mstokes's blog

Mary Stokes

Bio 245

Professor Grobstein

December 15, 2008

The Depression Procession

Mary Stokes

Bio 245: Mental Health and the Brain

10 December 2008

Book Commentary: On Oliver Sacks’s Migraine, the Brain, and Mental Health

The Purposeful Migraine

In the essay "In Bed," Joan Didion writes:

"And once [migraine] comes, now that I am wise in its ways, I no longer fight it. I lie down and let it happen. At first every small apprehension is magnified, every anxiety a pounding terror. Then the pain comes, and I concentrate only on that. Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed yoga, the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria. I open the windows and feel the air, eat gratefully, sleep well. I notice the particular nature of a flower in a glass on the stair landing. I count my blessings." (1)