Hey so someone with chronic migraines is disabled, yall know that right
Like this applies to all āinvisibleā disabilities in the sense that just bc you canāt see whatās wrong doesnāt mean nothing is wrong or they arenāt disabled but itās especially the case for chronic migraines
Migraines are NOT just headaches. Itās not just āoof ow my head hurt :(ā, Migraines are WHOLE body affair. Itās getting weepy and irritable hours before the pain hits, itās starting to get clumsy and feeling body aches just before the pain starts, itās getting stiff because of the aches and sensitive to light and sound because of how heightened senses get.
And when the pain gets, sometimes it is the general image of someone locked in a dark room in bed, which is genuinely awful bc you canāt do anything. You just have to lay there and stew in your pain and no medicine touches it and everything hurts, worst of all your head and there is nothing to focus on other than the pain because any light hurts and any sound hurts.
But sometimes the pain isnāt bad enough for that, or sometimes you have to work or go to school with nails in your head and itās impossible to focus. Your depth perception gets wonky, youāre clumsy, you slur or stumble over your words because so much of your brain is occupied only by pain. You canāt miss another day of work, you canāt miss the money, but youāre messing up orders or youāre misunderstanding instructions.
And then thereās the after. Postdrome, the migraine hangover. Where the emotional and irritability returns, and you have issues with your stomach, very often leaving you unable to eat or drink without puking. Your neck is stiff, your head feels heavy, your brain is so fogged up that you can barely string together a coherent sentence. Your body aches much worse than before, and youāre exhausted, fatigued to hell and back, and that lasts for 1-3 days after the actual migraine.
Migraines are a multi-day condition that affects EVERY aspect of your fucking life. And medicines that treat the pain very often only lessen the symptoms that occur before and after.
So when I say I am disabled and then I start talking about migraines, I donāt ever want to fucking hear someone say āheadaches arenāt disabilityā. I will actually deck you across the face you fucking prick.
