first written 01.23.25 19:13est
I frequently experience something I describe to people as migraines. What I experience are not migraines. My mom frequently experiences migraines, she has for most of my life. She takes prescription pain relievers maybe every 3 days. In between she takes Advil. For all of my life she has carried around a little Advil bottle that I would be summoned to fetch out of her purse. I hated digging in her purse, there was always so many dividers. I could suffer through the clutter of the bag, but the dividers pushed me over the edge. Something explicitly designed to inhibit my navigation through the bag.
I don't really feel that guilty about lying about migraines. I explain it to myself as a form of short hand. They aren't quite headaches, as they inhibit my senses; my vision goes blurry, infrequently I hallucinate, but each time I have an oppressive pain on my forehead. I have come to understand that when people evoke the term migraine it basically means you're incapacitated, my mom often experiences migraines like that. She has to lay in a completely silent and dark room until her body can evict the Migraine out of her. I like to imagine it comes out through sweat. Those little migraine droplets collect into the sheets and pillow and get absorbed through the skin again for later migraine purposes.
Migraines to my knowledge while being influenced by multiple genes are not explicitly hereditary. But all the same I have surrendered myself to the idea that just over some hill lies the world of laying down for hours and being angry all the time at everyone who comes into your bedroom just to fuck with you even though just fucking thinking hurts you. I compulsively ruminated, and I have tricked myself into believing a lot of things like that. After a lot of regimented thinking I have been able to unlearn a lot of those things.
from The Social Network (2010) Eduardo Saverin's New York dark apartment moments before being assaulted by his then girlfriend.
People feeling bad for my self described migraines makes me feel better. A writer I really covet and envy is Max Karson; mrgirl. He takes a very stoic disposition towards pity, something I think maybe granted to him by a dismissal of all things out side of his control. For a few years in my life I sought to adopt that kind of disposition, but I have found myself returning to the comfort of pity and vanity regularly. Sometimes when I am too comfortable; too incognizant, and often when I am my wit's end; when I am laying face down into my pillow in a dark room and when I yell at anyone trying to ask me a good faith question. I think it's reductive to label that kind of disposition (one of forfeiting other's people burdens) as stoic. Sincere selfishness is something too quickly stigmatized. Take any confident guy off the street who speaks without caution, he doesn't care about himself. If he did he would employ more discretion with his words, maybe endorse figures and ideas only when he's familiar with them. In that way he is foolishly trusting.
Drink more water is such an annoying phrase. It's very judgemental, it carries with the assumption not just that you don't already drink enough water it is a judgement of your ability to even live inside your body. As if I can't know when my body isn't hydrated; as if I'm not responsible enough to walk around inside my fucking skin.
i don't have a migraine
bb
