Circle of Pain

Ask anyone who has suffered from migraine and I'm pretty sure that he or she will tell you that migraine is more than just a physical pain.  Migraine also implicates emotional stress, distress and emotional pain.  More information has become available showing some kind of link between migraine patients and depression.  For those of us who suffer from both, we wind up being caught in a vicious cyclical situation.  When a migraine presents itself it often if not always leads to being in a depressed state.  When depression rears its ugly head, migraine often follows.  It's a circle of complete chaos - where we feel debilitated by extreme pain and emotion overloads. 


I often feel as though there will never be a day where I will not feel either.  After more than twenty years of migraine and ten years of depression, I feel like I'm cursed.  There are so many things that I want to do - things people often take for granted.  Like going for a walk without getting a migraine, go swimming in a pool without getting a migraine or enjoy a nice summer day without getting a migraine.  Living such a deteriorated life brings great heaviness to my mind.  Coping in pain is not easy and many days I have to push through the pain.  This reality makes me angry and then sad, hence the depression.  


Depression is misunderstood and hard to explain to those who have never experienced it.  Many believe that depression means being sad and crying all the time.  Yes, that is part of it but not all of it.  Depression means being angry, frustrated, sad, lonely, confused, agitated, and anxious along with a slew of other emotions all within a matter of seconds.  The mind races constantly and becomes your worst enemy.  Depression makes you feel worthless, useless, and hopeless all at once.  It's a very nasty thing and it's sole purpose is to destroy you.  So putting that on top of being in constant pain is a very treacherous combination and that is what my life is at the moment.


It comes in waves.  I can be having an okay day, like today, and then be hit with the depression out of nowhere.  It's like being swept away in a tsunami.  There's hardly any forewarning.  It's inevitable, the outcome.  I'm trying very hard at this moment to fight it off.  It's a sneaky and vindictive attacker and must be treated as such.  It gets into your thoughts and tries to convince you that you're someone that you know you are not.  It's almost like having an evil twin.  It's hard for me to not give in to the emotional battle because I'm tired from being in pain most of the week.  I'm worn out and don't have much fight in me.  Its becoming ever so tiresome and old.  It's always the same story...just a different day.