Migraine, Headaches, and Support (poll results)

Having people around you who are supportive – even one person – can make an incredible difference. Recently we ran a poll to find out about the closest person in your life – just how supportive are they?

First of all, for about 9% of you, the closest person is someone who is not only very supportive, but also has the same condition. But let’s leave those aside for the moment, and look at the rest.

Actually, I was happy to hear how many of you have a very supportive person close to you. 13% just raved about the amazing support, another 11% also incredibly supportive, and then 13% very supportive – getting us to 37%, plus those with the same condition, getting us to 46% who are very supportive to varying degrees.

But that is less than half. What’s next? Another 10% have at least taken some time to understand. So that gets us to 56% of friends/family who are at least pro-active.

Next are those who are at least aware that you get headaches/migraine attacks – 35%. Another 5% are only vaguely aware.

Finally, 6% reported that the closest person to them didn’t even know that they had headache/migraine attacks!

So I’m glad to see that many of you have friends and family who are extremely supportive. But really, that’s only half of you. For the other half, the closest person to you has either done very little to try to understand, or – let’s face it – you haven’t shared much!

I realize there are a lot of reasons why this might be. But we need to be pro-active ourselves to make sure that we have people very close to use who know what our struggles are. If it isn’t going to be the person closest to you, look to others who are close to you. Find someone you can talk to, and actually sit down with them this weekend and have the conversation. If you have to, tell them your friend James said it was important for your health. 😀

Let’s get the percentage up to 75% – then to 100% – so that we all have a person close to us who is very supportive. And remember – we need to be supportive of others too!

Here are some inspiring notes from people who do have a supportive friend/family member. And here are some ideas about how faith communities and others can be supportive.