I wonder what it’s like to feel normal every day.

To wake up and know that you’ll be able to get through without some silent (but actually not so silent) symptom gnawing at your body while you try to focus.

Must be nice.

As I’ve gotten older, my migraine symptoms have gotten worse.

Sometimes there’s head pain. Most times it’s brain fog and nausea and an overall sense of needing to be in bed under the covers because my entire body feels…bleh. I don’t know how else to describe it. Combine that with the feeling of being on a boat. Dizzy but not “I have the spins” dizzy. And you have a recipe for a really tough day. Well…I have the recipe for a really tough day. I hope that this is not your reality, too, but if it is, know that you aren’t alone.

I was diagnosed with migraines when I was seven. Can you imagine a seven year old with a migraine? Yeah. I feel awful for her.

When I was little, it was pain and vomiting. When I turned fifteen, auras got added to the mix. As I’ve gotten older, though, there are more, what I call, “foggy days”, where the world doesn’t feel so clear. My anxiety is high. My eyes bother me. I have a dull pain in my head that’s annoying but not intense. It’s all the other symptoms that make the day feel like I’m walking up hill against the wind.

Some days I can fight against it and power through. On those days I usually hit a wall around 3pm and need to take a nap or rest until dinner time.

Other days, I am hit right out the gate with symptoms so intense, I know I won’t be getting out of bed.

No one ever called my migraines a chronic illness, so I didn’t treat them like one. In fact, I just assumed that everyone lived like this. Turns out, that is not the reality.

And because I never thought of this as a chronic illness, more that it was just something that happened to me, I kind of went along with life as normal. I had no accommodations when I was in school. In fact, I didn’t have a work accommodation until I was many years into my teaching career. I can’t even tell you how many days I showed up to school feeling like absolute garbage because “at least I could get my head off the pillow”. But teaching with brain fog and running around a school for meetings and café duty and classes when your body is existing on fumes is not a good time.

I called out a lot. And would wake up an hour before my alarm to assess my level of “can I do this today?”

I’ve had friends and coworkers ask if I’d seen a doctor, if I took medication, why didn’t the medication work the way it should. Having had this condition all my life, the answer to all those questions is: of course, yes, and I don’t know.

I appreciate the people who want to help, but when their help turns to frustration, I wish they hadn’t even bothered. As a chronically ill person in a flare, you don’t want to have to regulate someone else’s emotions when you’re working overtime to regulate your body.

Consistency is one of my biggest challenges. I say yes to a lot of things and then have to cancel the day of. Outings with friends, special occasions, things I’ve signed up for. I’m always proud of myself when I’ve had a good run of days or weeks where I’ve been able to show up. I know what it means when the people I love show up for me, so I hate to be someone those same people can’t rely on. But sometimes I physically…can’t.

Yesterday was one of those days.

I had a great Halloween, spending the day celebrating my sister-in-law and nephew on their shared birthdays. We got massages, had a great lunch, and watched Sleepy Hollow. There was birthday cake. It was wonderful.

Then, I spent all day in bed Saturday. Like could not get up. Took a nurtec and a two hour nap after breakfast. And couldn’t be bothered to brush my teeth until 3.

Sunday I felt I had to make up for lost time. My husband and I went for a long walk through the park. Laundry got done. As did the unloading and reloading of the dishwasher. An everything shower was taken and I started a new book.

But Monday, the yesterday I referenced above, was right back to how I felt on Saturday. I forced myself to get out of bed though. I wrote. I canceled my pilates class because that felt like too much. And after the one meeting I had, I went back upstairs to bed where I stayed until it was time to cook dinner. 3 hours.

As I listened to a video on TikTok about how we need to “get out of our own way”, I started to think about what that meant for me as a chronically ill person. On the days when I have a flare, my body gets in the way of my goals. But I think the challenge is to rest without guilt. To take things at the pace that won’t retrigger another flare. To remember that goals can be accomplished with the tiniest of steps forward.

I have had migraines pretty much my entire life, so I don’t know what it feels like without them. But what I do know is that I have accomplished a lot in my life, so far, in spite of them. And I will continue to show up in every moment that I can.

But for right now, I think I’m going to rest.

How do you deal with your chronic illness? Let me know in the comments.

Until next week, friends.