I have been thinking a lot about growing up with chronic migraines and how it effected my life without realizing it. Like, beyond the doctor appointments and medical trauma, but the very real world "adults in your life assuming they know best without knowing you or your situation" thing.
My first really bad migraine i can remember was when I was like 8. My mom says that wasn't my first, but its the one I remember.
I remember waking up and my head just pounding. I remember trying to go back to sleep but it just kept hurting worse and worse until I was nauseated from the pain. I got up and woke my parents up crying because it just hurt so badly and I couldn't make it stop. My dad gave me Tylenol and we waited 20 minutes and it did nothing. So he gave me advil after warning me to not usually take it without food, that it was only occasionally okay to take without eating something. We waited 20 minutes. It did nothing. We went downstairs and he poured me a shot of bourbon. It was vile. It did nothing. He loaded me up into the car and off to the children's hospital We went. I remember throwing up in the waiting room. I remember throwing up again on the exam table/bed thing. I remember being half conscious when the doctor came in. I can recall some of the things he said, though the exact phrasing is for sure different. She's had a migraine. She will be okay. It seems she wore herself out.
And then back home to sleep in my bed.
This is the first I can remember, but by no means was it the last. I know that about 50% of the time i went for a sleepover with a friend i would have to call my parents to come get me. My head would just hurt too badly and I just would want to come home more than anything.
I always hated it because the parents of whoever I was staying at would almost always say mean things to me about it. They would tell me I was faking, that it wasn't that bad, that i was upsetting their child and I needed to stay, that it was already past 11, midnight, 1AM, my parents wouldn't want to come get me. I got very good at ignoring these pleas and calling my parents anyways. They always managed to get me within 15 minutes to a half hour after I called. The worst was when my friend would be visibly upset with me leaving. They wouldn't get it, and their parents wouldn't even try to explain it.
I had exactly one friend whose parent wasn't like this. Her mom was always so nice to me about it. That friend was the only one who wouldn't beg me to stay. She would want me to, of course she would! But she wouldn't beg. She understood that I needed to go home. I wonder how her and her mom are. I hope they are doing well.
I also struggled a lot with teachers. Especially in high school. They always assumed I was faking to get out of class. I had maybe 5 teachers all of highschool who understood that I wasn't faking. They could tell when the color drained from my face and I would ve visibly insteady on my feet. But most of the teachers just wanted to punish me for asking to go to the nurse.
I remember my highschool would give us a set number of hall passes each year (which you had to pay for, btw) and I remember trying to avoid going to the bathroom during class at all cost so I could save my hall passes to go to the nurse. She knew me by name. She actually knew me before I started going there because her daughter and my sister were in girlscouts together. She loved my dad because he was one of the few people who preferred Star Trek over Star Wars. She never once believed I was lying to get out of class.
Its just. I dunno. Its so awful to think how many adults assumed i was lying. I am very VERY fortunate to have had the parents i did. They never once treated me like i was faking. They always came to get me when I really needed it. Even now my mom tries to help me when I am having a really bad one. But I can't help but think about all of the kids who WEREN'T lucky like me. Who didn't have parents who understood. Who were medically abused by every adult because it was assumed they didn't know their bodies as well as the adults that had power over them. I am also very fortunate to have had parents with good insurance, who had enough income to take me to the ER when necessary. They were even able to get me into a neurologist in high school when I started having migraines like 3-4 times a week. Most kids aren't that lucky, and it sucks.
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