Today my migraine headache continued. It turned into a cluster headache. I spent several hours crying until my husband took me to an urgent care center. They gave me some injections that helped. I remember what it felt like when I was in my twenties and now that I am older.
Before when I was in my twenties, I remember sitting alone on the floor in a dorm room. I had my phone and a piece of glass from a smashed light bulb. In desperation, I would call someone, just hoping that I could find any type of lifeline. In my mind, I knew that no matter how bad my panic attack symptoms were, as long as someone else was in the same room with me, I would be okay. The only problem I had was that after years and year of mental and emotional abuse, I had not learned enough social skills to know how to reach out and connect with others and even if I did, I couldn’t explain my situation.
Most of the time, I took the smash shard of glass from a broken light bulb, and I would use it to cut my right biceps. I liked to use light bulbs because I thought they were clean, and I knew that I wouldn’t cut too deep. I just scratched the surface, but the sight of the red blood shocked my system. Seeing my own blood grounded me. It somehow brought me back from a dark abyss and back into reality. However, self-harm was like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. It stopped the panic attack for the moment, but it cost me emotionally, mentally, and physically and worst of all, it didn’t solve anything. The only thing it did was give me a couple of hours release from my anxiety.
Sometimes, I would try something else. I went to the tallest dorm building and walked the stairs. I went to the track and ran as fast as I could. I gave myself asthma attacks. I cried, but I didn’t have enough energy to panic. Sometimes, I went to the sink, and put my head under freezing cold water for as long as I could stand it. Today, I know that I have a pressure point on the occipital ridge of my head. It is in the lower part of the back of my head. I didn’t know that in my twenties. However, when I would put my head in the sink and run freezing water on it for as long as I could, I often found myself running water over the occipital ridge of my head. It worked well when I tried it.
Finally, sometimes, I found a friend who would talk to me. Every time I tried it, even though it felt like that was what I wanted the most, nothing good ever came of it. Even though I thought it was what I wanted, I wasn’t what I needed. My friends didn’t know why I wanted help or how to provide it and I didn’t know why I needed help or how to ask for what I needed. I spent many unproductive nights with my friends sitting in dorm rooms trying to talk. We didn’t talk well though. My panic attacks often caused me to stutter. All I could articulate was the idea that I wanted to hurt myself, not that I was overwhelmed by all the freedom after having been in a mental, emotional, and physical prison. We were a bunch of teens trying to be adults and still lacking the skills that we still needed to learn.
Everything is different now. I found myself today and yesterday in severe pain. I didn’t feel like I needed someone to be with me in that pain. When I am in darkness and pain, I feel like God is my safety net. Even as the pain gets worse, I might cry and worry, but I don’t think that I can’t handle it. I know that God is with me and if I should start to fall, He will hold me in His arms. He will always guide me out of the darkness and into the light of a new day.
Today, I sat on my bed crying from the pain. I grabbed a pillow and held it tight and just wailed. I used to be afraid of letting go of my emotions because I feared losing control. Now I don’t worry. I know God will control the situation and keep me safe. I cried until my husband came home. I felt so much pain at this point that I felt a sense of unreality. My mind and my concentrated so much on all the pain that everything else around me just seemed secondary. I remember my husband’s hands in mine guiding me to the car to take me to urgent care. I remember the feeling of the cuff squeezing my arm as the nurse took my blood pressure. I remember standing up and getting two shots in my hip. I told my husband that the shots for pain are ironic because they burn when the nurse injects them. I tried so much to relax my muscles, but that burning sensation causes my muscles to tense up. My husband guided me to the car and home again. I got to bed and fell asleep quickly from the drugs.
Now that I am awake, I am still in pain, but it feels better. I hope that the cluster migraine will get better. I don’t know if it will. Whether or not my headache gets better doesn’t matter. All that matters, all that I pray for tonight is that God’s will be done. As long as His will is done, I know that I am safe in His arms, and I can trust in God.
My faith saved me. May God’s peace reside in all of our hearts.