Someone told me once that migraines run in families.

Said it matter of factly. As if that settled it.

And for a long time I believed them.

Of course I did. There was evidence everywhere.

My mother had them. Her mother had them.

What I understand now that I didn't then:

What runs in families isn't always genetic.

Sometimes it's a pattern.

A way of relating to stress.

A learned response to emotional suppression.

A nervous system adaptation that gets passed down not through DNA but through watching and absorbing and concluding that this is how women in our family handle things.

That realisation didn't make me angry at my mother.

It made me incredibly tender toward her.

She was doing what she'd been taught too.

We all were.

Until someone decides to do it differently.