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This project began as a hopeful recourse and personal exploration in 2021, when I started my work in the Foundations of Data Analytics and Visualization Literacy course within Maryland Institute College of Art’s Masters of Data Analytics and Visualization program.

I was desperate to have my migraines either reduce in frequency or stop altogether, so I started to track data about them to learn more about the “Uninvited Resident” that had stripped me from my autonomy.

In combination with getting rid of the two stressors in my life from 2021, I was able to talk about my findings in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, a practice that has helped to reduce the frequency of my migraines by retraining the neural pathways in my brain, leading to a healthier expression of stress (Shapiro, 2014).


This project serves many goals: it is a way for me to process and lament the time I lost while being in pain or recovering from it; it is a way for me to attempt to communicate my migraine experience using visuals and sound (to people who may or may not have migraines); and it is an effort to reclaim control over what has controlled me for the past 5 years. This project is by no means a solution to chronic migraines - it isn’t even the best way of representing the experience - but it is an effort to find some sort of common ground when talking about subjective experiences.