going to die of. Now I know better, usually, and these are now 'just' the days that I hide under my desk, or whereever I am, and don't answer the door.
On the good days, there is a throbbing in the head that usually doesn't even bother me all that much (thank god for painkillers), so used have I grown to it. But it does make me tired, and it does make me feel like things are too much rather quickly. Sometimes I think that without these migraines I would be a completely different person.
I try to treasure the mornings, because I don't usually wake up with a migraine and I can go for an hour, sometimes even two, relatively pain-free. But treasuring these hours is hard because too often I am aware that it is just that, an hour, or two.
The best times are those in the middle of a random day when I suddenly, unexpectedly, become unaccountable happy. My best friend first introduced me to the idea of migraine-euphoria and that describes it rather well. The intense joy of being pain-free, without painkillers, really pain-free. Often the euphoria precedes the realisation. No pain, oh, the joy. It lasts for a little while and then things get back to normal.
Think of it as the Galway weather. It is almost always overcast, often there are storms and rain and even hail. But sometimes, just often enough for us not to forget what it is like, the sun shines. That is euphoria.
There is always more to write about when it comes to migraines. Hell, they are part of my every day life. But so is my thesis, which I will now get back to. I will write more at another time. Don't hold your breath.
Now, I realise how much they have influenced my life. If pain is a daily thing, you do, in some ways, become accustomed to it. And yet these migraines are one of the main reasons that I thought I was going crazy. Because during a bad attack, I do feel I am losing my grip on reality, drifting away. Not just because of the pain, the sensitivity or the hallucinations, but because I cannot keep myself together.
Those are bad days, in which I used to feel, and sometimes still feel, that I had some mysterious illness that I was going to die of. Now I know better, usually, and these are now 'just' the days that I hide under my desk, or whereever I am, and don't answer the door.
On the good days, there is a throbbing in the head that usually doesn't even bother me all that much (thank god for painkillers), so used have I grown to it. But it does make me tired, and it does make me feel like things are too much rather quickly. Sometimes I think that without these migraines I would be a completely different person.
I try to treasure the mornings, because I don't usually wake up with a migraine and I can go for an hour, sometimes even two, relatively pain-free. But treasuring these hours is hard because too often I am aware that it is just that, an hour, or two.
The best times are those in the middle of a random day when I suddenly, unexpectedly, become unaccountable happy. My best friend first introduced me to the idea of migraine-euphoria and that describes it rather well. The intense joy of being pain-free, without painkillers, really pain-free. Often the euphoria precedes the realisation. No pain, oh, the joy. It lasts for a little while and then things get back to normal.
Think of it as the Galway weather. It is almost always overcast, often there are storms and rain and even hail. But sometimes, just often enough for us not to forget what it is like, the sun shines. That is euphoria.
There is always more to write about when it comes to migraines. Hell, they are part of my every day life. But so is my thesis, which I will now get back to. I will write more at another time. Don't hold your breath.