🌧 The Storm Inside My Head

Living, Working, and Smiling Through 24 Years of Migraine

I’ve learned to smile while my inner world shatters. Life doesn’t stop for migraines — and neither do I.

💔 Beyond a “Simple Headache”

People often think a migraine is just a bad headache. It’s not. It’s a full-body neurological phenomenon — a temporary rewiring of the brain that alters sight, sound, smell, movement, mood, and even identity.
For me, migraine has been a long-term companion — 24 years of silent battles. The last decade has been particularly cruel, with weekly episodes, each unfolding in distinct stages.
I’ve learned to keep going even when my vision fractures, when my speech fails, when the world flickers and spins. Because if I stopped every time my body warned me, I’d never move again.

What Migraine Really Is

• A neurological storm — not “just a headache.”
• Triggered by abnormal brain activity and changes in blood flow.
• It affects every sense, not just pain pathways.
• It can have phases: Prodrome → Aura → Headache → Postdrome (the “migraine hangover”).

💡 Pain is only one part. The other parts — the invisible ones — can be far more frightening.

🌫 The Silent Prelude: Aura and Prodrome — The Early Stages of the Storm

Before the pain comes the warning.

• Aura: appears 5–60 minutes before pain. A neurological “glitch” that distorts sight, touch, language, and motion.
• Prodrome: appears 1–3 days earlier. A whisper from the brain that something’s shifting.
  I often experience both — subtle signs first, then unmistakable ones.
  By the time the aura arrives, I already know the migraine is on its way.

👁 Visual & Retinal Auras

When the World Starts to Flicker
My first signal is often light. Zigzag lines. Flashing specks. A shimmering fog that swallows edges.

Did you know?

• A visual aura affects both eyes — caused by the brain’s visual cortex.
• A retinal aura affects one eye — from reduced blood flow to the retina.
  Sometimes both strike at once: the world bends and blurs, one side fades into gray, and I see shadows darting like invisible flies.
  That’s my cue to take medicine. Fast.

🌡 Sensory & Physical Auras

When Your Body Stops Feeling Like Yours Tingling. Numbness. Skin that feels wrong. Sometimes my skin shrinks, suffocating me like a too-tight suit I can’t take off. Other times, shockwaves ripple through my body — electric pulses that make goosebumps sting.
Then comes one of two endings: either unbearable tightness again, or an emotional flood — tears, sensitivity, empathy, as if my nerves are crying.
Sometimes there’s an invisible crown of pressure tightening around my skull.
It’s not yet pain — just warning.
And occasionally, the world shifts into Alice in Wonderland syndrome — I feel tiny inside myself, detached, watching my body move from far away.

🧠 Speech & Language Auras

When Words Betray You During these, my brain and mouth forget how to cooperate. I know what I want to say — but words vanish, tangle, or come out in the wrong language.
My brain isn’t braining, and my mouth isn’t connected to my brain.
It’s not just confusion; it’s a complete disconnection.
I’ve had moments where I couldn’t speak any of my languages. My vocabulary evaporated, replaced by silence.

⚡ Motor Aura (Hemiplegic Migraine)

When the Body Forgets Itself This one mimics a stroke. My hand opens involuntarily, dropping what it holds. My brain still feels the object even as it hits the floor. My leg feels heavy, my face slackens, words slur.
The first time, I panicked. Now I recognize it — but knowing doesn’t make it less terrifying.
Hemiplegic episodes can last minutes or hours. Afterwards, I feel drained, as if only half of me survived.

⚠ If you ever experience these symptoms suddenly, seek emergency care first. Stroke and hemiplegic migraine can look identical — and it’s always better to rule out danger.

🎢 Brainstem Auras

The Spinning Gravity Vertigo. Double vision. Tinnitus.
My coordination disappears — my feet forget where the ground is.
When paired with speech aura, I look perfectly fine but can barely form words. I’ve seen the puzzled looks — as if people think I’m drunk. I’m not. I’m dizzy from a brain that has lost its balance.

👃Olfactory Auras

The Scents That Aren’t Real
Sometimes I smell things that don’t exist — burning wood, perfume, smoke. And sometimes, something far more haunting — the smell of cancer. It’s the scent I remember from my grandmother as breast cancer consumed her — metallic, rotting, human. When it appears in an aura, it’s as if grief returns through my nose.
Other times, real scents become unbearable — cleaning sprays, air fresheners, car exhaust.
It’s not just sensitivity — it’s distortion.
The smell is the aura, the trigger, or both.

💧 The Prodrome

The Whisper Before the Roar
This stage can last hours or days. It’s subtle, deceptive — a quiet rebellion within the brain.
🧠 Cognitive & Emotional

• Brain fog and forgetfulness
• Word-finding difficulty
• Anxiety, irritability, or sudden euphoria
• Emotional hypersensitivity or detachment
  💪 Physical
• Crushing fatigue
• Endless yawning — the brain gasping for oxygen
• Water retention and puffiness
• Neck stiffness
• Light, sound, and smell sensitivity
• Nausea, bloating, and gut upset
• Hot flashes or chills
• Tingling in limbs
• Pressure in ears or head
• Clumsiness and imbalance
  🍫 Behavioral & Sensory
• Craving salt, sugar, or carbs — or total loss of appetite
• Restless energy and insomnia
• Metallic taste or dry mouth
• Visual dimming, a feeling of “gray world”
• Frequent urination or dehydration
  The prodrome is my brain whispering “brace yourself.” I might not hear it — but my body does.

🌧 When Everything Hits

Sometimes I wake with pain behind my eye or jaw. Sometimes it arrives mid-conversation, mid-sentence, mid-life.
My medication helps with the pain — but not always with the rest: the aura, the fog, the fatigue, the sensory chaos.
And sometimes, those are the hardest parts.

🌿 Living With It – Not Against It

Migraines have taught me endurance. Patience. Compassion. I’ve learned to listen to my body — to understand its strange Morse code of symptoms.
Yes, I’ve learned to smile while my inner world fractures. To live normally while my brain misfires.
Because if I waited for the pain to stop, I’d still be waiting.

🌻 Migraine isn’t weakness — it’s survival with electricity inside your skull.

Every day without pain is a small miracle.
And every person living with migraine deserves to be seen not as fragile, but as fiercely resilient.

💬 Share, Talk, Educate

If this sounds like you, you’re not alone. Let’s keep talking — because awareness grows when voices do.