Trying to save the world, in your own particular way, is very important. But the world will not save you. From All in My Head

In general, headache sufferers are worse off than people who have arthritis, roughly similar to those who have congestive heart failure severe enough to interfere with walking up and down stairs and only slightly better than people with AIDS… From All in My Head

With headaches, you’re alienated from yourself because your pain is so bad, and you don’t want to be there. At the same time, you’re alienated from everybody else because you have headaches: “I don’t want to go and be with people.” If I’m on meds, then I’m kind of spacey and can’t quite communicate my […]

Thernstrom described chronic pain as “a pathology of the nervous system that produces abnormal changes in the brain and spinal cord,” meanwhile basically sucking up feel-good seratonin and leading to chemically induced depression and anxiety. From All in My Head

“I didn’t want to kill myself, but I wanted to die.” Dying sounded fine, just for a little while at least, to get some relief – but suicide was too drastic. After all, the desire for self destruction and the desire of wanting pain to end can be two different things. From All in My […]

“I am having a bad day,” she wrote me. “I realize that the past three years have been totally lost and the past ten years have been straight from hell. It seems like the smallest things throw me into disequilibrium. I am very depressed and exhausted.” From All in My Head

“The idea that I can make my body do anything I really want it to do, such as making the pain go away completely, is a form of the myth of control, a childish belief in the omnipotence of what I want…” …. In reality, there are limits to how the mind can influence pain, […]