Neurologist Oliver Sacks wrote a book in 1970 called “Migraine”. The book acknowledged that migraine was a complex neurological disorder and not just a ‘bad headache’. The work included clinical case histories, scientific analysis and personal anecdotes.
Skim-reading the book, I got the sense that Sacks was perpetually in wonder at what brains can do, in good times and bad. He seemed particularly impressed at how brains distort time and space or create visual hallucinations.
[You can read more about these sorts of uncanny side-effects in past posts of mine such as: Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, What is Hemiplegic Migraine? or What Causes Ocular Migraines?]
I ummed and ahhed about writing a book review but ultimately decided against it. This book was a tough (skim) read and I was unsure about how to make the material presentable to those of us with sore heads, brain fog or fatigue-related short attention spans.
A quote from Oliver Sack’s Migraine book
In the end, I decided that even though I wouldn’t do a whole review, there was one phrase that was worthy of discussion. Mainly because it caught me completely off guard.
I’m going to reproduce a larger quote for context. Note – this book is as old as I am, and I feel as if some ideas or attitudes might have moved on or might be expressed in a different way these days. Or perhaps not; I’m not a neurologist or a therapist…
Here’s what he says on page 215 of the 1992 edition I read:
“In such cases the personality becomes sanctioned, one part of it affirming a bland reaction or bravura wholly at odds with environmental and emotional reality, and another portion becoming autonomized as a circular sado-masochistic system devoted to the infliction and experience of suffering. Such cases, which are often of the greatest severity, may be peculiarly resistant to insight or treatment, for the migrainous portion of the personality (the migraine selflet) is likely to be insulated from the remainder of the personality by thick walls of repression and denial. The dynamics and mechanisms of this bear the closest analogy to those involved in the formation of hysterical symptoms, with the important difference that migraines are rooted in physiological reactivity, whereas hysterical symptoms (though intensely real) are fictions, neurologically, arising from a pathology of the imagination.”
OK, so that’s not an easy read – and as only one representative paragraph from a whole book, you can see why I didn’t try to do a book review. I’m not joking when I say that a LOT of it went over my head.
As much confusion as this paragraph caused me [including, what does the word “bravura” mean?], the bracketed phrase “the migraine selflet” really jumped out at me.
The idea of a ‘selflet’
I had never heard the word “selflet” before. I did a web search but could not find a clear definition – and yet – I know EXACTLY what Sacks means.
Whilst I do not like the unhelpful stereotype of a ‘migraine personality’, I cannot deny that migraines make up a core part of my personality.
Previously, I have written about how my migraine-self is a form of shadow-me. I compared myself to Dr Jeckyl and Mr Hyde: the functional upstanding citizen, and the beastly monster that is hiding inside waiting for an opportunity to burst forth and ruin the party.
My neurologist implied a similar relationship – but not so Gothically. In our meeting 3 years ago (!?!) he told me I needed to change my mindset to heal myself. I remember he said to me, “I know exactly when migraine became a problem for you.” I replied; “it was about a year ago when my eye pain didn’t turn off and…” He cut me off with his hand held up. He glanced down at my paperwork and read out the day of my birth; “that was the day it all started. You have always been predisposed to migraine. You have always been part Linda – part migraine. In the past, you were mostly Linda with only a little bit of migraine, and now… you’re mostly migraine with a little bit of Linda. We need to reverse the relationship.”
[You can read more about that appointment here: Re-finding the ‘i’ in ‘Linda’]
My migraine selflet
When I take the previous advice from my own neurologist and mix it with the advice from neurologist Oliver Sacks, a new idea starts forming. Rightly or wrongly, I imagine the role my migraine selflet played in my transition from episodic migraine to chronic migraine.
My migraine selflet had grown too big and too boisterous. It was taking up too much space, refusing to share time with others. It was relentless in its control of my life.
I’ve mentioned many times that I name my pain and call my migraine-brain “Goldilocks”. I can now imagine her inside me, seated behind thick walls, bunkering in, believing she was holding down the fort, pulling up the drawbridge and refusing to budge.
“It’s for your own good,” my selflet whispers.
I can’t toss out this part of my inner self. My migraine-brain is my brain. She is me. BUT – I can also see why it was time to tell her to shush a little and create more balance in my life.
In the Robert Louis Stevenson’s “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde” (1886) >> spoiler alert << the dark side wins and the curious doctor is defeated.
For me, it has been the reverse outcome. Light has defeated the darkness. Slowly but steadily, my migraine selflet is becoming quieter thanks to a combination of mindfulness, medication, movement and a new mindset related to metaphors.
(Oh – that’s a lot of Mmmm’s!)
Your migraine selflet
Whilst it is tempting to think of the migraine selflet as a troublesome other, or an evil squatter, I don’t think that approach is helpful.
Your foot is not more valuable than your hand or vice versa. Your mind and your body are both integral to who you are. The color of your hair and eyes were predetermined pre-birth… there is no point raging (too much) about their shade… it is what it is. You are who you are – imperfectly perfectly. Not “flaws and all” – because who says illness is a flaw and wellness is perfection?
Your migraine selflet is a fundamental part of who you are.
Accept them – embrace them – be kind.
Remember – they’re not going anywhere… the migraine selflet is not an ‘other’ – it is YOU, and you are you-nique.
But then, perhaps, nicely ask your little selflet to shush a little.
Take care taking care,
Linda xox
*
PS – if anyone has more luck than me on the etymology of the term “selflet” I’d be curious to know more.
PPS – in a strange twist to the story, just before I hit ‘publish’ on this post, I came across a similar, but different idea. Mitch Ablom’s Tuesdays with Morrie (1997), includes conversations that took place between Mitch and his old professor. Both of them are thinking more and more about death as Morrie’s disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) progresses. Towards the end of the book is a standalone page in italics(2017, p114):
There is a tribe in the North American Arctic, who believe that all things on earth have a soul that exists in a miniature form of the body that holds it – so that a deer has a tiny deer inside it, and a man has a tiny man inside him. When the large being dies, that tiny form lives on. It can slide into something being born nearby, or it can go to a temporary resting place in the sky, in the belly of a great feminine spirit, where it waits until the moon can send it back to earth.
Sometimes, they say, the moon is so busy with the new souls of the world that it disappears from the sky. That is why we have moonless nights. But in the end, the moon always returns, as do we all.
I find this analogy quite beautiful. However; please, oh please, don’t let migraine selflets hover in the sky waiting to reattach themselves to others… ugh… I can’t bear that thought… I wouldn’t wish migraines on anyone!
xox
Leave a Reply