Chronic Migraine Awareness

By Cat Charrett-Dykes

I often feel like the dad from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” You know the one—he asks people for a word and then somehow it all turns into a story about how it goes back to Greek. That is how I felt once again as part of our participation in this contest: everything I touched led back to migraine. Not because I wanted it to, but because migraine is already stitched into the way I experience the world. So when this season of America’s Favorite Couple from Variety rolled into view—so shiny, so celebratory—my brain didn’t only see a contest.

It saw a familiar mechanism. A familiar cycle. A familiar weight.

This season is framed like fun. Have dinner with Jeff and Heidi Goldblum and Charlie Day and Mary Elizabeth Ellis. A spread in Variety magazine. $20,000. The exposure it could mean for the migraine community—how many people could finally learn what chronic migraine actually is—feels huge. And the money going toward Chronic Migraine Awareness is real, meaningful support.

But even when something looks joyful, chronic migraine has a way of translating the details into something else. Like my body is whispering, I’ve felt this before. I’ve lived through this rhythm.

Waking Up and Wondering Where You’ll Be That Day

Every morning, I wake up and I don’t know what version of me I’ll be dealing with.

Some days the migraine feels distant—almost manageable. Other days it barrels in like it owns the place. And even when I’m not actively in an attack, there’s still the lingering dread of the next one. The competition’s energy—where you never really know how things will shift from one moment to the next—mirrors that same feeling: hope one second, instability the next.

Chronic migraine is not consistent. It is not fair. It is not scheduled. It doesn’t care if you have plans or a job to go to.

And in a contest where momentum can change overnight, it becomes hard not to feel the same destabilizing rhythm: will today be enough? will the ground move under my feet? will my voice matter?

Multiple Rounds: Voting Then Voting Again

The contest requires repeated voting—round after round—sometimes requiring you to mobilize multiple times just to keep from falling behind.

Over several weeks, it lingers on like an attack.

Chronic migraine already asks for multiple rounds—just not of voting.

It asks you to try this medication, then that one. It asks you to test different dosages and different combinations. It asks you to wait and wonder if the next trial will finally work, then to begin again if it doesn’t.

In both situations, you’re not just participating—you’re adapting. You’re trying to outmaneuver something that doesn’t respond to willpower. You can do everything “right,” and still feel powerless.

Because chronic migraine teaches you a truth that people who don’t live with it often miss: effort doesn’t always produce relief on your timeline.

Chronification: When Hope Isn’t Just Hope Anymore

There’s a moment in chronic migraine where time changes shape. Something that used to be “this bad spell” starts becoming “this is my life now.” That’s what chronification can feel like—suddenly the pattern isn’t a temporary disruption, it’s a long-term reality.

In the contest, you can feel that same shift emotionally. At first, it’s easy to think, We’ll push. We’ll catch up. We’ll win and then it’ll be over.

But repeated rounds—repeated effort—repeated watching—can start to feel like the grind of an illness rather than the excitement of a game. You keep hoping, and then hoping again, because you’re conditioned to believe that if you just do the next thing, the next round, the next push… something will change.

And when it doesn’t change the way you need it to—when it takes longer than you can afford, when your energy runs out before the system does—hope starts to feel less like a light and more like a tether.

Thousands of People Living This—and Still Being Dismissed

What hits hardest is how many people this resembles.

Migraine isn’t rare. It isn’t fringe. It isn’t a “small inconvenience.” It’s thousands of people trying to function while their brains and bodies fight them. It’s people working around pain they can’t explain. It’s people who become experts in their own symptoms because the help is inconsistent.

And yet, dismissal is still one of the most common experiences—because migraine is invisible until it isn’t.

So when this contest is promoted like spectacle, it almost feels like a reflection of the wider issue: people look at the surface. They don’t see the labor under it. They don’t see what it costs to participate, to advocate, to keep going.

Chronic migraine is not just the pain. It’s the constant translation. The constant asking. The constant proving.

The Weight Over Your Head

There’s a particular kind of heaviness that chronic migraine brings—the kind that settles behind your eyes and follows you from room to room. It can be quiet at times, but it’s always there, waiting.

This contest can feel like that same pressure: you’re not only trying to win—you’re trying to stay upright long enough to keep showing up.

Even when you’re smiling, even when you’re posting, even when you’re encouraging others, there’s the internal question: How long can I keep doing this without breaking?

Uncertainty as a Lifestyle

Chronic migraine makes uncertainty your baseline.

Not because you’re dramatic. Not because you’re catastrophizing. But because your nervous system has its own timetable. Because triggers exist and rules are inconsistent. Because sometimes you feel okay… and sometimes “okay” is a lie you told yourself to get through the day.

