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Monday, July 15, 2013

My #Migraine Resting Face

You may have seen all the attention this YouTube video has received over the past few weeks:



The video gives a name to a common phenomena: Bitchy Resting Face (BRF). For some people their face can naturally look angry or sad when in a state of rest. Having one of these faces can lead people to misunderstand you and judge you. 

I say all of this because I believe my chronic pain has given me a BRF. 



As you can see in this photo I have several features of BRF:
- the furrowed brow
- the down-turned mouth
- the angry lines of my eye brows
- the general droopy nature of my resting face

Now the general droopy nature of my resting face is mostly attributable to my age but the rest of these features can be directly linked to my chronic migraines and fibromyalgia. The inside of my eye brows dropped the last time I had medical Botox. That was well over a year ago and even though the Botox has long since worn off, my brow remains lower than it used to be creating a sharper slope/angrier look. Making things worse, my body is always in pain so unless I'm putting effort into looking "normal" my face is reflecting the pain I'm in. That's when my brow furrows and my mouth turns downward. It just happens.

I've decided that I don't like calling it BRF because this was never my resting face before. Instead I'll call it my Migraine Resting Face (MRF). Has MRF happened to anyone else out there?

2 comments:

  1. I would never call your resting face a BRF, it is definitely a face that deals with much pain. My resting face reflects much sadness, which is not how I feel, I just look it and people always ask what is wrong when i am not trying to smile. I don't know why. They say I look so sad and that I am about to cry. I don't feel like that. I thought it would just reflect the pain, but I guess not. I am glad you are not calling it a BRF because from everything that I have read, you are far from a B as possible. I just wish we lived closer. I have a feeling we would be good friends and have several good giggles together with drawn curtains and dim lights and low sounds. For now, we can just giggle long distance.

    heather

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