Posted by Phil on February 06, 1999 at 14:12:29:
Dear Mr. Andrea:
I was not going to post this letter and it is certainly against my better judgment. After all, why start another war? This is in regards to your post on 02/04/99, "Dear Anonymous". Could I//Should I have used better judgment? Yes!! This forum is most certainly about people helping people and about obtaining valuable information. I don't think though that you are a person to be reasoned with. To debate in a mature way, to agree to disagree, an exchange of idea's, etc. Why now? Because it's bothering me!! You state (among other things) that I was "juvenile" and trying to obtain attention. One of the biggest complaints here on the board among us "cluster heads" (thanks Barb)is a lack of understanding about our condition. Do you not understand depression? I was hoping that some one would say to me (before it was too late) "Hey Phil, your worth just a bit more than an old piece of garbage blowing across the highway". They did and am I ever so greatful. The support I received was overwhelming, perhaps 99.99%. Well, I did lose 1 correspondant. Your e-mail regarding the anti-depressants was very thoughtful and appreciated. However, I can't figure out why you posted such hateful things. Voo-doo doll? That was my attempt at humor, nothing more. If anyone is rolling their eyes over this you can be sure that before God and on the Bible I will NEVER talk about this again on the message board. I just wanted you to know how I feel. You really hurt my feelings. Can you understand that? Do our headaches not bring us closer together as human beings or at the very least bond us in some way? Would I change yesterday if I could? You bet!! Mr. Andrea, I'm not saying that you need me or my advice. I can only say that as a human being and a fellow sufferer I offer to help you in any way I can. I offer the same to every person who comes here. I will say it again as it is worth repeating. I have never, ever encountered people who have such compassion and unserstanding!! Total strangers reached out to me and gave me much needed support. I'm not asking to be friends just waving a white flag in your direction. I'm sorry if you felt that I created a soap opera. The embarressment and the shame that comes with depression (I felt) made it necessary to be anonymous. As a sufferer I'm even interested in accupuncture. This disease deserves to be looked at from every angle. Actually, my fingertips are numb right now. Not asking for sympathy, just saying that I might repeat a letter or two. No big deal. I had mentioned Dr. Oliver Sacks and referenced one of his patients. If any of you get to the book store I highly recommend his book "Migraine". The next time *I* have an attack I hope I can lessen *my* pain by thinking about this poor man who Dr. Sacks treated.
Case #81//(We are talking migraine here and not cluster. Still it is a very thought provoking story. If it helps even one of you then I will consider my efforts well worth the time. I hope that this also makes us all appreciate our freedom, access to medical care and the drugs both old and new alike that we have access to. Here goes//
Note//Dr. Sacks is from the UK verses the U.S so some of the spelling is UK.
This 55-year-old man had been a former inmate at Auschwitz. He has suffered about one attack of classical migraine a month from the age of 7 until his incarceration in Auschwitz. During his 6 years in the concentration camp-6 years during which his wife, parents and all other close relatives were killed-he did not experience a single attack of migraine. He was "liberated" by the Allies in 1945, and the following year emigrated to the United States. Since this time, he has been chronically depressed, guilt ridden, preoccipied with the deaths of all his relatives whom he feels he might have saved, and intermittently psychotic. During thid time he has also experienced 6 to 10 attacks of classical migraine each month, attacks which are refractory to treatment, and accompanied by the intensest suffering. He is also considerably "accident-prone," and during the two years that I saw him managed to sustain a Colles fracture, a fracture-dislocation of one ankle, and a head injury. Each of these injuries was followed by several weeks' of remission of his migraines. It is also of interest that on the three occasions in which he has been hospitalised for psychotic depression during the past 20 years, he was free from migraines.
Dr. Sacks Comments: This tragic case-history illustrates several points of interest. The exemption from migraine during his years in a concentration camp is a feature which has been described to me by several other patients: all forms of psychosomatic illness, and also frank psychosis, were apparently extremly rare in such conditions, presumably because they would have been lethally mal-adaptive. Since this time he has been frankly and greatly depressed, and fully conscious, constantly reit-erated, feelings of self-accusation and wishes for self-punishment. His
migraines gratify and reinforce such feelings, being sadistcally inflicted and masochistically suffered. Sometimes an "accident" will serve a similar function, and thus dispense for a while with the necessity of migraines. When his depression reaches psychotic intensity and he feels himself to be in the hell he deserves, his hallucinations and delusions similarly dispense with relatively inconsiderable migraines.
**End**
I in no way relate my life or my experiecnes to this Man, I only feel for him. I would like to know or to have known him. To have compassion for this Man relates to our condition and the need for us to stick together and fight the fight. Let's agree to AGREE!! Let's be here for one another. In our darkest hour and in our greatest pain.
To one and all, Thank you again so very much.
Warmest Regards to all!!//Phil Cornwell