After four years of living in constant pain from status migrainosus, I’m finally finding moments of relief. I’m not healed, but this summer I’m choosing to live again—with sunglasses on indoors, emergency meds in my bag, and joy wherever I can find it. This is what chronic illness looks like when you stop waiting for perfect and start living in the now.

If you’re starting the Heal Your Headache (HYH) diet, you probably already know how overwhelming it can feel. What foods are safe? How do you plan meals without accidentally triggering a migraine? And how do you keep it up week after week?

That’s why I created my 4-Week Heal Your Headache Meal Plan & Grocery List, designed to take the stress out of HYH eating and help you feel more in control of your health.

After being wrongfully denied care at the Mayo Clinic, I realized that no one was going to fight for my health the way I needed to. In this post, I share how being let down by the healthcare system pushed me to take my chronic migraine journey into my own hands. From starting the Heal Your Headache diet to setting daily wellness goals, here’s what I’ve learned about managing status migrainosus, identifying migraine triggers, and building a healing routine that actually supports my body.

Living with a chronic illness is hard enough on its own. But when you get stuck in the thought spirals of feeling like a burden to the people around you because of your illness? That adds a whole other layer of struggle. This is something I have personally dealt with for years. And just recently, I’ve started to unpack these feelings in therapy—which has helped so much.

If you’ve had traumatic medical experiences—whether from chronic illness, painful procedures, misdiagnoses, or dismissive doctors—you’re not alone. Medical PTSD is real, and it can impact your mental and physical health. But healing is possible. Here are some ways to cope and start feeling safer in medical settings.