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Migraines and other remedies for my brain.

January 17, 2023 By danabowmancreative Leave a Comment

There are times when my brain tells me it’s time to head out.

It’s a stilted conversation because often I am in another room, picking socks up off the floor. Or there’s spawn asking me where the snacks are, and if we could just eat bacon for dinner (just… bacon. nothing else) and I tend to just crane my neck and make quick eye contact with my brain in that “I’ll get to you in a min” look. I use that look also for things like:

  1. People who call me instead of texting. I don’t understand.
  2. Small repairs in my house that would take literally like 4 minutes but won’t get done until we move.
  3. My husband. Always the husband. It’s a mutual understanding.
  4. Kale.

My brain, after a bit of this, tends to hunker down into a place of mild disassociation that is pleasant and yet also ominous but that’s how I like to live my life I guess.

And then finally… my brain shrugs and says, “Well. I think it’s time for a migraine” and whammo. I finally decide to listen.

Except now I can’t listen because when I have a migraine listening (or seeing. or talking) is not available to me. They are faraway skills that are packed up in a red haze that is migraining.

In third grade, we had terrariums of hermit crabs in our classroom and one time I was trying to bond with my hermit crab, and I picked it up in my palm and its response to this was to pinch down on the skin between my thumb and forefinger. It would not let go. It did not want to bond. It wanted to sever some arteries.

We poured water on it and tapped its shell and I stared at it with growing panic as I realized the hermit crab and I were now one. I was too freaked out to process anything except that it hurt and my friends finally gave up and I just sat down, attached, and terrified. That’s kinda how it feels when I migraine comes.

That’s kind of a lousy analogy because migraines hurt more than Hermie did.

There are times in my life (kinda all the time) where I get super busy, with all sorts of deadlines and to-do lists and lots of stuff going on, and for the most part I’m ok. But sometimes I forget one small fact: My brain has feelings too. I can pack it all full of information and responsibilities and not forgetting to buy creamer at the store, but once in a while it wants to talk about its feelings. I think it wants to sit outside with me on the back stoop and say things like,

“What if I can’t do all this stuff very well at all?”

“What if this is all there is? These lists? The creamer? Forgetting the creamer?”

“Is time always going to be an opponent now? And when did that happen? I don’t remember what it was like before.”

“What if… What if I’m not good enough?”

Ignoring these conversations results in me having to sleep with four pillows on my head. So, when I finally can come up for air, post-migraine, God says things like, “Perhaps you should take a few things off that list, Dana. And also, I think bacon, and only bacon, for dinner sounds delicious. Vegetables can wait. And if they get slimy it’s the circle of life.”

Will I learn from this? Probably not. It’s the circle of life. I’ll manage myself, do the healthy things, make sure to get a run in, and get proper rest and do creative things… and then I’ll forget all that and get too busy and my brain and I will grow apart. Maybe writing about it here will help set a place for this. Maybe.

But what I can do is what I managed the morning after the migraine where I walked, a bit wobbly, down the hall to get a drink of water and look in the mirror. Hair wisping out on all sides. Eyes squinty. My head felt like a glass ornament and I held it very carefully on my shoulders. I looked at my reflection, all wobbly and fragile, and I took a breath. And I thought (or God thought in me):

“You are enough.”

Filed Under: creativity, depression and anxiety, mental health, parenting, recovery, sober mom, sobriety, wellness, women in recovery, writing Tagged With: aging, mental disability, migraines, mom life, moms, overwhelm, sober mom, stress

How I tried to fix my brain and my elbows and my neck, at the same time. Anatomy lessons with Dana.

December 12, 2022 By danabowmancreative Leave a Comment

As Norah Ephron said: I feel bad about my neck.

I have always hated my neck. Even when I was in high school, and I was tiny and could get up from a chair without making a soft groaning sound with absolutely no real appreciation for it – I hated my neck. I have a soft little jawline. It is cute and soft, like a kitten, and if I weighed 80 pounds (not recommended) I would still have a kitten for a neck.

And now, as a woman of a certain age, it has become more like two kittens and perhaps a turkey under there. Because I am somewhat sad about this, I recently looked up “what to do about my neck” which offered a whole LOT of options, but mainly they all suggested sucking my neck out of my neck.

This seems a bit excessive.

