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.
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