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30 Things About My Invisible Illnesses You May Not Know

1. The illnesses I live with are Migraine disease, Chronic Migraine, Daily Chronic Headache, Fibromyalgia, depression and anxiety.
2. I was diagnosed with Migraine in 1986, CM/CDH in 2009, depression in 2002, anxiety in 2004 and fibromyalgia in 2011.
3. But I had symptoms since I was eight years old (Migraine).
4. The biggest adjustment I’ve had to make is being an involved parent despite my illnesses.
5. Most people assume I am in great health.
6. The hardest part about mornings are getting up in pain and wanting to crawl under the covers and never come out.
7. My favorite medical TV show is Grey's Anatomy.
8. A gadget I couldn’t live without is my laptop.
9. The hardest part about nights are not being able to fall asleep until 4 or 5 in the morning sometimes.
10. Each day I take 8 pills & vitamins. (No comments, please)
11. Regarding alternative treatments I have tried acupuncture, acupressure, relaxation, meditation, chiropractic and massage.
12. If I had to choose between an invisible illness or visible I would choose neither.
13. Regarding working and career, being a mother is my career.
14. People would be surprised to know that I spend nearly every day in pain.
15. The hardest thing to accept about my new reality has been trying to live within the limitations of my illnesses.
16. Something I never thought I could do with my illness that I did was continue to be present.
17. The commercials about my illness are only for episodic migraines and are not informative.
18. Something I really miss having since I was diagnosed is confidence.
19. It was really hard to have to give up my idea of what life should be.
20. A new hobby I have taken up since my diagnosis is blogging.
21. If I could have one day of feeling normal again I would go out in the sun, have a glass of wine and eat whatever I wanted.
22. My illness has taught me patience.
23. Want to know a secret? One thing people say that gets under my skin is "You need to drink more water."
24. But I love it when people realize the legitimacy and disability of Migraine disease.
25. My favorite motto, scripture, quote that gets me through tough times is “I know God won't give me anything I can't handle. I just wish he didn't trust me so much.” ― Mother Teresa
26. When someone is diagnosed I’d like to tell them that they are not alone.
27. Something that has surprised me about living with an illness is how strong I am.
28. The nicest thing someone did for me when I wasn’t feeling well was be concerned.  That's always a nice feeling.
29. I’m involved with Invisible Illness Week because more people need to know about it.
30. The fact that you read this list makes me feel validated.

 Migraine disease is a horrible disease to have by itself, but it rarely travels alone.  I also have Major Depression Disorder (MDD), General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), Chronic Daily Headache (CDH), Chronic Migraine (CM), and Fibromyalgia.  None of these diseases and disorders are visible to the naked eye.  They are neatly packaged and concealed underneath my skin.  They actively try to destroy my body and my mind under the cover of darkness.  I wish everyone could see how horrible it gets.  I don't use a wheelchair, walker or a cane but my fibromyalgia makes it almost impossible to walk at times.  I can't tolerate fluorescent lighting but I don't have special accommodations for my photophobia when I go shopping.  I can't eat certain foods but no one classifies any of them as dangerous to migraineurs.  I can't go outside during extreme heat and humidity but no one cautions migraineurs to stay in an air conditioned room on the news.  There are no ad campaigns, walks, or awareness events for migraine disease. 

Living With Migraine And The Search For New Treatments | The Diane Rehm Show from WAMU and NPR

In my post "When Enough is Too Much", I speak about my current struggle with Major Depression (MDD).  I thought it would be helpful to have a reference source available to help anyone who reads it to better understand what it is.

Major Depression (Major Depressive Disorder) Symptoms, Causes, Treatments - HealthyPlace

The day is almost over and I survived it.  I began on a path of healing last night when, in the throes of depression, decided to come out from behind the curtain and expose my truth.  It wasn't an effort to gain sympathy or to garner attention, but rather an opportunity to allow myself to present my obstacles to the world despite my fears or reservations.

That post represents the raw emotion, turmoil, aggravation and frustration that Major Depressive Disorder and General Anxiety Disorder imparts onto my psyche.  Having to face this warped, destructive and multi-faceted illness is no easy feat and trying to satisfy the who, what and whys of the concerned is daunting and creates major apprehension.  The loop-di-loop of being okay with it and then being consumed by it causes a sense of misdirection and confusion.  As of right now, I'm working my way out of the fog.  And this time I'm not too worried about what will appear to me once I step into the light.

