I can’t believe this week is Thanksgiving and the kids are already singing Christmas carols. I feel like life is moving so fast it is like trying to read a sign on the Interstate -- by the time I can read it and understand it, it is already gone. My heart catches in my throat sometimes when I think back on those seemingly lazy days with Henry before Dean was born. Our daily lives are just so much fuller now, they actually seem heavier, brighter, longer, and louder. I’m not sure if that means we are doing too much, or if it is the natural state of things in a household with two boys. Except for the headaches, I feel like everything is as it should be, lots of adventures, lots of laughter, lots of loving this raucous family we’ve created.
But there are the headaches., try as I might to ignore them. So, so many lately. I have reflected on whether the headaches are actually a subliminal signal from myself to myself, telling me to slow down. But even when I do everything “right” -- a week of practicing slow breathing, visualization, good sleep, and not too much stimulation -- I still seem to have just as many migraines. I can’t decipher a pattern. I can go weeks without any (though it has been awhile since that happened), and then a week of having one every day. It is the weather? Something in my diet? A stress I’m not dealing with? I honestly can’t figure it out, and I am both frustrated and relieved by this. On one hand, it would be nice to believe I really could control these headaches, that self-control could eliminate them. On the other hand, that’s a lot of pressure on myself, when I am not even sure it is accurate. I am trying to accept that these migraines may be more like having diabetes or some other condition that never goes away but can be mitigated by behavior.
I just blame myself so much when I have one; I constantly worry that I will have to let someone down by having one at an inopportune moment -- and there is never an opportune moment. Not that there’s ever a good time to have a debilitating migraine, but I have to say that in the past, before Dean was born, I think the headaches functioned as a kind of safety valve. I would have one maybe once or twice a month, and I generally took it as a sign to slow down, to go easier on myself, to recalibrate my stress tolerance. I would take some meds, ask Matthew to take over with Henry, call in sick to work, and within 24 hours I would return to normal life with a more balanced step.
Now, I don’t feel like getting off the carousel is really an option. Matthew works a lot more these days; I put in fewer hours at the office. This has the effect of making me feel like every single hour in the office has to count; even one hour of running late to work makes a serious negative dent in my billables. I haven’t taken a “personal” day in ages -- why should I need one, when I already don’t work on Fridays? But headaches don’t just come on Fridays (though they do tend to happen more often then, as my blood vessels retreat from a four days of stress). And sometimes, like when Matthew has an evening photo shoot or a wedding, and it’s just me and the boys, I simply can’t NOT do what has to be done. And even when he’s home, I don’t feel right just closing myself in the bedroom. I want to do my part, if only so the mess of the house or an extra pile of laundry is not an added stressor. Yet the headache is demanding I stop. I end up in tears, so frustrated that I cannot seem to handle the ordinary stresses of life like a normal person.
It seems so obvious that I should cut out the added stresses that can be cut out -- the volunteering and social commitments. But people rarely ask me to help on a fundraising committee or be a room mother or help out with a neighborhood event when I am having a headache. These conversations always happen when I am feeling good -- and frankly, when I am feeling good, I may in part be trying to make up for feeling bad, and even overdoing it with enthusiasm. Engaged in a bright conversation with a fellow mom, all I want at that moment is to be able to do stuff with my friends and the kids and the school. So I say yes, and sometimes the things I say yes to do provide the greatest highs of my week -- the kids at the Halloween Party, taking Henry to his first Saints game yesterday, meeting other parents at a committee meeting. But the fact seems to be, at the risk of sounding like a hypochondriac, I don’t have the tolerance that others seem to have; I crumple; I get pain that keeps me from doing the things I have to do, much less the things I want to do, and the fear of all that happening can even trigger a headache.
What is the solution? As I write this, I think of so many things that seem so obvious but maybe I just don’t want to acknowledge. Things I should have said no to. But when I think of doing that for the sake of avoiding a headache, I just plummet into rage and denial again -- I will NOT let headaches rule my life; I will NOT miss out on things I want to do and that I genuinely believe also bring me happiness and pleasure. But in answer to my defiance, the headache just laughs. Pain is not rational.
But there are the headaches., try as I might to ignore them. So, so many lately. I have reflected on whether the headaches are actually a subliminal signal from myself to myself, telling me to slow down. But even when I do everything “right” -- a week of practicing slow breathing, visualization, good sleep, and not too much stimulation -- I still seem to have just as many migraines. I can’t decipher a pattern. I can go weeks without any (though it has been awhile since that happened), and then a week of having one every day. It is the weather? Something in my diet? A stress I’m not dealing with? I honestly can’t figure it out, and I am both frustrated and relieved by this. On one hand, it would be nice to believe I really could control these headaches, that self-control could eliminate them. On the other hand, that’s a lot of pressure on myself, when I am not even sure it is accurate. I am trying to accept that these migraines may be more like having diabetes or some other condition that never goes away but can be mitigated by behavior.
I just blame myself so much when I have one; I constantly worry that I will have to let someone down by having one at an inopportune moment -- and there is never an opportune moment. Not that there’s ever a good time to have a debilitating migraine, but I have to say that in the past, before Dean was born, I think the headaches functioned as a kind of safety valve. I would have one maybe once or twice a month, and I generally took it as a sign to slow down, to go easier on myself, to recalibrate my stress tolerance. I would take some meds, ask Matthew to take over with Henry, call in sick to work, and within 24 hours I would return to normal life with a more balanced step.
Now, I don’t feel like getting off the carousel is really an option. Matthew works a lot more these days; I put in fewer hours at the office. This has the effect of making me feel like every single hour in the office has to count; even one hour of running late to work makes a serious negative dent in my billables. I haven’t taken a “personal” day in ages -- why should I need one, when I already don’t work on Fridays? But headaches don’t just come on Fridays (though they do tend to happen more often then, as my blood vessels retreat from a four days of stress). And sometimes, like when Matthew has an evening photo shoot or a wedding, and it’s just me and the boys, I simply can’t NOT do what has to be done. And even when he’s home, I don’t feel right just closing myself in the bedroom. I want to do my part, if only so the mess of the house or an extra pile of laundry is not an added stressor. Yet the headache is demanding I stop. I end up in tears, so frustrated that I cannot seem to handle the ordinary stresses of life like a normal person.
It seems so obvious that I should cut out the added stresses that can be cut out -- the volunteering and social commitments. But people rarely ask me to help on a fundraising committee or be a room mother or help out with a neighborhood event when I am having a headache. These conversations always happen when I am feeling good -- and frankly, when I am feeling good, I may in part be trying to make up for feeling bad, and even overdoing it with enthusiasm. Engaged in a bright conversation with a fellow mom, all I want at that moment is to be able to do stuff with my friends and the kids and the school. So I say yes, and sometimes the things I say yes to do provide the greatest highs of my week -- the kids at the Halloween Party, taking Henry to his first Saints game yesterday, meeting other parents at a committee meeting. But the fact seems to be, at the risk of sounding like a hypochondriac, I don’t have the tolerance that others seem to have; I crumple; I get pain that keeps me from doing the things I have to do, much less the things I want to do, and the fear of all that happening can even trigger a headache.
What is the solution? As I write this, I think of so many things that seem so obvious but maybe I just don’t want to acknowledge. Things I should have said no to. But when I think of doing that for the sake of avoiding a headache, I just plummet into rage and denial again -- I will NOT let headaches rule my life; I will NOT miss out on things I want to do and that I genuinely believe also bring me happiness and pleasure. But in answer to my defiance, the headache just laughs. Pain is not rational.
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