Inside My Head

The Saturday that started as a normal day blurred into a Sunday, a Mother's Day, that wasn't. And now nothing's normal. Even a year later. Nothing.

Now, every "normal" day could be abnormal. Now, I can't fall asleep because of the racing thoughts in my mind. Now, random lines from songs play over and over in my head, like a broken record, keeping me from focusing. Now, I have horrible nightmares where the people I love won't speak to me, where they leave me, alone. Now, when I wake up, I imagine all of the horrible things that could go wrong with the day before I even sit up. My heart rate soars. I can have chest pains for days. It is hard to leave the house. I can barely drive a car. When my husband isn't home, he has to text me before and after he drives because I imagine horrible accidents taking him from me. I am perpetually on the verge of tears. I prepare to attend family events, dinners with friends, even trips to see my daughter, and invariably, I can't. I can't leave the house.

It's anxiety, you think. You can take medicine for that, you think.

I do, every night. If I don't, I'm completely out of control, a nervous wreck, wringing my hands, physically shaking, unable to stay still, but paralyzed with fear. Recently, due to poor planning on my part, I went five days without my anxiety medication. I couldn't make the simplest of decisions. I couldn't work. I lost one day to a migraine and had chest pains for three. I was terrified of driving to the doctor's office. After a 30 minute wait and three minutes with the nurse, I got to see the doctor, the general practitioner who was my mom's doctor too. "How's the medicine working? No side effects? Yeah, I gotta bring you in here every six months to be sure you're not - I don't know - dead. :eye roll: Obamacare." 90 seconds later I was on my way home to wait for the text from CVS. Quality healthcare in Nowhere, IN.

So, yes, medicine helps, but it's still not normal. It's just in your head, you say. Oh, I know. I know it's not rational. But I can't make it stop. People don't understand.

Try this: Imagine you are asleep while a loved one is out of town. Now imagine you are startled awake by a phone call from an unfamiliar voice identifying as law enforcement. Can you imagine that feeling, adrenaline and fear and confusion and helplessness? Capture that flash, that feeling. And imagine it continues for hours. For days. That's my normal.

And it's not just anxiety; it's chronic daily headaches. Yes, for nearly my entire life, every day my head would hurt. Just like my sister thought not seeing out of one eye was normal, or at least couldn't be fixed, I thought everyone's head hurt all the time and a headache was when it got really bad. About seven years ago I had an MRI (for another reason) and the neurologist discovered a Chiari I malformation (my brain hangs out of the bottom of my skull and compresses my spinal fluid). On the 1-10 pain scale, I usually have a constant "one" ache. Think of a headache you'd take drugs for. A hangover headache. A headache when you have a cold. Sinus pain. You might call that a two or three. That is my one. Every day, from the time I wake up until I fall asleep. It often moves to a two. At three, I take Excedrin (this would be your six, where you might go to the ER). Most days I don't take medication, I just deal, because the rebound when the medication wears off is worse than when it started. At four, I take Excedrin, a nap, and a cold pack into a dark room. A four or five can wake me in the middle of the night. This happened last week when I forgot to take my preventive meds the night before. 5:00am, awake to severe pain. It was too late to fix and I spent all day in bed. In a hotel.

In February, I had an eight. All day. Yes, where ten is childbirth without drugs (my first, trying to be tough), my entire head had a constant, sharp pain equivalent to 80% of that. Even swapping three Excedrin and three Motrin every two hours didn't provide any relief, To combat the pain, I pulled my hair, applied pressure with my knuckles, massaged my head and neck, slapped at my scalp, cried, and wished I was dead. Literally. Dead. These are the symptoms of cluster headaches. I don't know what causes these types of headaches. I cannot even identify a trigger for the worst ones.

I started taking Butterbur extract twice a day in March (on a recommendation from a learner who saw me devolve into a migraine in the middle of class and stagger out of the room), and rarely get anything above a three now. My neurologist recently adjusted my other medication, and the daily headaches are almost gone. Now I only have one or two headaches a week, and they don't last all day.

I still get the occasional migraine, where I don't necessarily have severe head pain but lose my vision, throw up, and/or hallucinate. I must immediately escape all light and sound. I can't watch TV or use a phone or computer. I can't read or write. I can't listen to music. I usually lose an entire day in bed. If I recognize the trigger (cologne, change in the weather, bright sunlight, high anxiety) in time, I can reduce the severity with a prescription medication that leaves me feeling foggy and unable to process my thoughts or have a lucid conversation. Yes, that is the better alternative.

That is my normal. Anxiety. Headaches. Oh, and depression. More about that next time.