I don’t know if this is the right place to write this, if not I’m sorry.

Hello everyone, I’m 22 and I’ve been having cluster headache since I was 13 years old. I recently discovered this wonderful site and wanted to share my story. It will be a very long read, I wanted to go through all the details hoping it will help others overcoming their demon.
This is the story about my personal war with the ‘Devil’ and how I came out victorious.
The Beginning:
At the age of 12 I became sick and was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma (some sort of an immunity cancer). I went through chemotherapy. I couldn’t go outside or do anything other than stay in my room so I don’t risk being infected. Only time I was outside was on my way to the hospital. If my friends wanted to see me they have to disinfect themselves with special sprays and wear special clothes.
I couldn’t go to school. I studied all the subjects by myself, and I passed all the exams successfully. All I was doing was reading a lot, watching TV and playing on my computer.
It all started one morning during my sickness, I was woken up by an extremely painful pain in my eye. It was like a burning sword cutting through the nerves behind my eye. I holded my head with my hands and started rolling on the floor screaming “My eye, my eye…”
I heard steps coming to the room. I didn’t want them to see me like this so I gathered some strength and jumped on the bed. The pain was so intense that I couldn’t stop screaming, I was crying, I had nausea, I couldn’t think, I couldn’t speak without screaming. My mom was watching helplessly trying to call a doctor. (The nearest hospital was 2 hours drive). By the time the doctor came, the pain was gone. I was lying at my bed, with no strength at all, thinking what the hell just happened.
The first thing the doctor said was “That was maybe a toothache, because I can see a bad tooth you have in your upper mouth”. I checked with a dentist and there was nothing wrong with my tooth.
An unknown creature appears
The beast was knocking on my door from time to time, and the pain was too much for me to handle. When I’m not in pain all I think about is when the next one is coming.
I checked with lots of doctors, they all said it was a normal migraine.
I had some members of my family with migraine. But when they have a headache I can clearly see that it was nothing like the pain I experienced. They can lay down and close their eyes and they will feel a little better. But me, no way I can lay down peacefully, I had to pull my hair, cry, scream, jump…
Others started to say things like:
“Stop doing a show, I know it hurts but it’s not that bad”
“Look at xxxxxxx, she has migraine and she can take it a lot better than you”
“You can’t handle some pain? There are men who die every day and you make a big deal out of a migraine?”
I’ve been called “weak”, “cry baby”, “crazy”, “spoiled”…….
The beast wins the first battle
I started thinking they were right. I believed that I am weak. Why can’t I handle a migraine like others do? Why can’t I just lay down and close my eyes when the pain comes? Why couldn’t I just be normal? Why me? Why can’t someone feel the pain I am feeling for just 5 minutes, enough for them to know what I deal with?
I tried different thing to forget the pain. But nothing worked. I even one time tried to burn a part of my body hoping that the pain from the burns will cover the pain in my eye. But I ended up with 2 pains instead of one and it was a stupid idea.
I thought it has to do with the chemotherapy. Maybe the medicines they are giving me are affecting my “pain handling mechanism”.
The hard thing was to deal with the pain AND with the chemotherapy effects (nausea, exhaustion, multiple body pains, normal headaches….)
My parents and some friends where supporting me. But I can tell that they have no idea what I’m going through. They know it is a strong headache but don’t realize that it is more than that. A lot more.
The only person that I felt truly understood my condition was (Believe it or not) my 2 years old sister. When the devil comes I make sure that I am in a room alone, I don’t want anyone to see me dancing. After the dance, I get out of the room, and when I look in her eyes, I can see that she truly KNOWS what I’ve been through. I can see the sadness deep within her. Just thinking that someone on this planet knows what I feel was giving me great support.
Unmasking the beast
The chemotherapy was a success, I survived the Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and results were successful. But the devil was long from gone. It was coming with a vengeance, stronger than ever. That’s where I knew it has nothing to do with the treatment.
I researched about migraines and headaches, and found out that the symptoms and pain do not match. At that point I KNEW it was not migraine. It was something else, and I have to find out what.
That idea gave me a little hope back. I’m not weak, I’m not crazy, and they just don’t know what I’m dealing with.
After visiting lots of doctors, going through endless scanners, IRM… I finally found a specialist who told me it was Cluster headache. After researching about it I finally found it. That was it, I had CH.
He gave me strong medications, with prednisone. The medications where helping a little with the pain (not everytime) but they where destroying my body. I had this nausea all the time, I was tired 24/7, I felt my body giving up. And so is my mind. I couldn’t go outside too much, just in case it comes back. All I had was my books, my video games, and some visits from my friends.
And above all that I have “supraventricular reentry tachycardia” which causes my heart to start beating very fast at random time.  And the worst thing about it is that when this happen the devil comes even if out of its schedule.
Dancing on the edge
To jump or not to jump? This is the question
School was a nightmare. I was good enough at school to pass exams without having to study a lot, but during classes if the devil come I had to go to the bathrooms and lock myself for 2 hours. I received lots of punishments from teachers for that. They thought I was taking drugs, some of them thought I was playing a comedy to skip classes, some of them thought I was crazy. Because of my good grades and history of good behavior, the school principal did not take any measurement against me. She just gave me warnings.
