Blogger’s Pick

Today’s Prompt: Choose your favorite blog post from any of this month’s prompts from someone else’s blog to share with us, and tell us why it’s your favorite.

Accepting this blogging challenge is one of the more difficult things I have done. I don’t have a problem with writing or finding things to say. Those who know me would never describe me as someone at a loss for words. I’m opinionated and passionate, sometimes to a fault. There were 2 issues that made this most challenging:

Feeling “on display”

I couldn’t shake the realization that every word I typed would be available for anyone in the world to read. Publishing on the Internet is the ultimate disclosure, available to billions of people. Accepting this challenge meant that some of my worst days would be available for all to see. Having a prompt for each day was very helpful as it gave me something specific to focus on, especially on each of the 14 days this month I experienced some level of migraine pain. I constantly wondered if my emotions leached through my writing and exposed more than I intended to share. Did my posts reveal the week of anxiety in anticipation of meeting a new neurologist? What about the four days of on-again, off-again migraine attacks? What about the sadness and hopelessness that some of the topics triggered? Did I really want the world to see all of that? I began to feel like Katniss in the arena! (Hunger Games reference). Then the biggest fear of all would roll over me like a quiet mist… What if clients or potential clients read these posts? Would it help or hurt? Could I handle knowing that anyone and everyone could see a month-in-the-life of me?

Worry that I was annoying people with my Facebook and Twitter posts

Part of the challenge encouraged us to use social media to promote our blog posts. That meant that family members, lifelong friends, and even some colleagues would get daily posts from me about Migraines. The challenge itself required the “spoons” I would normally use to stay in contact with them about other things that are far more enjoyable that talking about pain. When my Facebook timeline filled with post after post of migraine, migraine, migraine would my friends “hide” my posts because they just couldn’t take reading one more thing about my “troubles”?

So what does all of this have to do with choosing a favorite post? There are so many great posts that it was difficult to choose just one. But this one stands out because it reminded me of a concept that so eloquently describes my life. It gave me back an accurate description that I can use every day to cope. My “worries” and my waning self-confidence got just the “booster shot” it needed after reading a certain post a few days ago.

Emily Guzan, publisher of That M Word, THANK YOU for your amazing post on June 26th. The prompt for the day encouraged us to write about what we think your family, friends, and others think a day in life, a day with Migraine disease is like. She shared this beautiful post about Spoon Theory.

…and that is exactly the point of this challenge. We all did this so that we could tell the world what it is like to live with Migraines in the hope that our words would encourage others.

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation.
The Blogger’s Challenge is initiated by www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com.