The Little Book of Aaargh

I had a migraine yesterday. Readers of my old blog will be aware of how much migraines used to dominate my life, those and the periods that were trying to kill me. Towards the end I had regular migraines and menstrual migraines.

It was like the two gangs that were trying to assassinate me realised how many resources they could save if they worked together. Who knew gangs were into time management? I’d say they were Jordan Peterson fans too, except you have to get out and about to do assassinating. There are not a lot of gang jobs that work with sitting in your basement shouting at your mum for not cutting the crusts off your sandwiches whilst simultaneously blaming women for your failure to achieve shag nirvana.

Since I became a hag (and thanks to the TERFS, qualify as no longer a ‘real’ woman because I don’t have a womb), through the miracles of modern surgery, I no longer have periods, so menstrual migraines have been banished from the kingdom. Hag power is mighty, let me tell you.

However, from time to time, regular migraines pop back for a wee visit to remind me of what a special person I am. I am grateful that these are extremely intermittent. At their worst I was losing half the month, every month and now I get one maybe once a month. Usually they are treatable with over the counter meds. Maybe once every three months I get one like yesterday. I feel genuinely lucky that this is the case.

I decided that the thrust of this newsletter would be things I find amusing. Migraines are generally not very funny, it has to be said. In the heyday of mine I would lose a couple of days to not just excruciating head pain, but also extreme photosensitivity or sometimes plain blindness; a breakdown of my internal thermostat that would have me sweating through sheets or freezing to death, sometimes in the same ten minute slot; the ability to smell things from five miles away that would inevitably make me hurl - and Gods, the vomit. There was so much vomit I could have filled a one woman vomitorium, which of course, meant limited efficacy of pain relief. It was truly grim.

These days, they are gentler. Yesterday’s for example only include one sick bowl. The photosensitivity and heightened sense of smell only lasted until lunch time. By tea time I was mostly functional again, although then there were the after effects to deal with. The general sense of having been run over by a lorry, the hangover stuff - craving weird food, feeling dissociated from your own body, some mild shaking. The normal headache as opposed to the one that feels like someone is trying to do cosmetic surgery on your face with an axe.

Today I am mostly just far away from myself and feeling rather hollow.

And the funny bit?

Well, for me it’s what happens when you talk to other people about migraines. I’ve had them since I was a child and every, damn time you mention them, there are always people who are sympathetic in entirely the wrong way. These are the: ‘oh yes! That sounds awful. I once had a really nasty headache myself. Have you tried taking ibuprofen and paracetamol and having a nap? That worked for me.’

Then there are the people who send you well-meaning news articles that read like The Little Book of Calm. ‘Try dabbing lavender oil on your temples,’ ‘Wet a flannel and slap it over your forehead,’ ‘Try drinking fourteen gallons of water’.

You try drinking fourteen gallons of water when you are so sick that your bile is vomiting up bile. Lavender? Lavender in the middle of a migraine episode smells like it’s coming to murder all your children and bury them in a shallow grave in Epping Forest. A damp flannel? A damp, fucking flannel?’ I know, how about next time you break a bone and are screaming in agony, we dispense with morphine and just apply a damp flannel? Not feeling calm about that? Let me help you by chucking a pint of lavender oil on your face. Better now?

These are the ‘mean well’ people. You know the sort? The sort that you can’t scream: ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ at, because they are attempting to empathise and are genuinely kind people. They are trying to help and apparently it’s really not the thing to scream: ‘Shut up!’ into their eyeballs while your rabid, furious spit, flecks their cheeks. They don’t like it at all.

The people who people sigh about and say: ‘They mean well.’ No three words strike as much terror into a person’s heart. Nobody needs to be on the end of a ‘mean well’. You have nowhere to put all that pent up rage afterwards, and that’s bound to bring on another fucking migraine.

I’ll get the lavender oil. You wet the flannel.