People often ask me why as a psychotherapist I specialize in working people who struggle with migraines. I hope this sheds some light on the difficulty of the migraine struggle for many people.
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The lonely migraine.
It really just wants a friend. Someone to listen to it, someone to keep it company, someone to acknowledge how hard it is to accept care when care is needed, someone to acknowledge how lonely it really is inside.
Is the migraine really a separate form of invasion from the rest of our being, or is the migraine and the migraineur one and the same? How much does the self and the migraine feed each other? Is there a chicken and an egg or are both the chicken and are both the egg?
When I sit with someone in the midst of a migraine (a migraine tolerable enough that they can still have their session), I truly get a chance to experience the deepest vulnerabilities of a migraineur. The emotions that come forward in a migraine often tend to be the emotions and states that otherwise stay deeply dissociated when not in a migraine. Is the migraine a sign that these states have been triggered and are otherwise intolerable? Is the migraine a representation of the depth of the dissociation? There is so much stored aggression (or sadness, shame, etc.) that perhaps the migraine has become the manifestation of a flood of aggression trying to make it out of a door too small to allow the energy to flow freely.
The parts of people that tend to emerge in migraine states tend to be the most vulnerable, the most shameful to our own selves. The migraine just wants someone to be with it, someone to truly understand how hard it can be. Unfortunately, the level of support needed to soothe a migraine is rarely to be found. Families don’t get it, loved ones don’t get it. Without experiencing it for oneself, no one can really get it.
Thus, the migraine stays lonely. The parts of oneself that need the nurturing, the hug, the care…all end up staying at a distance where it’s safer. Maybe it won’t hurt as much if I stay over here, rather than seeking it out and getting rejected, or not being understood.
The migraine is scared. We are scared. The migraine hurts. We hurt. The migraine is ashamed. We are ashamed. If only we could find love for those deepest, most scared, shameful and vulnerable parts of ourselves. Maybe the migraine would relax.
