Losing (and Finding) Friendships with Chronic Migraine

No one invited migraine to the party, but ignoring its presence can be impossible. Ciara O'Rourke shares how her friendships have changed since her condition became chronic, and why she’s had to make room for migraine in her social life.

Not all friends last forever – but Ciara won't let migraine prevent her from making more.

There are many downsides to living with a chronic illness like migraine (don’t worry, I'm not going to list them all here). For the most part, though, I have been prepared to handle them and how the condition affects my life.

But some of the effects of chronic migraine have been somewhat surprising. One of these – the loss of friendships – was something I was not prepared for in the slightest.

Migraine led to cancelled plans and lost friendships

I've always been a friendly and outgoing person. While I wasn't the most popular person in school or college, I always had great friends and an active social life.

I used to have episodic migraine attacks in my 20s when they first began. Though they were awful, I could still maintain friendships as usual. But as my illness became chronic and I had daily headaches, migraine greatly impacted my social life.

More and more often, I had to cancel plans or pull out of events due to a migraine attack. I found this very difficult as it felt like I was letting people down.

This guilty suspicion turned out to come true. People inevitably stopped calling, the invites got fewer, and my social life slowed from a roar to a trickle.

I would always explain to people why I was cancelling and try to make them understand what migraine was like. Yet, you'll never fully understand unless you've experienced it for yourself.

People bluntly told me I was using migraine as an excuse or that "everyone gets headaches, but they still manage to live their lives." I was called a drama queen (as if!) and accused of fabricating stories to get out of events. My social circle became much smaller, and I lost a lot of friendships.

Self-doubt joined migraine to sabotage my social life

I wasn't prepared for an onslaught of physical and emotional pain. I started questioning myself. Was I a bad friend? Did I need to try harder? Was my friendship not worth the trouble of my illness, and what that entailed?

Before long, I became quite introverted and self-conscious as my confidence was damaged.

These days I find it quite difficult to make new friends. When I do, migraine makes a consistent social life tricky to maintain.

When my son started school, I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to make new friends around my local area. I was all set on his first day to meet with other parents waiting at the school gates.

And I did meet some lovely people! I became close with some of the mums, and we would meet regularly and catch up on local gossip. It was lovely. I was on maternity leave with my younger child, so getting out of the house, meeting new people and speaking to other adults was great. Breastfeeding had decreased my migraine attacks, so I was very ready to be a social butterfly.

However, when I returned to work, the days got so much busier. On top of that, my migraine attacks returned. Getting the children ready for school or crèche, working a full day, and then preparing dinner and doing the housework was hard enough. If you add daily chronic headaches into the mix, you can understand why I had to start cancelling plans again.

Once again, not everyone understood, and some people (poorly) disguised their unkind comments as jokes. We began to drift apart, and before long, we stopped seeing each other altogether. Even though I tried to explain my situation, I don't think my new friends understood why I had to retreat. Slowly but surely, these new friendships all but disappeared, and I would be lying if I said that it didn't hurt – even though I know it wasn't my fault.

I’ve had to adapt my social life to make room for migraine -and to protect myself

I have made other friends over the last few years, but to be honest, I prefer to call them acquaintances. It is great to have people to talk to and to organise play dates and parties with. Migraine hasn't snatched away my social life entirely, of course. But I've learned that true friends don't come around very often, and I have made peace with that.

I've also realised I don't open myself up to people as freely as I once did. I'm guarded regarding my illness, so building new relationships isn't easy.

Losing friendships was another consequence of living with my condition, and it's something I have to deal with. This isn't to say that I have closed myself off to new friendships in the future – in fact, I hope there are still new friends to come!

But I've "learned my lesson" (for whatever purpose it's meant to serve). I will be more careful about who I open myself up to and share my personal details with.

Despite its best efforts, migraine can't take away my true friends

It’s not all bad. Over the years, I have quickly learned who my true friends were. People who were there for me understood what I was going through. More importantly, they didn't expect me to “tough a migraine out” for their sake or judge me for cancelled plans. 

Today I can count my true friends on the one hand, and that's okay with me. These are the people I want in my life – the ones who love me for me, warts and all.

There's a saying that life-long friends will stick with you through the good and the bad. I believe this and feel quite blessed. My true friends stood by me when things got tough with migraine, and I don't know where I'd be today without them.

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Date of preparation: August 2023
D: COB-GB-NP-00183 (V1.0) / T: COB-GB-NP-00223 (V1.0) / M: COB-GB-NP-00203 (V1.0)