Many, many months ago I wrote about how living with chronic migraine was akin to a horror story filled with darkness and jump scares (here). Elsewhere, I suggested that one way to reduce your suffering was to imagine your migraine-mess as part of a silly sitcom rather than a horrible horror story, so that your flailing and stumbling was comic rather than tragic (here).
Today I want to lean towards, rather than away from, the monster that is chronic pain.
I want to intentionally monster-fy it (for a moment).
I want to give it voice and visibility so that its whispers can be unleashed (and hopefully set free).
The idea came to me when I was cleaning the top of my fridge (as you do (once in a blue moon)). While I was up there, I remembered the time my daughter couldn’t sleep when she was still a wee-little-tiny-person, and we encouraged her to draw her terrors onto paper. Then we locked the images away in a recycled ice-cream container and pushed it up high and out of reach on the fridge… it seemed to work… she felt safer… and the act itself felt safer than encouraging her to set fire to her fears by way of torching the drawing (an approach which briefly crossed my mind).
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Today’s post is in two parts. First, I want to share three of the monsters I obsessed about in my youth (in equal parts fear and fascination) and acknowledge that they still linger (or perhaps loiter) in my mind. Secondly, I want to experiment with a very short Migraine Gothic creative writing exercise in an attempt to convert those fears into migraine manifestations that can then be untethered and released – my adult way of sealing them in a banish-bucket.
(As you read through the monsters outlined briefly below, feel free to recall your own motifs of childhood terrors and take note of them in case you too want to experiment with journalling them away.)
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The Basilisk – this hybrid creature had the head and body of a cockerel, the leathery wings of a dragon, and the tail of a serpent. It is hatched from a years’ old egg which is brooded on by a toad. Whilst it originated in the Libyan desert, it turns everywhere it goes into a new desert with its poisonous breath which withers plants, splits rocks and causes birds to fall dead from the sky. One glance into his fire-red eyes is enough to drop a man dead. Sometimes depicted with a crown on his head, The Basilisk was the King of Creeping Things and had only three fears; the crowing of another cockerel, hungry weasels, and mirrors…
[Image source: Medieval Bestiary: The Fantastic Basilisk]
The Catoblepas – this small (sometimes) winged buffalo lives in Africa, near the source of the Nile. It has a neck as skinny as unraveled intestines, but a head so heavy it must drag it along the ground. This poor creature has bloodshot eyes covered in a thick main and a tail curled like a pig, but scaled like a snake. The Catoblepas eats only poisonous plants, and is a timid creature who prefers to keep to itself, but it will, if disturbed, kill you with a glance. Shy as he was, he was well enough known to make it into Medieval manuscripts and the notebooks of Lenardo da Vinci…
[Image source: Catoblepas Mythology]
The Gulon – is a cat-fox-dog creature that lives in the woods of Sweden. These are fierce and cunning creatures, with an insatiable hunger for the meat of dead animals which it gorges upon until its body blows up like a balloon. So full it becomes, it must wedge itself between two trees to discharge enough food to make room for still more. Its dappled fur is prized by hunters, whilst magicians value its long, sharp teeth, and even its gut strings are said to make impressive musical instruments (although they can only play melancholic songs). The wise stay clear of all Gulon products for sale, however, knowing that they will pass onto the owner a sense of the insatiable…
[Image source: Gulon | Cryptid Wiki | Fandom]
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Part person, part pain, he stood on the tideline and waited. In the distance, the clouds shifted, rolling forms of sheep and geese, serpents and saviors. He thought of Mother Mary with her foot placed firmly on the snake’s throat, and of Cleopatra with a writhing asp at her breast. Destruction and protection. The mixed messages his migraine-brain sent him were designed to rescue him by slowing him down. Here, now, as his knees buckled and he sat on the wet sand it felt a much more lopsided diagnosis than that. HE felt more lopsided than that…
His three children tumbled in the waves, all love and laughter and refracted light, so loud and bright it made him close his eyes. Behind his lids pain still coiled, a poison that ran through his body from burning skull to wet feet. His head drooped on his weak, seemingly too-thin neck, and he lay down on the sand to rest. Waves washed over him and he imagined himself, a creature of furry thoughts and strong feelings, melting… melting… as past, present and future all merged in darkness.
A small hand rested on his forehead, and he opened his bloodshot eyes. There before him, haloed in the too bright light, crouched one of his children. Even without seeing the features upon the child’s shaded face, worry emanated from the bones of his blood. The man pulled himself up and tugged the child into his embrace. With all his might, he drew himself to his knees so that he might tussle the child’s hair and wrestle-roll them onto the sand beside him.
Now there were three children piled upon his bent-beast-back as he crawled the shore with a small smile on his face and pure joy in his heart. And just like that, here, now, his pain lessened, and his suffering was released…
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Take care taking care people, and may all your monsters be vanquished,
Linda x
The Mindful Migraine 
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