I hope that my candor helps the many others out there in the world who live with mental illness as I do.

OK.  I'm going to put it out there and say that I'm not as good as I pretend to be.  I'm a fraud.  All this time I've been acting like a warrior when I'm really feeling like a prisoner of war.  My battle to cope with what life dealt me was lost a long time ago.  It's funny how easily we can continue to get through life's obstacles when it involves the life of someone else, but when it involves only ourselves, the course starts to conquer us a lot more easily.  My façade has been cracking under the pressure for quite some time now.  I'm always trying to be the good mother, wife, sister, friend, neighbor.  Yeah, I'm more limited than the average person but I never let that define my capabilities.  In fact, I had to be even better to show that I'm just as good.  Every time I plastered a smile onto my face I was sobbing inside.

I don't want anyone who reads this or who knows me personally to think that the reason for my depression is due to any of my personal relationships.  After being diagnosed with MDD (Major Depressive Disorder) nine or ten years ago and going to many counseling sessions, I can say that I started dealing with this mental illness around nine years old.  Everyone thought that I was just melancholy and moody with a bad temper.  Turns out I was clinically depressed and I dealt with that in anger.  So, for a big chunk out of my life I was feeling things that I couldn't really understand or thought were abnormal.  I couldn't control my rage a lot of times and I now see those as times of depression.  I hated (still do) being sad and feeling out of control of my emotions, which is why I became angry so quickly.  I am a true Cancer - tough as nails on the outside but a mushy mess of emotions on the inside.  I'm very protective of my feelings and I hate it when they get hurt.

That defense mechanism worked well for me for a long time when that was all I saw it as.  I think I coped better before knowing I was clinically depressed.  That diagnosis breaks your perception of yourself.  I thought I was strong in every sense of the word but being depressed meant that I officially had moments of weakness and being irrational.  I didn't like that.  I still don't.  Yet, I tried to still be who I thought I should be for everyone else in my life that I cared about.  I depleted the very essence of myself in order to keep a smile on the faces of my family because they were better for it in the end.  In my gut I knew that I needed to express how tired and sad I felt but that would just be an inconvenience.  And I didn't want anyone making me feel like I'm weak or crazy, therefore, I tucked it away and pushed on and put my happy face on.

As the years wore on the ability to keep that charade going got more and more tedious and harder to sell.  And thanks to that wonderful nurse manager in the PCU at Long Island Jewish who spoke about me to the nurse assistant as if I weren't in the room after my suicide attempt, I became dead set on never being that vulnerable or made to feel like I needed a straight jacket ever again.  So, behind closed doors, I fought the depression monster for days at a time, barely making it out alive on some occasions.  I could have benefited from the rest and possible medication tweaking that an inpatient stay would provide, but I was afraid of the stigma of being called crazy or weak.  Learning how to cope with pain at such a young age wound up being a disadvantage because I cope through pain unnecessarily and without help.

Right now, I am saying that I'm tired.  I don't want to nor desire to battle it out with my illness.  I've been going non-stop for over twenty years and I ran out of steam years ago; going on fumes that really haven't gotten me anywhere.  I always give my psychiatrist and counselor the impression that I'm a little better than I really am; more so because I want to believe that I am.  I just wish that I didn't have that fear of being called crazy.  But what's the purpose of writing about it now?  I want everyone to know that my daily life is very hard.  I can barely find things about myself or life that makes me happy.  I am angry every day because I'm so depressed.  I am depressed because I have to struggle so much.  I struggle with having to fight chronic pain for the rest of my life.

I've kept all of this to myself because I'm protecting those I love from having to know or witness my depression.  I never truly benefit from doing this and at this point I can't anymore.  I am extremely depressed - for being disabled by pain; being a burden; feeling guilty; feeling inadequate.  For being stuck with three invisible illnesses that all bring their own stigmas to the table.  That's nothing to be cheering about.  It sucks and nothing about it is easy.  I have more bad days than good.  My good day this week?  Making a slamming raspberry green iced tea.  I felt good about that and only that.  The rest is a blurred cacophony of emotions.  Everything became way too much a long time ago.  Enough is enough.

Female migraine sufferers have different brain features than males; Research