At home, I was lying to my parents. I told them that the attacks come only once every two days and for a short period of time. In fact it came everyday and for a long time, but I didn’t want them to watch helplessly every day. It just makes things worst. So when I have an attack that they didn’t know about I was locking myself in the room, trying not to scream or make sounds. They thought I was asleep or playing some game on my computer.
There were some pain free months. During those months I felt normal again. I could play outside, go to friends, and just get some of my life back. But most of it I was spending it in fear of the next month, fear of the pain, fear of the devil coming again.
I watched other complaining about small problems in their life. I was angry at them. How can’t they realize that they are so lucky? Don’t they understand that I would love having one thousand of their problems, if I can just not feel pain for one day? Can’t they realize what a beautiful life they have? And if they do, will they still complain about useless stuff?
I blamed god, I blamed the doctors, I blamed science I blame everybody. I was angry at everything, It was a very hard time for me. I was ready to give up. F*** it, I’m not dealing with it anymore.
A new hope
Then one day, as I was coming home from school when I saw a mother cat carrying 2 of her babies through the snow on 3 legs (she couldn’t walk on the fourth leg for some reason), I felt sorry for her tried to help but she was scared so decided not to come closer. That same day I was watching a documentary on TV and I saw a small poor African girl (by the age of 14 or so) giving all the small piece of bread she had to her baby brother without eating any herself.
That’s when it struck me, Harder than a lightning bolt, stronger than a truck:
Instead of saying: “why me? why me?” I should say: “WHY NOT? WHY NOT ME?”
Can I imagine that little girl, on top of having to provide a tiny piece of bread to her brother while she starves to death, had CH? Now THAT is hell. What if that cat has it? How can she take care of her childs?
Why not me? I have everything. I have a family, a warm house, all the food I can eat, Excellent friends, games, no responsibility….. 
What if I was “chosen” to fight the devil, because I can? What if nature chose me instead of that poor girl or that cat because I am able to fight it and they cannot? What if I have the power to do it, and I was just wasting all this time being angry?
I jumped from my seat, went in front of the mirror, and said those exact words: “Hey mr. devil, I declare the war on you, and you better be ready because I just formed a huge army and YOU ARE GOING DOWN.”
First Resistance
The next day I woke up, I was ready. It was the first time in my life that I wanted the attack to come, I wanted to start the fight, I wanted to give the devil the biggest surprise of his life. I was ready, “BRING IT ON”
Two hours later as usual, it started, the devil sent his army, his airstrike, his tanks, his soldiers everything… I focused and started imagining I was a supersoldier with a huge laser gun and I was running in the field, dodging the bullets, destroying the tanks. I received some hits, but I stood up laughing and saying “Is that the best you got? HAHAHA”. After 20 minutes of destroying tanks, aircrafts, killing soldiers. It stopped. I just stood there in the room a little exhausted (from all the jumping on the bed and throwing pillows) wondering what just happened.
I won that fight. I defeated his armies.
That attack passed too fast, and with all that battle and imagination, I did not feel it. It passed without noticing it and it passed faster (20 minute instead of hours).
Victory
I was never as happy as I was that day. I had my first victory. I won the battle but I did not win the war. I knew the devil will come back with a vengeance, but I was more ready for it than ever.
That month was the craziest month of my life, on every attack I did a new scenario and fight it. I also enjoyed some attack.
After that the attacks became less and less frequent and more supportable. I even did an exam through it and was fine.
I don’t know if fighting it was the reason of the improvement or I did something, but what I know, it has became something normal in my life ( by normal I mean I got used to it and it stopped controlling my life)
I stopped thinking about it all the day, I stopped fearing it, I stopped giving it importance in my life. When it comes, it comes. I don't care about it, I carry on doing the thing I am doing normally. Some attacks are strong, I just excuse myself out of the room go to a private place hold my head and focus on something else (mostly on video games or movies I just played) and the strong part of it just fade out in 5 minutes leaving a normal pain which I can support and even sometimes ignore.
I was asked by a doctor to come to a hospital to talk to 2 of his CH patients. That made me very happy to give them hope when they saw me now. For the first time of my life I felt like I’m doing something good.
  Life goes on
It has been two years since my last attack (the longest CH free time). I don’t know how long this peace will continue but I am ready for it. I am happier than ever, I graduate from college this year (Telecom and computer engineer), I have a very good job, I bought a car, and I still play lots and lots of video games.
I go to hospitals from time to time to talk to sick kids and give them some hope (mostly because I survived the Hodgkin's lymphoma, I tell them about CH and how It affected my life. Their smiles make me very happy.
CH was a very important part of my life. Because of it, I am now very optimistic, I see every glass of water half full, I love life, I am very patient, I can handle lots of pain (small sickness or normal headaches are now like a walk to a park) I never ever get angry at life anymore (of course some things still makes me angry, like having a bad teammate in a video game or my favorite basketball team losing by 1 point .lol)

If you are still reading, I thank you. I wrote this in one go, so sorry for mistakes.
I just wanted to leave this here in case it might interest anyone. If no one was interested, well at least I had fun writing it (I even had some tears in my eyes while remembering the whole thing)
I am very happy to give support for anyone who needs it.
And remember: “What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger”

Stay strong CHers don’t let the beast win because you are always stronger

Best of luck
Youssef