this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2023
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Chronic migraine. People think its just a headache, but that's really just the most obvious symptom and least complex symptom. Family practice/generalized doctors know too little about it to recognize it. Everyone around you thinks you're just being dramatic. If they can push through a headache then why cant you push through a migraine?
Migraine is a cycle that lasts days. It has phases: prodrome, aura, acute, postdrome. The acute phase (the headache part) is just one phase. Sometimes the headache isn't even that bad, or long. Sometimes it lasts multiple days. Its a neurological disorder and, in a lot of ways, basically is like your nervous system short circuiting for a few hours or days. Triggers have a lot to do with severity, but there is also a lot of bad info about triggers too. With chronic migraine, you could avoid all triggers and still have 1-2 migraine events a month, and those events dont care about your calendar.
Because information is so badly shared and everyone (mostly unintentionally) gaslights anyone with migraine into thinking they're not suffering from a chronic condition, many of us go a long time before discovering useful information or getting diagnosed.
There are a ton of signs during the prodrome phase which, once you know what to look for, can help you avoid (sometimes) the acute phase by taking meds soon enough and focusing on avoiding known triggers. Even standard over-the-counter stuff can short circuit a lot of migraines before the most painful part. But also, some of the prodrome stuff alone can make working or completing tasks difficult. I often start having trouble speaking, get very tired, have difficulty focusing vision. General brain fog. This can be hours or days before an attack.
After the headache phase, the postdrome is often more brain fog, speaking issues, low energy, but also sometimes a euphoric state which can make getting back into your normal schedule really difficult.
I miss family events. I miss friend events. I have to cancel stuff all the time. I worry about scheduling things for fear of being in a headache phase. I've been lucky with employers being understanding, esp with the work from home setup and mostly DIY hours, but i absolutely couldn't work a job with shifts.
I can't imagine in a million years any mindset that would be behind gaslighting someone over something like migraines, unless they were actively trying out of free will. My first and even last instinct is to treat it as a hypothetical, especially considering we're talking about the most important/fragile organ. I've had friends/classmates who almost had to drop out of school due to them.
I find that most people are fairly understanding as long as it doesn't effect them. Coworkers and friends tend to give the benefit of the doubt and are understanding. Sometimes you have to remind them, but usually that clears things up quickly. Sometimes, those of us with chronic migraine also develop some anxiety about missing things or letting people down, even if people are very understanding.
The gaslighting... most of the time it's people who don't know enough about migraine (or don't care) and start to see patterns as laziness, avoidance, or similar. Miss a few wednesdays in a row? Guess what, your manager might think you're avoiding that wednesday team meeting... Miss a few tests or a presentation in class? Well, clearly that's because you weren't ready and wanted to buy yourself more time... Sometimes they've bought into some misinformation that all you have to do is eat some magical salt every day and you'll be cured. Or they disbelieve the existence of chronic conditions entirely. That's where a manager will find a way to use some performance metric to get rid of you or a professor will treat you like a drain on their time.
All of this is in the context of the United States (I'm sure many other countries handle this a lot better, as usual). It's really uncommon for migraine to be well-understood at work or school. Especially if you don't have a current diagnosis, which is also common since doctors tends to brush it off or require some extreme logging to even consider, or insurance companies will refuse to pay for the testing and MRI scans usually required to have an official diagnosis and meet ADA requirements. Like any non-physical disability or illness, schools and employers tend to continually forget and fall way short of ADA recommendations. Especially with chronic conditions that may have phases of being worse or non-existent for months at a time. "Well, you didn't have this problem last quarter, so what gives?"