Do you know what it is like to live in fear?

Do you know what it is like to live in fear? I’m talking a fear that haunts you every hour of every day, a fear of something which can strike at any moment. Fear that builds with each passing minute that it will strike you down and leave you there in pain until it decides you’ve had enough. Fear of something that will send you to a dark, quiet, cold place where you alone have to face that which only you can feel, only you can hear, that which no one else will understand and that only you can see, even in the dark.

Do you live in fear that there are those who will refuse to believe that it could be that bad, that you must be exaggerating the effects, that you can control it, make it stop or you are just looking for attention or sympathy, that they think you can just take a pill and it will all go away and somehow never come back again? Do you live in fear of that which will rob you of time with your family and friends, time away from work or the times in between where you live your life? Do you live in fear of missing out on those special moments that can never happen again, those times that if you were there you would remember for the rest of your life?

Until you do, please at least try to understand those of us who do because we do not enjoy living like this nor do we chose to. There is nothing we can do to completely eliminate all the variables that will bring on that which we fear the most, that which will leave us there, in the cold, in the dark.

We didn’t ask for this, we didn’t seek this out, but it is that which has been given to us by the lottery of chance that is genetics or fate. Please understand that we try each day to keep hope alive that we make it through without having to face it again and that each day we do is a celebration because we understand just how bad it can be, alone in the dark. Just know that if there was a way to let you feel what we feel, to fear what we fear, we would not ask you to, not because we think you could not handle it but because no one should have to feel this way, to have to live in fear of it happening again, of once again returning to the cold, to the quiet, to the dark.

What we do ask for is understanding, not only for us but for those who care for us and have to live through our battles as spectators knowing that as much as the want to help there is little to nothing they can do for us, in cold, in the quiet, in the dark. They are our go ambassadors allowing us to communicate with our family, with work or doctors when we can’t. They suffer alongside us, losing time with family and friends as we do, perhaps more so. They are the ones who have to make the calls for cancelation when we can’t or come pick us up when we are unable to drive for ourselves. In short they are our hero’s and we cannot thank them enough for their sacrifice.

Please understand that we have tried our best to live our life, in spite of the all that is stacked against us, but sometimes we have no other choice to face it, to try again to make it through and find our way out of the cold, out of the quiet and out of the dark. We try each day to overcome the fear, to be out there with all of you, in the warmth, in the noise and in the light, to once again, however temporary to be free from the chronic pain that is our migraine and that we are holding out hope beyond all hope that someday that a cure will be found so that we never again have to return, to the cold, to the quiet and to the dark.