Category: Community

  • Our woven selves

    Our woven selves

    On my healing journey I have often turned to metaphors in an attempt to articulate what I think and feel about my situation. I’ve spoken of the “tidal” (rather than linear) nature of healing, and the “rising tide of advocacy“, both of which affirm the fluid nature of the wellness-illness…

  • Cards from a doctor

    Cards from a doctor

    Some time ago I met a doctor online who mentioned that she handed out cards to her patients… only they weren’t business cards… they were the same size, but on them were affirmations of healing, with messages such as “you deserve to heal”. What a lovely thought! Imagine leaving the…

  • JOMO versus FOMO

    JOMO versus FOMO

    No doubt you’ve heard of FOMO – the Fear Of Missing Out. We all get jealous of what other people get up to from time to time; we see other people going to exotic locations on the television and wish we had the time / money / energy to go…

  • Sage, coach, cheerleader or filter-less friend…?

    Sage, coach, cheerleader or filter-less friend…?

    What am I to you? It probably doesn’t matter, but I have been thinking a lot about which kinds of people I prefer to take advice from, and equally importantly, which kind of person YOU might prefer to listen to.  Each ‘label’ represents a slightly different approach to sharing wisdom. …

  • Darwinian migraine madness

    Darwinian migraine madness

    Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution is often summarized down to a key concept: “survival of the fittest”. Given this fact, I have often wondered why – given how much migraine reduces functionality – why has migraine not been “bred out” of humanity…? Surely when our ancient ancestors needed to pack…

  • Keep doing today

    Keep doing today

    A while ago I wrote a post titled “Migraine Snakes and Ladders” about a rough migraine I experienced which involved a lot of projectile vomiting (sorry). It was a pretty grim post reading back through it. I confessed to feeling distressed by the setback in my health and feeling bitter…

  • How do you respond to pain-ignorance?

    How do you respond to pain-ignorance?

    Living with chronic pain is painful… der… but I don’t mean just the pain-pain, I mean all the other stuff that goes with it. One of those “things” is the way that other people respond to your situation; the way they do (or don’t) accommodate our special needs, and the…

  • Bellamy Young flying the flag for migraines

    Bellamy Young flying the flag for migraines

    As an Australian, it seems a bit hit and miss what news we receive from other countries around the world. Some things that appear in my news feed appear “brand new” to me, but turn out to have been around for a while. For example, the Headache Alliance is “a…

  • Purple reign

    Purple reign

    The first Friday in June is traditionally Migraine Awareness Day in Australia. That’s today! I can’t, however, bring myself to write “Happy Migraine Day” – instead, I thought I’d write a post about the color purple. Everywhere I looked on the fundraising sites, it was purple, purple, purple. The purple…