Famous Personalities Who Suffered From Migraine |
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Not only have famous people suffered migraines, but
some of those people have actually left behind artistic records of their
pain and suffering. In fact, Lewis Carroll’s timeless children’s
classics about Alice in Wonderland are thought to have been inspired by
Carroll’s migraine with auras.
Goodness
knows there are precious few, if any, people in this world—whether
migraines sufferers or not—who haven’t gotten at least a figurative
headache from the boneheaded decisions of politicians. But several of
the most famous and infamous politicians in history suffered migraines
themselves. Among the biggest headache causers and sufferers were Roman
dictator and future salad inspiration, Julius Caesar, and French emperor
and future pastry inspiration Napoleon Bonaparte.
With all those
cannons and muskets going off, is it any wonder than Thomas Jefferson
would get a headache while writing the Declaration of Independence. And
talk about your irony, or rather your coincidences: Both the commanding
generals on each side of the American Civil War, Robert E. Lee for the
Confederacy and Ulysses S. Grant for the Union were both migraine
sufferers.
Lewis Carroll wasn’t the only writer to suffer from
headaches, nor was his the only books to be written in response to
effects of migraines. Migraines influenced the work of Virginia Woolf
and Miguel de Cervantes. Emily Dickinson even a poem about migraines,
utilizing as a metaphor the disease the very apt image of coffin nails.
Even
more so than writers, painters have been especially moved to create
artwork reflecting their state of mind during the pangs of migraine
headaches. Impressionist paintings by Vincent Van Gogh have been
variously described as being influenced by cataracts and insanity. One
of the latest theories attributes his unique paint strokes and vivid
colors to visual disturbances stemming from migraine auras. The
technique of pointillism—large images created by the eye piecing
together small dots of color—created by fellow Impression Georges Seurat
also bears a resemblance to visual images that people have reported
seeing during the aura stage.
If listening to someone drone on
about their therapy sessions with a psychoanalyst has ever given you a
headache, you may be happy to know that the Father of Psychoanalysis
himself, Sigmund Freud, is assumed to have suffered from migraines.
German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche theorized the concept of the Uberman, a
master race. One can only assume that he felt he himself belonged to
this elevated plateau. Still, one can’t help but think maybe Ubermen
should somehow be above such mundane problems as headaches.
Unfortunately, Nietzsche was, indeed, plagued by migraines. So much for
a master race, I suppose.
Musicians and actors have also been
prone to migraines. Among his other maladies, the King of Rock & Roll,
Elvis Presley, was prone to headaches. Other celebrities who have
admitted to battling headaches include actress and comedienne Whoopi
Goldberg, British royal family member Princess Margaret, and even Cindy
Brady herself, actress Susan Olsen.
As an example of just how
debilitating migraine headaches can be and of how democratic the disease
can be, consider the story of Terrell Davis, migraine sufferer and star
American football player in the NFL. The end of the football season in
American culminates, of course, with the Super Bowl. During Super Bowl
XXXII Davis, the running back for the Denver Broncos and the eventual
Most Valuable Player of the game, missed the second quarter of the game
because of a migraine. Smack in the middle of the biggest game of his
career, Davis found himself unable to continue playing because of the
onset of a terrible headache pain along with double vision.
Because
Davis had informed himself and educated himself about his disease,
however, he was able to return to play after halftime. He had kept a
journal and was aware of exactly what triggers were involved, allowing
him to overcome the effects of the migraine.
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