The Mindful Migraine

Today is May the first – May Day. It’s traditionally a European day of ribbon twirling and dancing. But, me being me, it also reminds me of the distress call “Mayday – Mayday!!” I looked up the origins of the phrase, and it apparently comes from the 1920s and is the phonetic equivalent of the French phrase “m’aidez” (meaning “help me”). There you go!

It got me thinking about a movie on television not long ago in which a group of football friends decided to hire a small plane and go on holiday together.  Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned, and the plane crashed into a snowy mountain.  Things went from bad to worse very quickly.  It was harrowing to watch.  The graphic injuries, the body-and-mind-numbing cold, the starvation, the despair.  The friends did everything they could to keep each other alive.  They stockpiled food, assigned different tasks to different people, and so on. 

They also did everything they could think of to be rescued.  The made a giant SOS out of luggage in the snow, they set up a fire to make smoke signals, and flashed broken glass at an overhead plane to try to catch its attention with a reflected-(migraineurs beware)-flash.  They would have constantly let off flares if they’d had more of them.  They did everything they could that screamed “come rescue me”. 

The problem is – no one came. 

Eventually, the group admitted to themselves “no one is coming” – somehow, they were going to have to save themselves. 

Three of the fittest men set off in the direction they thought would get them to civilization.  I think one turned back, recognizing he wasn’t fit enough to keep going, and opted to ‘hope for the best’ back with the others, but the other two kept going.  In the movie time was slippery, but it seemed as if about a week or two passed with the two men walking, walking, walking.  One day they finally stumbled into a river and not long after, some fisherman stumbled across them.  The movie was based on a true story, and because of the bravery and determination of the two men, the alarm was raised, and the authorities were directed to the crash site and were able to save the remaining passengers.

One of the themes of the movie was public perception versus how the plane crash people saw themselves.  Were the survivors ‘lucky heroes’ or ‘tragic victims’.  In my mind they were both.  In the same way that we can be ‘migraine sufferers’ and ‘migraine warriors’ both.  A little bit ‘victims of circumstance’, but also ‘super-tough bl00dy-minded pusher-throughers’.

The main message that stayed with me, however, is:

THEY SAVED THEMSELVES.

I’ll leave that with you for a moment. 

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Remember; if someone like me, a nerdy, unfit, 50-ish-year-old, can find the inner strength to drag themselves out of bed and start making positive changes to save themselves – so can you. Moreover, there’s something very empowering about realizing that YOU are your own primary health care provider – go you!

Take care out there people, you’ve got this, Linda x