My name is Maggie, I am 24 years old and I’ve been living with hemiplegic migraine since I was 8 years old. I would have headaches 4 out of 7 days a week. For most of my life, people have told me I’m lazy, unreliable, or making it up for attention. In school, my teachers would say I was going to fail and my friends thought I was flaky.
When I got older, I’d get yelled at for not being able to work or for having to go home. They would say that having a migraine was no excuse to leave work or call in sick. I was written up at multiple jobs because of my migraines. My coworkers would also make fun of me, call me a liar, and they’d laugh as if hemiplegic migraine were some kind of joke to them.
The only people who believed me were my family. They were always there to pick up the pieces, helped me see the brighter side of things, and helped me see the hope that every day brings. They also helped me find the beauty that I couldn’t see in my broken self.
