Headache Poems and Art
My Head Hurts..
Submitted by Eric Linehan Children's Hospital Washington, D.C.
I point my finger to my head, tears streaking down from bloodshot green eyes softly proclaiming "My head hurts.." I was five years old.
I am the star of the longest running series ever. my episodes are daily, weekly...
a lifetime of mornings spent in dark showers and even darker bedrooms, apartments...
PLEASE DON'T TURN THE LIGHTS ON...
drenched pillows providing small comfort a cool sleep for hopes to wake pain free.
Mornings are worse.
Curled up on the floor of the bathroom... crying, jamming knuckles into temples death would less painful than this...
classes, dates, meetings, graduations, concerts.
PLEASE I HOPE THIS PILL WORKS THIS TIME...
Reprinted with permission from the author.
Headache Art
Migraines and headaches have been well represented in art since the 1800's. In fact, early drawings from the Egyptians indicated that treatment of headaches utilized herbs.
As depicted below, in the mid 1800's, headaches were depicted in advertising as demons of pain attacking the brain.

Source: Silberstein, Headaches.
Many artists suffer from migraine and other headaches. Christa Barnell has had headaches all her life and depicts her pain as being "stuck on a shelf", as if there is no hope and noone cares.
Behind the mask of happiness is the face of chronic pain, an excellent depiction of
invisible chronic illness.

Other artists depict the searing blast of pain that occurs with migraine and cluster headache as a lightening bolt striking the eye.


Some headache sufferers feel like they are "pill heads" after years and years of unsucessful treatments and multiple medications.

Still other artists feel as if a migraine is a storm going on inside their head.

I don't know about you, but at times my head has felt like it was "fractured" like this picture.

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