Where I live in Australia, we don’t get fog very often. Occasionally you’ll see images of the Sydney Opera House on early morning television, with mist rising off the harbor and a notification that the ferries will be cancelled for a couple of hours, but that’s about it. There is, however, one road between Sydney and a city called Wollongong which regularly gets foggy. I’m not going to pretend to understand the science of it all, but whatever the required altitude, bowl-shaped-terrain, temperature or humidity is required to make fog, it all seems to condense perfectly right there.
When I say ‘fog’ I mean that cars on the road slow down a bit, but that’s about it. Driving visibility isn’t really impacted, its more that the scenery around the car becomes fairytale blurry.
There was one time, however, a few years ago, when I found myself alone in the car as the fog on this road became particularly thick. It was beginning to be hard to make out the road two or three cars ahead, and it seemed to be getting worse. I started to stress. “Sh!t, sh!t, sh!t,” I thought as I tried to remember what I was supposed to do. Was it turn off your headlights (I think they bounce off the fog and shine back in your eyes?) and turn on your fog-lamps. That seemed right, but what was the setting for my fog-lamps? I guessed they were the ones that Sydney-siders use to park in a public garage; small lamps down low that still help you get around the carpark, but not so bright they annoy other drivers.
By the time I had decided this was the way to go, I was struggling to see the car in front of the car in front of me. “Am I supposed to pull over?” I wondered out loud. “I’ll have to be quick enough that the car behind me doesn’t hit me, but not too quick because I don’t want to hit the car in front if they have the same idea… sh!t” (there was a lot of swearing going on in this car trip.) “Maybe I should just stick to a steady pace and keep going, but put on my hazards,” I decided, “but then again, will that make the car behind think I’ve come to a stop? Will that accidentally set off a chain-reaction of braking??? SH!T!!”
For the life of me, I can’t remember what I decided to do. I think the car directly in front of me put its hazards on as it slowly kept driving and was swallowed by the dense mist (a bit like it was in a Stephen King horror story), and so I followed suit.
I know that it only lasted a few minutes, the fog lifted, and we were all on our way again as if nothing had happened. Given how underprepared and ignorant we were (or at least I was), it was lucky no one crashed (it’s not the first time I’ve written about near-misses!).
Much more recently, I was reading a migraine-chatgroup on Facebook which was lamenting about brain-fog. Most people tended to agree it was worst at the tail-end of the migraine; when the pain was subsiding but the brain had not yet returned to normal. It was if, I thought, we were all still driving, just more slowly and deliberately; everything was stressful, anxious effort. The only difference to the car-metaphor is that the fog was internal not external.
Because the fog is not visible to anyone else, there’s no real way for others to know what’s happening. We don’t have hazard lights that we can switch on to announce what we’re going through, and remind those around us to slow down, have patience, accommodate the altered conditions. It’s as if the Stephen-King-cloud is mysteriously (and oh so ominously) on the inside of our car alone.
Perhaps you’ve seen a car drive by that’s filled with smoke. It doesn’t seem to happen much in Australia anymore (our smoking rates keep declining and I think it might be illegal to smoke while driving (especially when there’s kids in the car)). Anyway, I can remember seeing a car full of teenagers shrouded in smoke decades ago. I have no idea what they were smoking, but given they all looked pretty happy in their dusty-halo I could probably hazard a guess.
Pity that the fog that fills our bonnet rarely brings a smile to our faces. We drive through the day as best we can, and if you’re anything like me on one of these days, the main thing that preoccupies your hazy-thoughts is your ultimate destination; home.
Migraine, like most chronic pain problems, is an invisible disease. Many of us are so used to the pain, are so high-functioning, that others don’t notice we’re in the thick of it. Perhaps we need to invent a way to show people where we’re at… a battery icon we can wear on our chest, (or a fuel gauge like the one I’ve written about before). Imagine how convenient it would be; we wouldn’t have to rely on other people’s empathy or guessing.
If you or anyone you know is an invention-wizz, perhaps we could convince them to set aside whatever mad-scientist thing they’re up to, and ask them to invent us pain-people hazard lamps that blink when we’re lost in our brain-fog (just make sure the blinking doesn’t get in our eyes, because, you know, lights are a migraine trigger and all that!).
Until then, I guess the best thing we can do is communicate with words. In the same way I wrote about explaining to others about personal space boundaries, don’t assume others know where you’re at. You might have to specifically tell people that part of your mind has gone ‘off-road’, and you’re metaphorically burning rubber and going nowhere, so please be patient. It’s not demeaning, or demanding, it just makes common sense at a time when it’s not so common.
Take care and think clearly, Linda x
PS – In one of those manifesting ‘trust the process’ moments, at about the same time I was putting the finishing touches on this post, I came across a global initiative called “Hidden Disability Sunflower” where you buy a pin, wristband or lanyard with the sunflower motif on it, and wear it as a means of letting the world know that you might be struggling and need a little bit more time and space to get about (it is basically a form of my proposed hazard-lights only much prettier). I am told by friends on LinkedIn that the project is quite well recognized in the UK (go you guys!) – but I haven’t seen them at all in Australia. There’s only one way to fix that – off to the shops for me!: HDS – Global (hdsunflower.com)
(Image source – The University of Reading, in England introduced the scheme on their campus in 2020… that makes me (and Australia) SO behind (oops!): UoR joins ‘invisible disabilities’ Sunflower scheme – UoR Student blog (reading.ac.uk))
Here are some stats from their initiative’s Migraine page (here):
PPS – based on the fact that 1 in 7 people get migraine, chances are you know someone who has migraine – so don’t forget to let them know about the little fledgling community we have going here… they’re always welcome.
PPPS – Let me know if you’ve seen the Sunflower logo in your country! xx
The Mindful Migraine 
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