I've been told by some people that I should probably
just forget about it forget about
raising awareness forget about this illness
but i cant because its a part of me
and I watch people suffer everyday you know I was a
go get 'em kinda girl and
I don't even know what it's like to be normal
growing up I was you know a normal
child and had great teenage years
I graduate from high school and graduated from college
and 2007 I had an associate's degree in
law enforcement and criminal justice. my intentions were to become
a Rhode Island state trooper. that actually got cut short
because in 2007 I had started
experiencing headaches and
at first I thought it was really nothing
just you know it was head pain and I took some
over the counter meds and go about my day and I'd continue working
and also taking care of my son
I had just gotten out of a really abusive relationship so I was thinking maybe it
was just the stress from that
I did go back to school for from few more years and I got
I'm my associates in paralegal work as well
and continuing to work still getting these headaches, not really understanding
what was going on and then it just started to become
my way of life like I just thought that's how everybody lived
and then finally one day
it just got really really really bad
I decided that I needed to see my primary care physician
because there wasn't something that...
I wasn't able to control it anymore. these
over-the-counter medications they just weren't working.
He had suggested that I see a neurologist because they sounded
like migraine. that was something new for me because I never heard
of migraines. I just thought it was a headache
so I to my neurologist and they had started me on medication
and so I just continued down that path for quite a few years.
I tried going to a chiropractor, that didn't work out very well
and if it did it was only temporary and
acupuncture, that was like a roller coaster. it was
non-stop trying to find answers and I really couldn't find any
I even got into certain procedures that
were experimental and ultimately
ended up in the hospital twice. you know I had my friends, I had my fiance at the
time.
they were very supportive
at the time I was looking at financial advising company
they're very supportive probably some biggest cheerleaders
it came to the point where it was better
I didn't return to work because I wasn't OK.
I received an email from my fiance
basically saying he had been to my house
he packed up everything that he had and he left.
he loved me but not the way that he thought.
and he did not sign up for me being sick
and shortly thereafter I also lost
a group a friends that I had known for years
I'm talking more than half my life.
they said I had changed, they said
I don't show up to any events they invite me to,
which, you have migraines
you're not always up to going to events
I lost my career, I lost
my friends, I lost somebody who I thought was going to spend the rest of my life with.
and it takes a toll.
and I don't think that people really understand that.
ultimately,
I'm no longer working and I take it day-to-day.
my son and my mom are my biggest biggest cheerleaders.
So I was on facebook one day
and I just happened to see a picture of a girl
and it basically said rest in peace
you know and it happen to be
a photo of Melissa. that actually brought me into
finding a migraine awareness groups
on Facebook and there's plenty of them.
we share the good, bad, ugly.
When family doesn't understand
there's somebody there. And although it virtual and people
tend to believe that Facebook is
not real it does create real relationships
and I know that I probably wouldn't be here
if I hadn't found that group because I was giving up.
everybody had abandoned me.... sorry
I find comfort in knowing
that I don't feel this pain all alone.
like somebody else can understand what I'm going through.
they can feel it. maybe not exactly, but
they can relate to it. I tell them all the time
we need to lean on each other because
if we're shoulder to shoulder and we can
move back and forth and we won't fall down.
and I think
with each suicide that we hear about
in our community, our migraine community
I think it scares us a little more because it becomes real
to know that we
aren't protected. like it could be any one of us
at one point
one person you have a conversation with one day could be gone the next
i watch a mom mourn the loss of her daughter
almost every day.
If migraines didn't exist, her little girl
would still be here