Posted by Bill McCuistion (198.64.206.92) on September 29, 1999 at 03:20:04:
My brain has wiped much of the memory of the pain of CH away. I found an old journal I used in a prior bout. That, and postings on this website, have caused me to wonder to what extent others block prior pain from memory and whether that should be classified as part of the disease? For me, I go through this denial phase, hoping that it will only be a tension headache. I don't like pain. I don't like to think about pain.
I have a friend who was raped continously by her father as a child. She had his child. She has no childhood memories as the result. I feel beaten by these headaches. I fear sleep because they will come in the night and I will be in the middle of a brutal attack by a pain I have come to have an intimate relationship with. I found a shoebox full of empty old-style Imitrex syringes in it. Hundreds perhaps. I can't remember with sufficient force what it was like or what I did to survive. Today I am stressing-out about my memory collapsing to a span of only a few hours or days. I am having trouble maintaining my life: it is becoming unmanagable. I suspect that this is some form of denial which allows me to function outside of the cluster-world.
Is it normal for cluster-survivors to have no (or only partial) memory of the accute attacks or of episodic-bouts? This disease is insidious: it leaves no visible marks, like a torturer who uses a rubber mallet.
BTW -- DJ, Kudos for the community meeting place.