growing older

when I was a young girl/woman, I thought I knew all of the answers to life's biggest questions: why are we here? Is there a god? What is love? What is happiness? Will I ever be happy? Is there a point  in living? Who am I? And so many other existential questions.. What I have discovered is that not only have my perceptions changed but the realization that these questions cannot be answered with pat answers nor do I even have the answers to these questions universally but only for myself and the answers change with every passing day and the events that happen during the course of a single day. Some bring epiphanies, others only new questions to ponder late at night when it feels like I am the only soul awake.

today I seek other opinions and actually listen, especially to those people older and wiser- the very ones whose answers I once ignored due to their  "antiquated" notions. I have come to realize there is no substitution for wisdom born of experience. Of course there are always exceptions to every rule. I would not look to people like my father whose life has only devolved into hatred and closemindedness. I look at him and see a life wasted-through fear and self-hatred that he projects upon anyone different from him- liberals,blacks,gays,women and any other group he deems objectionable.

I have learned that one cannot choose or change the family into which you are born and sometimes, sadly, at some point, you must give  up or let go of expectations that they will ever open their hearts or minds. God knows I tried most of my life to accept him and love him despite his obvious disdain and lack of respect and dare I say, love for me. Its been a heartbreaking journey but one I had to travel in order to learn this most valuable lesson and accept the fact that there will likely be no reconciliation before one of us dies. Yet I am so grateful that I had a mother who seemed to love and respect every human being, even when others could not. From her, I learned acceptance, grace and above all, the ability to forgive. I learned that hatred only harms one's self and not the object upon which our hatred is directed. Despite the extreme abuse visited upon her by my father, she left him a sampler which read "to err is human' to forgive, divine". This is the gift she left me.

i have deviated far from the topic I planned to write on but it is very late and I must get to bed. Hopefully, I will return to the topic which I wished to explore. Until then, I wish you a good night and the radical concept that it is possible to forgive anyone or anything in order to grow as human beings and take our experiences to use as gifts to teach us that hate consumes but love conquers...

who needs a weatherman when you've got a head like this?

it's been a long time since i've done any writing. the last blog i kept, i had to hastily delete after a spurned lover threatened to take it public. he hacked my account and i had literally minutes to erase everything. that's been 6 years and i think both  my writing and thinking processes have gotten rusty from disuse. time to shake it off. and what better time is there than the present?  in the last ten days, i've had migraines eight of those days- in varying degrees of incapacitation. unfortunately for me, i live in charleston sc, the worst city in the USA for weather triggered migraines. i can tell you two days before a storm falls and a day before any significant temperature or humidity shift. apparently, inside of my head is a tiny, perfect storm warning system. unluckily for me, there doesn't appear to be much use for it as a tool and since i don't drink, i can't even use it to wage bar bets. all i can do is tell people that the weather is going to shift, get "the look" and one or two days later, if i'm able to communicate, be able to say, "see. i told you so." big whoop.

migraines are debilitating. i'm sure you've heard this before and if you've never had one, you might secretly find yourself thinking- "it's a headache. get over it". i might have done the same thing if not having already been genetically "blessed" with the migraine gene. my memory is spotty at best. i have virtually no memories of my childhood, which may be a good thing. but what i do remember is my mom.

my mom had a hard life (that will be another post one day or probably many many posts). she also had migraines. i remember being horribly unsympathetic as a young teen.  coming home from school and finding her lying down in a dark room with an icepack behind her neck and a cold rag on her face wasn't unusual but i would act that it was her fault or that she was weak and  use it to manipulate her into giving me the car keys to go get the food she wasn't up to cooking. of course, i never did actually use it for reasons given; i would take her car and go get friends to ride around and get high.  it shames me to think of how callous i was to her then but history repeated itself 20 years later so you know- karma's a bitch. :-)

 fast forward a few years... i don't remember how old i was when i had my first migraine but i do know that the pattern became obvious very quickly. two days or so before my period started, i would get one. it would be your standard, one-side of the head, behind the eye migraine. i'd have a two-fer whammy. mega-cramps and migraine. what a duo. and back then...mid 70s.. docs seemed to view migraines and cramps the same way- "all in the head". funny, but they were  absolutely right, just not in the way they thought. hormones and seratonin levels are both regulated in the brain. migraines are a true neurological disorder, which means.. yep- all in the head.

anyway... what i wanted to talk about is how people still don't understand migraines or the people who suffer from them. we might as well still be hanging out in the mid 70s when it comes to most non migraneurs and sadly, many doctors. another ugly truth about this condition is the high correlation between migraine and depression. they are so intertwined that i'm not sure if you can tell which came first. one thing we do know is that migraines affect seratonin levels and the "best" migraine meds, the triptans, also affect seratonin levels. what this means in my case (and i am only speaking for myself here) is that when i get a migraine, i have to ask myself before i take the medication- "am i willing to risk falling into a depression?"  when i take a triptan, the migraine is usually aborted. that is fantastic! however, that also greatly increases my risks of becoming "flat" which precedes depression for me. i loathe taking these pills for this reason yet in the past week, i have taken them 4 times. FOUR times! and how do i feel now? horrible. flat. tearful. worthless... it's such a vicious cycle and these are the only meds that work for me.  so choose- extreme pain (icepick to the eyeball, anyone?) or potential flattening and/or depressing of mood. or, quite often- both.

hmm. i was hoping that writing would be cathartic and make me feel better but putting it down just reminds me of the sheer hopelessness of not having a decent solution to migraines.i have tried every med, vitamin, treatment  known (even botox and nerve blocks) in my search to end the torment. i've had MRIs and CT scans and what is really really sad is that for many people who suffer from migraines is that it makes us feel so crazy, we end up half wishing it would be a brain tumor because at least then we'd have something to point at and - hey, you can operate on a tumor and have a decent chance of getting it all out and being done with it. who cares if you have to have your head shaved? i'd gladly let them shave off my hair if i knew there was a permanent end to migraines attached. but alas, no tumor. and yes, i know that's not funny. i have family members who've had brain tumors so i'm not making light of it. just trying to show the real level of desperation that i feel sometimes in the midst of an attack.

also, i am one of the lucky ones. i'm not even working right now. if i were, i would be working straight through in agony or feeling guilty about taking sick days.  calling in with a migraine still gets about as much sympathy as calling in with a bad hair day, unless you're lucky enought to have a boss who has migraines, too.

 time for another reveal. might as well get it all out in the open from the get-go. add in the fact that i am a therapist, a licensed professional counselor, and it just gets better. as a therapist who suffers from depression and migraines, it gives me an edge up on understanding and appreciating my clients' pain when they have the same issues. the down side is the mental number that the headaches and meds do on me is also the same. i get depressed. i feel worthless. i feel hopeless. i feel like nothing will get better. then i beat myself up because i am a therapist and if anyone should be able to pick herself up and move on, it's the therapist. right? wrong. i wish. it's really amazing if you think about it: how something like a change in a chemical level in one's brain can completely alter the way that person thinks and feels,  in spite of said person's past history, prior understanding, enhanced education and knowledge base, and incredible need and desire to maintain control-  because even though i know  it's biochemical in nature, my thinking brain still goes nuts over the loss of control of emotional regulation.

so, here i am. a depressed therapist. presenting with feelings of worthlessness, helplessness and hopelessness, brought on by medication taken for migraines, which if untreated lead to feelings of ......and repeat.

 it's a vicious wheel and i can't hop off.