When I was younger (and I’m talking about everything from my teens to my 30s) I LOVED unsolved mysteries. The Mary Celeste comes instantly to mind – it was the boat that was found floating on the Atlantic in the 1870s. The ship was undamaged, loaded with food, and yet completely deserted. Why did the captain and crew abandon the boat… and where did they go? Theories suggested the boat was attacked by vengeful pirates or ex-slaves or a giant octopus… or else the barrels of crude alcohol in the hold somehow sent everyone mad…. or perhaps there was just a particularly bad patch of weather which caused everyone to fall overboard… the jury is STILL out.
Another unsolved mystery that sticks in my head was from a podcast I heard about 15 years ago. Nine students went missing in Dyatlov Pass in the Soviet Union, 1959. The highly experienced group of skier / climbers went off on an adventure, but when they failed to return, a search party went to investigate. All of them had perished. It appeared as if they had encountered “something” that caused them to cut their way out of their tents in the middle of the night, barefoot and in their underwear, only to run off into the surrounding snowfields where they all died. Six were determined to have died of hypothermia, but three appeared to be wounded… by each other due to a romance gone wrong or some other dispute… perhaps from animals… or the Russian equivalent of a Yeti… angry reindeer-herders that lived nearby… or even sonic-weapons being tested by secret soldiers???
Looking it up just now, in 2019, the Russians did an investigation and determined an avalanche was the main cause. That is why they had to come out of their tents quickly and under-dressed, and why some were more hurt than others.
And yet… the time of year was wrong for sudden snow melts, and the area is apparently not known to be avalanche-prone, and signs of an avalanche (broken trees etc) were not found where the bodies were found. Moreover, the damage to the tent didn’t line up with the crushing forces of an avalanche. Not to mention these were regular hikers who would presumably have been able to read the risks and would be unlikely to pitch tents in harm’s way…
And that’s where the conspiracy element of unsolved mysteries starts to slip into the frame. Sometimes it is hard to just leave something as “unsolved” – we want there to be answers to everything in life, and if we can’t find one, it’s tempting to think that someone might be hiding them from us.
And if someone is hiding the truth from us – what deeper, darker, truth does that suggest?
Which brings me to chronic pain and healing.
When we’re trying to heal our health, we are constantly looking for answers.
The questions we ask to find those answers can be very broad to very specific: How can I get better? Why is it taking so long? Is there any truth to putting raw vegetables on my forehead as a cure? Why do “they” have access to medication, but I don’t? Why won’t my insurance pay for that? Why did Australia stop making nasal sprays available for migraine patients? Why does magnesium supplements work for them but not for me?
A lot of those questions have answers – whether we like them or not.
Australia apparently stopped importing nasal sprays, for example, because the pharmaceutical companies decided we were not a cost-effective market given that our relatively small population is spread out over such a large geographical area which made distribution difficult. So, yay them – and – boo hoo for us.
Other questions – like “why me?” – run the risk of sliding into the realm of unsolved mysteries, and even potential conspiracy theories. Perhaps she gets better service than me because of XYZ… or else he knows more about how to game his insurance company about this, that or the other… so, what if…
When we slip into this mode of thinking, it is unlikely that we are going to find anything useful to help us heal. There IS a strange buzz that comes with dabbling in conspiracy theories, no doubt. Perhaps it’s as old as childhood to wonder whether Santa really is real or our father in disguise…. there is almost something deliciously enticing about riddles and puzzles and enigmas…
BUT – if you find yourself slipping from curisoity to cursing – pull up.
You’re going in the wrong direction, and you won’t be doing your healing any favors.
Keep asking questions about your health – information is power – but stay scientific, rational, reasonable.
The trick is that there is a fine line between thinking about something and OVER thinking on something.
If you are new to a diagnosis, you SHOULD absolutely be keeping a diary, for example (there’s a trigger tracker over on my RESOURCES page). You need to start understanding what might be causing your migraines. If you can see that there is a direct pattern between staying up late at night and getting a migraine the next day – you’re onto something useful. Start trying to improve your sleep and hopefully your migraines will calm down. If you think your diet or neck muscles might be an issue, then you have something to talk to your doctor about, and so on…
The problem is that when we obsess about causes too much, there is always a risk that we will slip into laying blame. Did I sleep too much / too little last week? I guess it’s because I had too much coffee / not enough. Perhaps it’s on me that I slept strangely and put a crinck in my neck… I guess it’s all my fault…
You’re still being curious, but now there’s an edge – judgement has slipped in. Accountability is a good thing. Self-criticism is not so great.
Yetis did NOT cause my migraines to shift from episodic to chronic. And whilst it would be nice to be able to “blame” something other than myself, I accept that sometimes life is much more complicated than a single, simple answer.
I’ve written before (here) about the fact that I think my migraines might have got worse due to having to homeschool my kids in covid lockdowns right when I started my PhD studies; a combination of trying to do too much mixed with a deep fear of failure… or not.
I’ll never know for sure, and I’m ok with that.
Stay curious people – just not TOO curious – if that makes sense!
Take care, taking care, Linda xx
The Mindful Migraine 
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