Will It Ever End?
I climb out of bed, hopeful today I’ll get to go for a walk, even just around the block. In the short time it takes to get to the bathroom, I know that exercise isn’t on the agenda for the day.
I shift my thoughts to work. Even if I barely have enough energy to move, maybe I’ll have the brainpower to write a first draft. As I brush my teeth and try to organize my thoughts, I know the answer to that is also no.
It will be another day spent doing nothing but having a migraine attack.
Will migraine become constant?
A variation on that scenario has happened nearly every day for six weeks. As the migraine days wear on, I become increasingly convinced that this reality will never end. This fear is nothing new. Every time I have a migraine flare, I worry that it portends a return to frequent, if not constant, debilitating migraine attacks.
How many days have I lost?
As migraine eats away at each day, I panic, wondering how many more days will slip away from my life. I refuse to even approximate how many days I’ve lost to migraine, but can’t avoid the fact that it adds up to more than 15 years. With that track record, it seems inevitable that migraine will one day return to devour my life again.
Being debilitated by migraine year after year was the norm before I started an effective treatment in 2016. I’ve been doing better overall for the last few years, but can never trust that the relief will last. So even though I knew this recent return to a constant state of migraine was fueled by seasonal weather, as the days wore on, I worried more and more that the migraine attacks would continue to be disabling even after the weather cleared.
This too shall pass?
Whether your migraine attacks last hours, days, weeks, months, or even years, they can feel never-ending. And the weight of that becomes its own burden. It’s a burden that can be as heavy—or even heavier—than the physical symptoms. As the days drag on, coping becomes more difficult.
Telling myself, “this too shall pass,” often helps me get through a bad day, but becomes less convincing when the bad days become bad weeks. When I feel really stuck might seem like the ideal time to remind myself it will pass, but I usually argue with myself, questioning what proof I have that it will end.
What am I doing?
I’m relying on radical self-care to try to get through. I’m trying to find small pleasures, avoiding things that bring me more grief than joy when I can, and indulging in soothing activities. It helps me get through each day, but the fear still hangs over me. I know I will find a way to be OK even if the attacks continue, but I desperately want a reprieve.
How do you cope when a migraine attack drags on and on? Do you also fear it will last forever?
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