At what point do you give up? I’m not talking about offing myself or anything, but at what point is enough enough?
For the past 10 years my life, the life of my parents, my siblings, my friends, everyone really has been revolving around my migraines. (and yes, I am that selfish to think that all their lives revolved around me)
“we can’t go there, it will give Joey a migraine”
“We have to leave, Joey is getting a migraine”
“Does anyone have any pills, Joey has a migraine”
“We have to find a different player, Joey has a migraine”
“We have to get a substitute teacher, Joey has a migraine”
“Joey used to be so pretty, but now she has migraines”
(Okay, so maybe that last one was a little made up)
But at what point can life be about life? Migraines have changed everything about my life. Originally I wanted to be a musician, but you can’t be a professional oboe player (don’t judge) if the sound of the instrument hurts your head. Then I wanted to be a teacher, but it’s hard to keep a job when you are constantly out sick because of migraines. Then I became a paralegal, and again – its hard to keep a job when you are out sick all the time.
I have done everything my doctors have asked. I take their pills (as you can see from my “feature picture, todays pills,” I’ve changed my diet, I’ve done injections, nerve blocks, I even have a machine that electrocutes my brain for 20 min at a time for migraines… and still they kept coming back.
Having migraines isolated me. I stopped seeing friends, I stopped going to family dinners, I spent more time alone then I did with anyone else. Then I spoke to a cousin of mine who is a DoTERRA rep, and she recommended a few oils. Now, I’ve always joked around that I would go to a wizard, if they could help me with my migraines and I did. I found my wizard through essential oils (along with all natural soap, shampoo, conditioner… basically anything that goes on my body is chemical free) and suddenly my migraines weren’t ruling my life anymore. So you would think I would be jumping up and down for joy… but I wasn’t.
Because of the time I had spent isolating myself when I had my migraines, I found I suddenly didn’t know what to do anymore. First the doctors called it Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but come on… I’m a millennial… which one of us doesn’t have that? Then they added Panic Disorder because the thought of leaving the house, of seeing people, of doing anything other than stay in my room (or sometimes even closet) gave me such panic attacks I would sometimes have to be sedated.
A few years and jobs ago I had my first moment where I thought “Maybe I need real help” I was driving from my house to my parents (about maybe a 40 min drive) and I remember getting in the car at my house, and I remember getting off the elevator at my parents condo – but I couldn’t remember anything in between. I knocked on the door and my niece answered and she right away knew something was wrong and I said “Hi Gabs, everything is okay, but I need you to go get buby for me, because I’m about to start crying and I don’t know why. Can you go tell buby that?” (Buby is a jewish word for grandmother… while she’s my mom, my niece would only know her as Buby) after that, it seemed like my life just went further and further down hill.
At my last therapy session I was told that I still had Generalized Anxiety Disorder (of course) along with Social Anxiety disorder (which would be my fear of being around anyone) and Major Depressive Disorder (which would be my inability to regulate my emotions) and first I thought “yes… there is a name for what I have. Maybe I can fix it” which is of course through new drugs (the pretty pink one in the second section) but then I started thinking, why?
Why do I have all these disorders? Why do I have to take all the pills (oh I know why i have to take the pills… I once stopped cold turkey and it was a terrible plan) but why can’t I just be healthy? Mind, body and soul? And I guess thats what I’m asking – at what point do I give up trying and realize that this is my new norm? Getting exhausted after going to two stores and getting dressed is my new norm. Getting mad at MY buby (whos 92) for not understanding the depression (even though she went through the holocaust, and so if anyone understands depression, it’s probably her), needing to take 3-5 hour naps throughout the day, having a random Etsy store (which launched today and has made zero dollars) as my source of income, when do I allow that to be the norm instead of my dream?
My dream of having a job, of getting married in a beautiful white dress, my dream of puppies and babies, and living as close to happily ever after as I can… when do I give up on that dream.
I have two other things to say… one slightly unrelated, the other very unrelated.
I was going through my old photographs recently and I thought I would share what I consider to be my before/during/after pictures.
The first photo was probably about 3 years before I started getting migraines. I was happy, skinny, healthy, and if I remember correctly, holding my friends hat for ransom. Because I had lots of friends, and I was a very social person and was heading to a party.
The second photo was taken about 2 years into my migraines. I was at Carnegie Hall in NYC fulfilling my life’s goal of performing there. Migraines hadn’t yet taken over my life. I don’t even think I had a neurologist yet at that point. I still had hope,
The their photo was taken about 2 weeks ago. I’m about 90lbs heaver than the first photo, I’m barely smiling, and my hair looks like I just woke up. This picture was taken at 4pm. I was heading to a job interview (clearly didn’t get it) and I look somewhat defeated.
While I was going through the pictures I was in shock of how you could so clearly see the difference based on where I was/am in the health stage of my life. Anyone else have B/D/A or similar photos they want to share, I’d be interested in seeing the difference.
The second thing is very unrelated. But I opened an Etsy store. If I could figure out how to share the link with you I would but its called “Byebyemigraine” currently we only ship to Canada, but if any of you non-canuks are interested, give me a shout and I’m sure we could work something out.
Anyways – today I celebrate my 11 year anniversary with my boyfriend. I should be thinking exciting things like “maybe he’ll propose” (He won’t) or thoughts like that. Instead all I can think about is taking a nap, and never waking up, because as much as I used to love the world and being a part of it… I’m starting to get tired of trying all the tie
Giving up... #panic #givingup #migraine #depression #medication #normal #invisibleillness #disorder #panic #socialanxiety #GeneralAnxiety #unemployed At what point do you give up? I'm not talking about offing myself or anything, but at what point is enough enough?
