On Migraines
They started when I was 20. The first one was an electrocution of physical experience. I thought I was dying. My brain was suffering an earthquake off the Richter scale, and I had to be in my film class, though! A kind professor segregated me in the Faculty Lounge until I could move again.
The next calendar year, another. This time I understood that seeing migraine auras meant the darkness of synapses would soon turn the lever of my body to OFF, and that I needed to find a quiet, unlit place to rest for several hours. I was grateful for my body’s ability to warn me of impending doom, although, the panic of finding isolation IMMEDIATELY always makes it a terrible emergency.
The word migraine makes me want to cry. When my migraines are about to fall swoop, it is like a rope of kaleidoscopic movement is hung over my left eye. The workings of this rope vibrate and jazz around and disturb me so much that I bet the faces I make signal to others that something is terriby wrong with my brain. When the trauma of the actual headache saunters into the room of my head, everything stops. Every cell in my body, or the energy in each, drops what it’s doing and goes and sees what’s up. (Look, it’s Migraine! Hi, Migraine, take a seat! Here’s some wine… STAY A WHILE). My tastebud mechanisms leave a “Be Back in 45 Minutes” sign for me to writhe around about. If I try to eat, violence ocurrs. Riots.
These migraines were successfully annual and totally uninvited, like my birthday, but it was only recently that they became a monthly guest. Since February, once every month, I get them in severity. And each time, after I awake from a FORCED nap (angry emoticon insert here) I google “migraines” like I’m going to find new information — some cure or explanation to use or understand.
And I find myself thinking to myself that UGH I don’t have time for this. I can’t celebrate these visits as host. As host I’m put out a lot, I have to make sure everything runs smoothly, and that means taking an entire day to sit in darkness and contemplate what I’m doing that’s so annoying to my body that it extends invitations without asking.
But maybe that’s what’s wrong. That time is so scarce for me now I sleep very little, and I’m asking my brain to keep up with my ambitions and thoughts when it really wants to just chill out. My brain may actually be a passive aggressive, lazy stoner saying, “You changed, man. You used to be cool.”
Maybe I’ll have a sitdown heart-to-heart session with myself and try to make some compromises. (UGH. Boring.)
