June is Migraine Awareness Month. It’s rather fitting I feel, given that June is also my birthday-month! Most of June falls into the Zodiac sign of Gemini which uses the symbol of the twins. I don’t know whether it’s a coincidence or not, but the word ‘migraine’ comes from the Greek word “hēmikrāníā” which means “pain in half of the head” and when you have a migraine you become a different version of yourself; your own double, as it were. Anyone who lives with migraine knows there’s a strong (sad) synergy with the notion of duality and twin-lives.
There have been times I have almost felt myself aligned with Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886)… I’m a perfectly normal, functional and well respected 50-year-old one day, and then, through a sudden transformation, I become all hunchy-and-scrunchy (and somewhat bitter and twisted) the next… my life existing now in the shadows. The story explores notions of good and evil, but also our public and private lives, the conscious and the subconscious, as well as questioning the motives of the medical profession, and the thin line that exists between medications that heal versus those that are addictive. All of these themes feel as if they could be rewritten into a new narrative about migraine-me.
This picture from Wikipedia is from 1895 and used a double-exposure of an actor from the stage production of the play. Given the technology that was available at the time, I love the ingenuity of it.
Image source: Jekyll-mansfield – Wikipedia
The image got me thinking about whether I could use a similar approach to demonstrate what it is like to live with migraine as my contribution to Migraine Awareness Month. I’m no computer whiz, but I asked my daughter to take two photos of me this morning: one where I’m happy and look like I’m taking a traditional selfie, and another where I’m feeling a little bit under the weather. After cutting the background out from behind migraine-me, I overlayed it on healthy-me. Then, after I created my ‘twin shot’, which already showed a sense of what it is like to live a dual-life with migraine, I decided to go a step further and make migraine-me more transparent and wobbly. I like this image because it gives a hint of what life is like when you feel like the shadow of your former self while everyone around you is business-as-usual-happy.
The one thing that I take pride in – as should all of you – is that we are really nothing like Mr Hyde. In the story the evil twin is cruel, remorseless, and violent. We on the other hand, do, in our own way, shrink and wither, but only in stature perhaps, never in our souls. We remain the creative and kind people we always were, just a little washed-out… temporarily. Our health might wax and wane, but the persistence of our inner-selves does not.
If you live with chronic pain – I see you (no matter how faded you might feel).
If you don’t – use this post as a reminder that there are others everywhere that live with various chronic illnesses and perpetual pain… reach out to them and remind them that you see them too, and that they matter, now and always.
Take care taking care my dears, Linda xox
The Mindful Migraine 
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