A Headache

Besides a few teasers of reprieve, I had a migraine most of Wednesday and some of Thursday. Just a migraine, yes, but it sucked, as might be expected of a debilitating headache.

My reaction to it certainly didn’t help matters at all. My tendency, especially over the last few months, is to jump to unproductive conclusions whenever I encounter what I perceive to be a bump in my recovery. It’s incredible, in fact, how quickly my brain brings me back to a place of “I’m gonna die!” instead of letting a migraine be a migraine or nausea be nausea or whatever.

One of my medical professionals recently suggested that I’ve been experiencing health anxiety. I instinctively bristled at the idea. Upon further reflection and obsessive research, though, I reluctantly concluded that she’s right. Now that I’m doing better and am able to process what happened last year, I’ve become so, so afraid of backsliding. It’s a terrifying thought. Also an understandable one, I’d say.

Since I’m seemingly unable to entirely rein in my catastrophic thinking, I’ve been working hard to use it for good, particularly when it revolves around something that I have any power to control. The plus side of this kind of anxiety is that it reaffirms and reinforces what my values and priorities are and pushes me to make even more of a habit of combatting panic with concrete action rather than interpreting little blips as evidence that all efforts to achieve and maintain good health are futile. The chasm between what I want/need in order to move forward and what the worst parts of my brain demand of me narrows every single time I do the objectively right thing. Microdecisions add up. It’s a headache, but it’s just that—a headache.