Pillbugging

I made it through the holidays with the usual amount of joy and pain. I'm lucky to have a loving family, but the migraines didn't make anything easy.

This last year has been a year of self-protection and rebuilding. I'm trying to be better about recognizing where I'm self-defeating and one of those ways I'm working on is my tendency to pillbug.

I think I made this term up, at least I can't recall hearing it used like this before, and it came to me on one particularly migrainy morning when I just couldn't seem to get myself out of bed. Pillbugs, or potato bugs, are those small armored-looking insects that roll themselves into a tight ball as a defensive mechanism. And that's what I was doing that morning, tucked snug in a shell of my own making, hidden and still, waiting for the danger to pass. I should have gotten some water, medicated, stretched, listened to a little music; I was feeling bad but a little self care would likely make me feel better. Instead, I lay under the blankets, curled up and letting my mind drift away from the pain and nausea. I lay for nearly an hour before I came back to myself. Once I wrested my achy body from my cozy bubble, got up and did a few of the things I knew would help, I loosened up a little and could begin my very quiet day.

Now that I have a name for my pillbugging tendencies, I seem to be recognizing it earlier and doing it less! So that's good.