Dear Abby

July 21, 2026: 🗓 

If your child gets frequent “headaches,” it might be more than just migraines.

The specific type of migraine I experienced in childhood included depression symptoms. But since they happened co-currently, I would just say I had a headache because I thought that’s what the experience of a headache was.

To me, “headache” meant “whatever it is in me that’s like my spark or life force that I need to live, it’s gone now. No one can help me or save me from this meaninglessness. And I also have a migraine.”

Allegedly, people with migraines are 5 times more likely to develop depression. I eventually did develop it but didn’t have the vocabulary for it. Until one day in 5th grade while cutting pictures out of newspapers for a class project. It was totally by accident.

I encountered a cartoon picture of a man laying awake in bed with a digital alarm clock reading “3:00” behind him. I was like, that’s me.. I would wake up at exactly 3am every day and didn’t know why. The picture was in an advice column like Dear Abby where readers send in their questions.

The guy was like, why do I wake up at 3am every day? (Plus other details about his life). And the newspaper was like, you probably have depression. It was the first time I realized there was a name for what I was experiencing, and other people were experiencing it too.

I rarely get these types of migraines anymore, but I had one yesterday. When it happens, I do everything I can to sleep through it because I frankly can’t really deal with it. I mean I can (and did yesterday b/c I couldn’t fall asleep fast enough), but it really affects me.

Basically what I’m saying is, these migraines aren’t for kids.. or at least, they should have better ways to deal with them.