Father's Day - I wish I had a relationship with my dad, but I don't. Many reasons, not the least of which is that he doesn't believe in my disease of migraines. I learned at the Michigan Head Pain and Neurological institute (www.mhni.com) when I spent three weeks there last summer that it truly is a disease and to think of it that way. I don't get migraines for no reason. They don't come upon me because I'm depressed or because I'm tired or because I want them. They aren't just in my head. Well, they are but you get my meaning. My dad doesn't believe in them - doesn't believe I'm really sick. But that's just one reason we don't talk. I had problems when I was young causing depression and hallucinations and he thought that was all in my head too. Then I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and as they regulated my thyroid those problems went away too. So, it was real. I'd stopped talking to my dad at that point - or more precisely he'd stopped talking to me. I love my dad very much and miss him, but he isn't a part of my life and something I have to get used to. I still cry at movies with dads and daughters or dads and sons or at weddings during the father/daughter dance as a longing for something I don't have. But I have a strong family on my mom's side of the family and am still close to my dad's relatives - my grandparents and aunts and uncles. I've just lost him and it's sad but not the end of the world.
I have to think the same about my migraines - they are there but not the end of the world. Sometimes so bad I wish it was the end but that's the wrong way of looking at it - they haven't taken everything from me and I can live a good life - not the one I thought I'd have, but one after all. I meditate and try to let the pain just flow through me, not fighting it but floating above it and letting it just be. Not always easy but it helps. I distract myself by doing things that I can do and laugh as often as I can. I take my preventative medicine and I take medicine when the pain increases to a level where I need more. I learn to live. I take herbs and vitamins and acupunture and migraine massages. Trying to retrain my body that the pain doesn't have to live there all the time. I avoid triggers and live my life in spite of the pain. I have a good life. A great job and a perfect husband. Two beautiful, smart and wonderful boys who love their mom.
I have my friends - a network of people who believe in and support me. I have a team of doctors that truly care and won't give up on me.
I have a lot, but I don't have my dad.