Migraine Awareness Month Blogging Challenge #28: "Lights, Camera, Action!"

Today's prompt is:

Migraine Awareness Month Blogging Challenge #28: "Lights, Camera, Action!" Pick a movie character you can identify with.  Talk a bit about them and why you can identify with them.

This was a terribly hard one for me, but when I decided to take on this challenge, I meant to take on the WHOLE challenge, no matter how hard the prompt.

There is a movie that I enjoy watching called "Changeling" .  It is based on the true story of Christine Collins -  a woman in LA in the late 1920's whose son was kidnapped while she was away at work.  About 95% of the dialogue in the movie is directly from court transcripts, and the movie itself shows many of the news headlines of the story.

In the movie, Angelina Jolie's character is faced with one of the worst things that can happen to a mother.  Her child is missing.  The police discover a boy in Illinois that claims to be her son, but when he arrives on the train, she realizes this is not her son.  She tells the police he is not her son, but she is not believed despite the fact he has miraculously shrunk 3 inches and doesn't remember things her son should know.  She begs the police to find her son.  Police don't want to look bad, so they get a physician to spin her claims then throw her into a psychiatric hospital without due cause or warrant, because they can.  While in the hospital she learns that no matter what she does, she will be reported as mentally ill. Despite the fact she knows she will suffer terribly, she stands up for herself and won't cave in.  

All she wants is her son back.

Every time she's knocked down, she gets back up again.

I don't want to ruin the movie in case you want to go out to your local DVD rental place and find it, suffice it to say that it is incredibly intriguing how much this woman goes through to save her son, yet she keeps getting back up and she won't give in.  Just when you think there can't be any more to the story, there is.  And it's real.  She told her little boy "Never start a fight, always finish it."  And she does.

Where my health issues are concerned, I keep getting knocked down, and some days I wonder how on earth I can get up one more time, but somehow I do.  I've endured criticism and stigma and been in so many no-win situations I can't begin to count them.  It's the hardest thing I've ever done sometimes, but I'm not going to let it win.  

Christine Collins' driving force was her love for her child.  She stopped at nothing in her attempt to find him.  

My driving force in learning all I can about Migraine and autoimmunity is also my kids, who inherited the genes for these problems from me, symptoms and all.

Never start a fight.  Always finish it.

~Ellen

National Migraine Awareness Month is initiated by the National Headache Foundation. The Blogger's Challenge is initiated by www.FightingHeadacheDisorders.com.

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