I really did for a few weeks think, I'm in pain because the world needs me to save it. Which is so ridiculous and egotistical.

I tell myself it's a virtue, my failure to sleep in my own house, or at all. I tell myself that I spend more hours than most people aware that I am alive, and that over a lifetime this adds up to more living, more aliveness. I am more alive than the rest of my family. Which is my greatest night fear. Which is why I hunt. I don't ever want to be more alive than they are.

To believe you're being psychically attacked gives you an understanding of your illness that no Western doctor can provide; this can be reassuring when you've exhausted the Western doctor tool kit, and the doctors are sending you to acupuncturists for pain relief.

I always think it's useful to get an outside opinion.

Maybe the body is taking responsibility where the mind is not. It's scrapbooking for us.

You know you're screwed when a Western doctor recommends acupuncture.

Every once in a while when I get a migraine, I like to think, "Who hates me today?"