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TIFU by vomiting at a huge, career impacting speech because I was stubborn.

Whelp, all time low for me. I’m a 28m, I suffer from cluster headaches and for those who are unfamiliar it’s a neurological condition that is truly a 10/10 on pain scale. I’m not going to pain dump, but it’s important for context to understand that the pain you experience during a cluster period is absolute insanity.

I’m c-suite in a mid sized corporation, I got promoted extremely quick in a startup-esque company I joined back in 2021 and have been riding the wave since. There is a large, yearly conference for our industry that hosts just shy of 3000 people. I was asked to be one of the main four speakers to represent our company and I was ecstatic. I even flew my parents out. At rehearsal I got my first headache and immediately went back to my hotel room for a Triptan injection. After about 30 minutes of agony I started to feel better, returned to the rehearsal just as it was wrapping up.

I don’t tell people I suffer from cluster headaches, the only people who know are my close family members and friends. At this point the morning before my speech I’m a nervous wreck, I feel like shit, and I can tell I have a headache coming on. I’ve managed to fight through them before, and I really didn’t want to give up this moment so I powered through.

About 8 minutes before my speech starts the headache hit me. Sweating, nausea, pain, it’s getting progressively worse but I just have to make it through 15 minutes of public speaking. NBD. I go out onto the stage, walk up to the microphone and at this point I’m dizzy. I start speaking (very slurred) and only a few words in I start vomiting. I’m literally on my hands and knees and thankfully I had a very loyal friend come out and help me off stage.

I was accused of coming up drunk (awesome), stage fright (sweet) and loads of other things. Because no one knows I get cluster headaches, speculation is rampant within our company. Obviously I will never get another opportunity to speak again at said industry event. I also currently have a headache 😂

So make sure you don’t hide things like this, and don’t go up and do a public speech with a cluster headaches.

Tldr

I get cluster headaches, I got one before a large speech and threw up all over the stage because I was too stubborn to tell anyone.

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