The aura around my eyes hits, and I know I'm in for a doozy. I grab my Imitrex, my rice pack from my freezer, the sleeping mask from my bedside, and hang on for dear life. I know for the next one to seven hours, I will be incapacitated, in pain, and sensitive to light and sound.

This is the life of someone who suffers from chronic migraine headaches. This is a disability that results in headaches so bad you are prone to a multitude of symptoms, including, but not limited to: nausea, dizziness, fatigue, intense pain, paleness in the face, flushed cheeks, vomiting, loss of hearing, loss of eyesight and many others.

Essentially, you can not move, and you have to be in a dark, quiet room. As you can imagine, this results in a serious problem with attendance at college, not to mention problems with deadlines, plans with friends and a large amount of judgment from your peers that don't know much about your problem.

I had my first migraine at 7 years old. I went up to my teacher in 1st grade, and said "I have a bellyache and a headache the size of Texas." When the nurse had no real answers for me, she called up my parents and sent me home, in tears and vomiting into the tiny bucket the nurse had for emergencies.

My grandma came to pick me up with McDonald's chicken nuggets, and sent me to bed with a half pill of Excedrin, and after about an hour, I got to enjoy my day off from school, since my grandma already signed me out of school for the day.

As I got older, the migraines not only got more frequent, but worse, as is the case for many, many migraine sufferers. According to the American Migraine Foundation, we still don't know what happens to brains that suffer from migraines, but we know that some are caused by what the migraine community calls "triggers," which are things that immediately start a migraine for some people. Some common triggers are: aged cheese, wine, cured meat, depression, dehydration, low blood sugar, changes in sleep, stress, and changes in weather. Needless to say, you almost never know exactly what caused your specific headache.

Migraines are so debilitating that they are part of what's known as "invisible illnesses," in other words, illnesses where the person doesn't "look sick." This phrase is also used for things like Lupus and Fibromyalgia, for reference.

So, try not to judge your classmates next time you haven't seen them in a while, you never know what they're going through.