For a long time, I thought of migraine as a nightmare.  I could easily imagine myself in a ‘main character moment’, starring in a B-grade horror movie.  Picture it with me: there’s a group of friends in a cabin in the woods.  It’s the end of a great day hiking and canoeing and we’re all sitting at a table passing plates around, laughing and teasing each other.  Then the lights flicker and threaten to go out.  No one seems to notice but me.  No one else hears the thump in the attic or observes the shadow crossing the moonlit window.  I stand to investigate.  The audience might be screaming ‘Don’t go! Don’t be so stupid!’ but my friends say nothing.  I am impelled by some dark fatalism.  I move towards the strobing light that is flashing from the gaps around the door to the basement.  My hand reaches for the door handle. I’m filled with dread, but I open the door anyway; I no longer have control over where my life is going.  Only I see the monster that’s huddled in the shadows at the base of the stairs or is sliding out from beneath the moldy camp bed in the corner, appearing at my shoulder, fangs and claws.  Of course, I’m the only one to succumb to its wily ways, the only one to perish, pulled, screaming and kicking into the abyss. 

Perhaps it was because I saw the horror movie “Alien” (1979) as an impressionable youth, but I often thought of my migraine as the shape-shifting monster from that movie; either the face-sucking octopus-like appendage, or the multi-mouthed abomination that will chew through you… slowly.

More recently, I have experimented with changing the narrative.  What if instead of a horror movie, I imagined myself in a sitcom.  What if my ‘monster-migraine’ was actually just a ‘clutzy-character’. 

Think of almost any sitcom you like; there’s always a clutzy-character.  They arrive unannounced through the door and send everything flying.  They eat so quickly that cereal sprays everywhere.  They make big, wild gestures that inevitably whack people or break things.  They make promises they can’t keep.  They have no diplomacy filter.  They use meaningless words with pure-heart sincerity.  They invent songs about cats that have no rhyme or reason…

Perhaps they’re not so dramatically comic, but still random in their nature.  They have no skill at ‘reading the room’ so errors in comprehension hilariously follow.  They park the car somewhere ‘unforgettable’ then lose it.  They say the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person and blow everyone’s chances of tasting the award-winning soup.  They offer to mind the neighbor’s goldfish, whine about taking two minutes a day to feed it, then lose a whole day trying to find a substitute when the beloved fish goes belly-up.  Then they ruin the subterfuge by referring to the imposter fish by the wrong name…

The clutzy-characters are always well-meaning but hopeless.  Irrational but never mean-spirited.  More importantly, they’re often endearing.  The show just wouldn’t be the same without them. 

I’ve realized that my migraines are a lot like those clutzy-characters.  Perhaps not so loveable, but weirdly familiar, loopy, unreliable, prone to unannounced arrivals, erratic movements, and breaking things. 

Changing the narrative DOES work.  I no longer need to be afraid of my migraines, just bemused.  It might not sound like a lot, but now when I’m having my ‘main character moment’ I no longer fear fangs and claws, only spilt cereal and missed soup.  Sounds a lot better don’t you think?

Take care, Linda x

PS – I tried the AI generator to get a feature image for this post, but it was filled with more dread than I was aiming for… that, and I’ve never seen a clutsy-character wearing a suit on a sitcom while dramatically… I don’t know what he’s doing… break-dancing?:

PPS – I’m still experimenting with AI art over on Instagram to show how it feels to have a migraine, and one of the earliest prompts I used was a lot like this blog post. I wanted to show the push-and-pull of everyday emotions when you’re feeling sick, so I asked AI to show me a lady with a headache being amused by a clown and hassled by a monster. The results didn’t really give me the duality I was looking for, only more dread (ugh – clowns!): TheMindfulMigraine (@themindfulmigraine)