Invisible Illnesses

The last two days, I have had a migraine, but ... if you didn't know me, I'm sure you would not be able to tell. At any given moment I'm ruminating on yesterday, today, tomorrow, last year, last week, next week, three years from now and in the present. The ideas never stop coming. The feelings never stop coming. Anxiety, and depression, are debilitating disorder on their own, but adding in chronic cluster migraines (often referred to as ‘suicide migraines’) takes things to the next level. Feelings in fact are magnified tenfold making them even worse compared to what a "normal" person would deal with. You think your bad day is bad, try one of mine.

Something little quickly turns into something big and something big is quickly something ginormous. It's comical at times. You think you can handle something, but then you're crying in the middle of the grocery store because you can't decide what kind of shampoo you're going to get now because OF COURSE they're out of the one you needed, and it just had to be piled on top of everything else that's going on and you still have two days until Friday. It never stops. It's not easy. I would be lying if I told you it was.

While I felt relief in receiving clinical mental health illness diagnoses, I was filled with apprehension when told by my first neurologist I was dealing with frequent, chronic cluster migraines. Though migraines (albeit not cluster migraines) were something I watched my mother suffer through for my whole life, I never expected I would receive the same diagnoses. I was the determining factor my mother’s migraines had been hereditary, and although my mother’s genetics are likely to blame for my migraines now, she is also the person I can thank for knowing that was what I was going through prior to my diagnoses.

It wasn’t until I had come home my first winter break in college my mom put two-and-two together when I asked her if ‘through’ was spelled ‘throew,’ and I didn’t understand why my phone underlined it red. Years later, my mom shared she only knew because she often was made fun of for misspelling things at work. She once asked me how to spell ‘orange.’ I admittedly laughed at her behind her back as a snarky teenager. I would not get it until I experienced the same thing. As my migraines continued to present themselves in unavoidable ways in college, I was made fun of on my bad days. I would continue to struggle when spelling in texts or emails. I would mix words together when speaking.

My roommates in college were aware of my migraines. They had watched me draw up vials of medication and stick myself in the thigh for relief and take regular preventative medication in a timely manner each day in hopes to keep my migraines at a minimum, but to them, my pain was intangible - something they could not see with their own eyes or physically experience themselves. I would spend days in my bed in the dark, considered antisocial by my roommates who didn’t understand the blinding pain and stomach churning nausea I was plagued with on a regular basis because they could not see it. I had no open wounds, no broken bones, nothing physically showing them I was unwell. No one asked in detail what was wrong and assumptions were made. Because of this, I was isolated, ostracized and in a general sense discarded. Invites to movie nights, dinner, football games and simple roommate-get-togethers stopped like a trickle effect … one went after the other and soon, I was no longer a part of the group even though we all lived under the same roof. I was too ‘different’ to them.

For me, I'll be honest, I generally hid my feelings, or at least I would not tell someone if I was not feeling my best. To this day, I don't talk to many people about what's going on or what I'm going through in my daily life. Many people would never guess the things that I'm going through, and when I look around to see how few people I have by my side, I know it's my own doing. I feel I am generally better this way. It's hard to have people understand you in such an honest, open way. But, the people I've kept close understand my feels and know that there is no hiding them. They truly understand there is no "stopping them" or any other nonsensical thing people nowadays think you can do with your emotions or an ailment with little to no reprieve from (even if they cannot see it).

As I learned more about my migraines, I would continue to learn how all of my diagnoses were related and how they ultimately affected my quality of life and were things I historically suffered through in silence like my mother before me. It was easier for me this way.

To me, for people to tell you to "be OK" or to "deal with it” can be inconsiderate. Being ‘OK’ is doable, sure, but not in the way someone hopes for with limited knowledge of what others may be going through. People cope and "deal" with things in different ways.

I always do my best to find the sunnier side to everything. Whether it's simply just a rainy day I can drink a good cup of tea and cuddle with my sweet dogs or a slower day in the office where I find the time to replenish my soul doing something I love like catching up with my team or doing a deep dive on data trends, I look for this joy in everything, but I can't deny when the bad days are there. They come often and overstay their welcome frequently, but I learned long ago ignoring them made them worse than if I just invited them in like an old friend or perhaps a poltergeist I could not see myself.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Glimmers & glaring atrocities

Some Days There are No Words, Only Tears

The Difference a Year Makes