A letter 2 my Dear Friend MIGRAINE

         

              My Dear Migraine

You wanted to be my friend…

So, will you help me face the bullets of questions people keep firing at me?

“Why are you frustrated?”

“Why are you depressed and lonely?”

“Why don’t you like lights and sounds?”

“Why are you afraid?”

“Why do you keep getting headaches?”

Instead of helping or understanding, they just keep shooting questions at me, dear.

Do you know what? I lost everything the moment you decided to enter my life.

People think I’m faking it—that my pain is nothing more than “just a headache.” But it’s not. It’s a sharp, one-sided, throbbing agony, like someone hammering nails into my skull. Sometimes, I think labour pains might be easier than this torture.

Vertigo and unconsciousness—they have no idea what it’s like. They don’t know when it will strike, when I’ll collapse. Yet, I have to keep working, all while dodging their endless questions.

They mock me for preferring darkness and silence. Yes, I choose the dark—but not because I love it. You, migraine, won’t let me bear light or sound. Even the glow of a phone screen or a single notification sound feels like a violent attack. And yet, I’m scared of the dark and quiet… but I have no other choice.

You bring frustration and irritation that I cannot control, making me appear rude to the people I love. You make it hard to focus, distort my vision, scramble my speech. You build walls between me and others. Misunderstandings grow, relationships crumble, and I’ve lost friends and family who once meant everything to me. 

I even failed in my own field of communication—because you became my constant interruption.

When I was finally ready to explore my passion in mass communication, the doctor’s words hit like a final blow:

“Don’t even think of working in news or journalism if you had to work at nights, travel and take stress.”

“Don’t work with lights and sounds.”

I had dreamed of working in films. I stayed silent—because that was all I could do to survive.

But, somehow I am still pursuing my studies in the field that I love, don't know what future will be. 

Migraine, people don’t understand—depression doesn’t cause you. You cause depression. Your relentless symptoms drain the joy out of life. Stress doesn’t create you, but it makes you worse.

Only migraineurs know how crippling you are. Yet the world says, “Don’t overreact—it’s just a headache.” They don’t see you for what you are: a hereditary neurological disorder that demands proper diagnosis and lifelong management. To them, you’re a small inconvenience. To me, you’re a prison.

You’ve made me lonely. You’ve made me afraid.

You’ve taken my career, my health, my peace.

You’ve taken everyone and everything at different points in my life.

And yet—I’m still here, trying to survive you, carrying the insecurities, fears, and sadness you’ve forced upon me.

My doctor says you can’t be cured, only controlled. I asked how long I’d have to do this. The answer was indirect, but clear: for life.

Maybe you’re not fatal. Maybe you don’t kill.

But you make me feel like dying some days.

And comparing you to other illnesses, just to make you sound “not so bad,” is an insult to everyone who lives with you.

From,

Your unwilling friend