Today was supposed to be a post about what I eat on an average day. The intention was to put out a “my daily intake” styled post so that we can all review it and decide what I could be having more / less of… the problem? I spent the last 3 days projectile vomiting thanks to one of the worse migraines I’ve had in the 2+ years since I was diagnosed with chronic migraine.
YUCK.
The thought of writing about food is not appealing – so – nope – sorry, not sorry.
What I realized as I sat down to write is the intensity of the bitter disappointment I feel about getting so sick after feeling so well for so long.
I don’t pretend to be “cured” of migraines, and the soreness in my right eye has continued daily on some level (it will be 3 continuous years in early June), but the number of bad attacks have subsided since I undertook my mindfulness journey over a year ago. The severity, frequency, and duration have all calmed down, so that life between the bad batches seems to hold a lot more hope and the promise of healing.
Until COVID that is.
3 months ago, I had my first ever bout of COVID and that is the only thing that I can point to that seems to have reversed so much of the success of my mindful, self-care campaign.
Of course, that might not be it.
It MIGHT be that perimenopause is putting up one last big fight before sliding into menopause. It MIGHT be that as my PhD is drawing to a conclusion, some repressed emotions, such of fear of failure, are playing out in my subconscious. Or it MIGHT be that the change of seasons is playing some sort of subtle role that is less than obvious. Perhaps it MIGHT even be that the kids have been home for 10 days on school holidays, and the change in daily routine, noise levels, coming and goings, uber-driving, the type of meals we eat, etc, etc, all has something to do with it.
I guess what I also realized is that I don’t know anything for certain when it comes to migraines.
You can get very good at managing your triggers and trying to stay under your threshold for activating an attack but there is always an element of mystery and uncertainty about migraine that can make it difficult to get on top of completely.
I’ve written in the past that I came to the conclusion that healing is not a linear journey (here) – you don’t climb a set of stairs or get to the top of the mountain in one go and say “done!” It’s more tidal than that – wellness ebbs and flows.
But it was while I was tidying up today that I realized that the metaphor of the tide coming in and out is still not quite right – tides tend to repeat a pattern, they have a cycle. My health seems much more random than that at the moment.
Instead, it was looking at my daughter’s design project that I had an idea. She had made a board game for the blind and vision impaired for a school assessment. It was a tactile form of Snakes and Ladders where the snakes were made of polymer clay and the ladders were made of toothpicks and chopsticks. As you ran your hand across the board, brail numbers told you where you were, and the 3D ladders and snakes took you up and down the board as you “won” or “lost” in the game.
There’s a randomness to the way you win and loose at this game – the results are more to do with luck and chance than skill or strategy.
You roll the dice and obtain a nice long clear-streak (hooray!), then next turn you’re lucky enough to land on the bottom rung of a striped ladder, and you get to jump forward a few places (double-hooray!). And then, if you imagine the board’s squares as if they were the squares of a calendar, it’s almost as if these wins and clear-streaks are the good days of the month. You’re progressing through, you’re productive and functional and getting ahead (woo hoo!)
Until… you tread on the head of a polymer snake, and then, as pretty as that crafty snake is, it takes you backward in time and energy and progress… you fall behind on your calendar, you lose literal days… and why? Through no real fault of your own – simply that you landed in the wrong spot at the wrong time.
Healing is a bit like that.
It can seem like you’re doing everything right, being careful, and working on self-kindness, reprioritizing your boundaries, minding your own business, watching what you eat and how much you sleep, and, and, and… and then KER-POW! for no obvious reason, you’re brought to your knees again.
SIGH.
As frustrating as it might seem, turning the metaphor of healing into a game of Snakes and Ladders has helped me this morning. Healing is not a “game” as such – there’s too much riding on it to be so flippant, but on the other hand, knowing that the bad spots are not my fault, that there is just “bad luck” involved on some days, takes some of the blame and bitterness out of the situation.
“Never mind”, I imagine myself saying to a little child sitting opposite me who was edging towards the finish line and suddenly finds themselves back towards the start – “roll the dice again and see where it takes you… those sneaky snakes are just part of the game of life… roll again… keep playing… there’s still time to win!”
Not sure if this post is a help to you all or not – but I know that it’s a darn sight better than me writing about food and risking my ginger beer and salt crackers coming back up all over again! UGH. It was NOT a good look.
Take care taking care people, I’m sending lots of love and understanding your way, Linda xox
PS – for a bit of fun, I took the dual-image of me from my Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde post (here) and added some snakes and ladders! Play the game people, just remember to try not to let it play you! Keep smiling when you can, and then you’re still winning!
PPS – perhaps the fun upside of today’s post is that we now have a new saying we can share with others who live with chronic conditions: “may life give you lots of ladders!” xox
The Mindful Migraine 
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