A contest with multiple rounds and shifting momentum can mimic that unpredictability. You think you’re moving forward, and then suddenly you’re asked to do more. You think you’ve caught up, and then you’re reminded the leaderboard isn’t just about effort—it’s about timing, visibility, and access.

And when you live with migraine, access matters. So much of what determines your outcomes isn’t just what you try—it’s what you can afford to try.

Community Gets You There (Because Alone, You Can’t)

One of the most honest parts of migraine is that it forces you to learn community.

Not in a motivational way. In a survival way.

Because chronic migraine doesn’t just take your time—it takes your bandwidth. It takes your money. It takes your ability to plan. It takes your patience for systems that move too slowly and require too much paperwork and too much proof.

So you rely on people. You rely on shared knowledge. You rely on kindness that doesn’t require you to be at your best to receive it.

The contest feels like that too—only the need is disguised by excitement. A game is still a game, but for migraine, the support is the real lifeline: the effort of others to help carry you to the next moment.

The “Shout It From the Rooftops” Problem

People dismiss chronic migraine, and you learn to shout—not because you want attention, but because people won’t listen unless it’s loud enough to break through the noise.

So every post, every explanation, every plea for awareness can start to feel like yelling over a hurricane. Not everyone hears you. Not everyone believes you. But you keep trying because silence feels like surrender—and you’re not willing to surrender your story.

That’s why this contest, to me, is not just about first place.

It’s about exposure we can’t always buy.

It’s about visibility that might finally help someone say, Wait—that’s what I’ve been living with.

Multiple Rounds of Voting: Like Multiple Rounds of Medications

If I’m being honest, the comparison is almost too painful to ignore.

Because in chronic migraine, you cycle through treatments the way this contest cycles through rounds. You try something. You wait. You hope. You’re disappointed. You try again.

Hope arrives—then it’s dashed away.

And then you keep going, because what else can you do? You keep going because your body still deserves relief, even when the system doesn’t reward persistence.

Insurance Hoops and “All the Votes You Need”

This is the part the contest makes visible, even though it’s supposed to be entertainment.

Multiple rounds of voting resemble the insurance hoops you have to jump through. The endless steps. The requirements. The delays. The rejections. The request you submit and then submit again. The feeling that you’re always doing homework for a class you never asked to enroll in.

And there’s a cruel difference built into both worlds: people with more money can sometimes move faster. They can buy more votes—or buy more options. People without that flexibility are left waiting, fighting, and hoping the system allows them to catch up before their condition worsens.

The “Cures in Your Inbox” Problem

When you ask for help loudly enough, people will try to sell you a shortcut.

In migraine circles, you get messages—miracle claims, ridiculous treatments, “I found the secret,” “this cure is guaranteed”—often sent to desperate people who are trying everything because they’re tired of being told to wait.

The contest can attract the same type of opportunism: offers to “help you win” that look like generosity, but sometimes feel like scams. Like the people who show up only to monetize hope.

Migraine doesn’t need marketing. Migraine needs real care, real research, and real support that doesn’t prey on exhaustion.

Competing Stories for Attention

In a contest, there are competing stories fighting for attention.

And chronic migraine is that same kind of competition—just without the fun packaging.

Awareness matters, but awareness doesn’t happen automatically. It has to compete with entertainment, with trends, with people scrolling past without stopping.

So it becomes exhausting to carry a message that should be simple: This is serious. This affects real lives. This needs real resources.

Not just for us—but for everyone who will otherwise be dismissed.

The Outside Face, the Inside Fight

There’s also the emotional split: how hard it is to maintain an outside face while you’re dealing with an inside storm.

On social media you might post encouragement. You might keep up. You might smile. You might talk about hope.

But chronic migraine asks you to manage the reality that lives underneath that performance: light sensitivity, nausea, brain fog, fatigue, pain, and the fallout afterward.

This contest mirrors that duality. People see the scoreboard, the photos, the excitement. They don’t see the cost of participation—how much energy it takes to keep momentum going when your body is unreliable.

What This Is Really About

So yes, America’s Favorite Couple is a contest.

But for me, it is also a metaphor for chronic migraine: uncertainty, repeated rounds, limited access, community dependence, dismissal, and the exhausting work of being heard.

It’s not only a game for the sake of winning.

It’s exposure we can’t afford to miss.

And maybe the most important thing I want people to understand is this: if you’re cheering for the competition, please also hear the story underneath it.

Because behind the votes, behind the campaign, behind the fun, there are thousands of people living with a condition that asks for more than most people ever realize—and deserves more than most people ever give.