Last night and this morning I had the worst headache I've probably had in ten years. I used to get really bad and frequent ones in my late 20s and 30s. I saw an acupuncturist back then and he felt pretty strongly my headaches tied in to the amenorrhea I was experiencing at that point in my life.
It did seem like once I started getting my period regularly I didn't have bad headaches anymore and for the most part I've been so fortunate to not have them as often.
But now that I'm entering menopause I find my headaches are returning, though none of them have been as horrible as my most recent one.
It was as if someone had punched me in the right eye socket with a sledgehammer and the accompanying tightness in my head and my nausea didn't help. I must sound so melodramatic but I really thought of the possibility I might be dying.
I suddenly remembered an old issue of Good Housekeeping from my childhood where the writer of an article on migraines said she sometimes thought of getting out her gun and just shooting herself in the head to be over the pain. I didn't get it at the time, even thought it sounded like the writer might be dangerous.
But anyone who has ever had a migraine or other type of headache of that intensity most likely would tell you they do get it.
Once I started feeling better this morning I remembered that Good Housekeeping used to have lots of articles like that back in the day. The magazine featured a regular column called "My Problem and How I Solved It." I used to 'borrow' my mom's issues back then just to read it each month.
The one about the lady with headaches and another column stood out in my mind for years afterward. The second article had to do with this woman discovering her daughter was sleeping with her boyfriend (the daughter's boyfriend, not the mother's, just in cause my headache aftermath is making my writing a bit unclear).
"Sleeping with?" I didn't get it.
But then I think I was around nine at the time. I asked my mom, despite wanting to keep my reading habits secret. I'll never forget her answer and how later on it would be a perfect example of why I went into "family life" in middle school knowing absolutely nothing about sex and puberty.
"That just means she was napping with her friend who was a boy." my mom told me. And I completely believed her.
No wonder I still spell S-E-X when talking about it with polite company and, sometimes, even close friends.
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