Micro-needling seemed… less awful? I mean… it’s just a bunch of teeny tiny needles stuck in my neck. So, that’s fine. Totally fine. Evidently the whole premise of micro-needling besides being really pokey, is that it injures the skin, which causes it to heal… better?? I guess?

And THAT means.. if you break something, sometimes the healing process makes it STRONGER.

I have a hard time with this because, generally, my children break stuff in my life. And the broken stuff is valuable, lovely, fragile and usually highly sentimental. Children are good at targeting stuff like that. And fixing these items involves super glue. And THAT means I get glue all over my fingers and the final product looks like a second grade art project.* But I do feel, after the glue is thoroughly applied to my fingertips, that I could perhaps go rob a large bank and no one would be able to identify me because I don’t have fingerprints anymore. I’m a ghost.*waggles fingers in mysterious criminal way*

(Welcome to my brain, people.)

So: I am now going to swerve from minimally invasive facial procedures to writing. Because that is how the Dana do.

I have had, in the past few months, a lot of broken brain moments. I multi-task. I start something and then get up and walk around and start something else. Most of my writing moments have lasted about ten minutes and then I’m off trying to research microneedling. I sputter and idle and stop. I start, but with a lot of grinding of the gears first. I stare off into space with such blankness that I compete with cows.

My brain is tangled, ya’ll.

And as the decline into using cars and cow metaphors for my poor tired synapses increases, I just felt like I had no real choice in the matter. That “frazzled Dana” would be the New Dana and I just had to accept it.

Like New Coke, I was doomed.

I DON’T LIKE BEING DOOMED.

This blog post will be Part One of what I figure out to help my poor little brain get stronger. I’m not attempting a click-baity situation where at the end of the blog I’m just about to tell you something huge and I end it a major cliffhanger. We’re not Game of Thrones here. That would be interesting, wouldn’t it? If I threw in a lot of dragons and really dark scenery and icky “me too” moments all over the place. Weird.

Anyhow. The main takeaway today is that my brain, much like my body when I started running again, can get stronger. And here is the first thing I am trying to do to help it:

I’m going to break it a bit. To make it stronger. (If you are as thrilled as I am that I finally made my point here, I salute you.)

Ya’ll. This is hard. I am a mom, first of all. Multi-tasking is our survival skill. All moms know what it’s like to hold a baby and kick the washer door shut and press START with their elbow while getting a snack for the toddler with the other elbow and with a third elbow letting the dogs out. Multi-tasking really leans on the elbows of life, evidently. I am so glad I have them. Thank you, elbows.

But for now? I am going to let you go, elbows. For the sake of my brain. And this post really has some issues with basic anatomy.

I must admit I have really no idea how to do this. But as I walk through it, my newly-retired elbows and I will share more. I think it means I need to accept that this is going to be hard and it might involve some breaking. Some mess. But maybe picking up the pieces will mean a stronger Dana brain.

So, for now? Thank you for sticking with me. Single-tasking is not easy but at least it doesn’t involve needles?

*Second graders: YOUR art projects are always adorable and lovely. I have my son’s purple lopsided pottery dish that resembles roadkill turtle on my bedside table and I adore it. FYI. I’m just saying that as you get older, you kind of want to level up from roadkill turtle, ok? But I’m NOT saying your artwork is any less precious because… oh argh you know what I mean.

I think we’re safe. No second graders read my blog.

Before I go:

  1. There are all sorts of links in my blog posts now. These links help my blog to gain traction, and so if you are inclined, you might click on them. They mostly point back to my writing, some of which is pretty funny, and I also promise they are not going to be links to squirrels re-enacting scenes from Game of Thrones (Which, come to find out, is AWESOME). Geert Weggen, the creator of this squirrel amazing-ness, is found here, and you should really go check him out.)
https://geertweggen.com

2.If you would like some researched and curated quick tips on this topic and more creative hacks, join me for Pie and Coffee: 3 Habits, 2 Helps, and 1 bit ‘o Hope, free of charge. Sign up below!

I like pie
And as always: Eat dessert first. No elbows on the table.

Filed Under: creativity, depression and anxiety, mental health, parenting, recovery, sober mom, sobriety, wellness, women in recovery, writing Tagged With: brain, brain hacks, brain science, mental health help, multi-tasking, overwhelm, overwhelmed moms, productivity, single-tasking, stress, stressed mom

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