Migraine awareness day 11 challenge
Living with Migraine or other headache disorders, have you ever felt alone, lacking purpose or direction? Finding a place in this world when you have Migraine, Cluster, or other debilitating headache disorder can be difficult. Our heads don’t always cooperate with our dreams. Others misunderstand us, making assumptions about our abilities and motives. Have you found your place in this world or are you still searching? Has someone else been the “light” that helped you find your way?
No, I have no found my place in the world. I struggle to try and function working at a part-time job because I couldn’t function at my career. And part-time is a struggle of presenteeism (There but not functioning) and absenteeism (unable to work due to symptom severity).
And I wonder if there is any niche out there that would work for me. With flexibility and the income I need to survive. My doc suggests that once these vestiublar symptoms subside enough I may be able to work short, minimal hour at home. It would be the ideal of course, and I understand why she recommends it. I can’t work for long before the symptoms get worse, the pain gets worse, it affects my depression adversely, and without the vertigo getting worse until I am non-functional with it. That is what she wants. I just want to be financially stable and have some treatment do Something so I can be.
But work at home… haven’t seen anywhere I would fit with the skills I have. I don’t have the skills needed. Not without re-training.
The skills I have outside of work are all writing-related; blogging, fiction writing, and occasionally freelance. If I could make a sustainable income with these it would be wonderful. But that isn’t likely to happen unless a lot of people buy my books and rates them. Writing my fiction is really hard lately due to the cognitive problems with the vertigo. That hazy brain can’t really keep track with the story. And my eye problems make it impossible to read through and edit my work. But I try during my short peak of functionality to write a little amount on days where I am not sick on the severe level yet in the day.
I just wish there was a niche out there where I would fit in perfectly. And survive. And thrive. And help me sustain myself financially.
My purpose seems to be to suffer relentless while insurance and work want me to suffer more. Is my purpose to just suffer? Sometimes I think that.
My self-worth tanked over the years by failing at work, over and over. Now I am very cautious in what I do because I feel everything I do is wrong.
I have goals and ambitions. Always have. But now I have no idea how to attain goal or be ambitious. I want a goal I can achieve. I want to find sustainable work I can do.
With working, and the pain, and depression has given me a low self-esteem. And I feel like I am worthless and can’t do anything. I’m afraid to try things… because of all the failures in the past haunt me.
But I am more than my inability to function at work
I find a sense or purpose with this blog and raising awareness. It is important to me.
I find a sense of purpose in my fantasy fiction books and my humor book. My writing is my passion.
These things, while difficult at the moment due to vestibular symptoms making me spacy and my eyesight being so wonky. But I know the symptoms will abate eventually.
In the future, I am going to have to find another purpose. If I re-train there are jobs I can do from home. But I have no money for that or to support myself while I do. Especially since I am getting zero from work and insurance. Just paying bills is impossible right now and I need assistance from my mom to live.
And we all have to understand our worth isn’t in how much we make. Work isn’t our identity. And we all struggle when it is impossible to do. Financially struggle. Mentally struggle. We have to create a new sense of self by doing things important to us, while staying in our limits.
Read more:
The half-life of chronic illness
chronic illness: asking for help
This is something I really struggle with
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Me too
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Great post! Thank you for sharing your story. I love that all of your posts come straight from the heart!
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Thank you!
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I relate Nikki, if only I could do part-time work, without having to call in sick, work through the pain, the headaches, and actually be productive, it just doesn’t work, you never know what day you will have brain fog, nausea, a high pain day, it seems like the good days are far less than the bad.
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It is very difficult to cope with. And I am sick of trying to prove I am disabled by the pain and symptoms
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