After a brief period of being migraine-free, I graduated from college and moved back home. I accepted a job at a school in Woodlawn, MD in 2017. As soon as I started up with this job, the migraines started again.
I spent two years teaching in Woodlawn. The school had no walls – there were cabinets to separate the “rooms” from being one giant pod. I loved teaching and loved my kids, but this was not the right environment for me. The migraines returned to daily.
As a first year teacher, most of the students wanted to help me in any way and show me the way things worked at the school. Others found entertainment in my confusion or slip ups. Some of the students fed me false information to make me look stupid. One stabbed my friend in the hand with a pair of scissors. At one point when I had to break up a fight, I was dumb and wearing sandals, and one of my toenails got kicked clean off. I had to walk away to stop myself from crying and another teacher took over. I was often worried about one of the students hurting me in some way. I felt hopeless as these children would be returned to class directly after an incident.
The auras started back up and I had one in the first week of school. I had to leave early on the third day. My father had to pick me up. After this, I lost track of the details of each aura, but I had 8 within the span of 2 years. They ranged in strength, but most required me to sleep afterwards due to extreme light sensitivity. I usually felt off for a few days, but still went in to work.
During this time, I had been living with my ex. He lived 15 minutes from the school. In February 2019, we broke up and I moved all of my stuff into my moms house, which she was getting ready to sell. I stayed there until July 2nd, when the house went to the new owners. At that point, I started staying at my dad’s house in my brother’s room, went on vacation, and stayed at the house of the guy I started seeing shortly after. I got my medical card in August. At this time, migraines were still daily.
At the end of August, I moved into an apartment with a friend of over 10 years. Her SSN was “on lock after a fraud incident”, so I signed the lease on my own and she vowed she would get her name on there as soon as it cleared. We had gone to high school together. She helped me get a job at a special education school where she worked as an aide.
I moved in originally by myself since I didn’t have an official home at the time. My roommate said she would move in two weeks later, but then asked if she could have keys to start dropping stuff off. I let her and I shouldn’t have. She moved in completely without paying the first month’s rent that I had paid in full. When splitting payments on things, she ended up racking up $800 that she didn’t pay back for over 8 months. She was not understanding about my health issues and when my family came over the night before surgery on the nerves in the back of my head, she complained about them talking and being there long, though she knew I was about to have surgery.
She trashed the apartment with her cats and moved all of her stuff out, taking my mail with her. I had to take out a loan to cover the amount of rent that was left on our lease as COVID was not helpful in finding roommates. I eventually moved into another apartment.
All of these events caused an immense amount of stress on my body and mind. When living with my ex and living with my roommate, I was afraid to speak up about anything they said or did. When I did speak up about it, both of them would take it as an attack and instantly fire back about something unrelated, pinning the blame on me no matter what. I was always the one who was wrong. I shut down my mind for a good bit of time and had a lot of mental breakdowns. Once I was free from both of them, I was able to focus on my health without worrying about another person and their judgements.
If you read to the end, I appreciate you and your time. If you are in a situation where you feel like you are trapped, please reach out to someone. You should not have to live like I did, constantly in fear of the next blow-up. I would not even use the kitchen because I was afraid of her. Again, if you are in a similar situation, please reach out to someone. There is always another option than for you to live in misery.
Next time – I talk about my official diagnosis.
Bluntly Bookish in Baltimore 