I had my first seizure at the age of seventeen. As if foaming at the mouth and wetting myself wasn’t embarrassing enough, it happened in my sixth grade common room. Shatters, vicious bullies and friends watched me fall to the ground, shaking.
My parents rushed from work to school and an ambulance arrived quickly, but I had no idea what the big fuss was about. I hadn’t been there consciously; I hadn’t felt the tightening of the muscles and the lack of oxygen in my brain. All I remembered was the feeling of being stuck in my body and the sound of my twin sister screaming as I hit the ground.
When I came to, I had a suspicious wet spot on my bottom and I was chatting with my sister and my friends, who were sitting on the floor with me. But my speech was slurred, my balance lost, and I couldn’t remember anything I’d said or done in the past 30 minutes. One teacher had the nerve to ask my sister if I had been drinking.
It’s upsetting to lose so many minutes of your life. But the reality had not yet sunk in. I was given the day off and left with a headache, hundreds of get well messages from people I had once met, and takeaway pizza for dinner – a dream day for me.
It wasn’t until the tests started being booked – an EEG, an MRI and an ECG – that things got serious. The next month I had a seizure in my sleep. Another one the next month, and another one the month after that.
Just as I was on the brink of adulthood, the promise of it all crumbled. My attacks had become the strict mother I never had growing up. I couldn’t drive until I went a year without driving. I couldn’t drink too much alcohol because it reduced the effectiveness of my medication. And I couldn’t stay up too late because lack of sleep could lead to an attack. Four years later, my car, a classic Mini City E that my father and I had renovated for several years, is still in the garage waiting to be driven.
Almost a year after my first attack, I finally received a diagnosis. My sister had filmed me having a seizure (ironically brought on by the stress of her leaving for college the next day) so the doctors could confirm what was going on. And then the doctor said to me: I had epilepsy. Within a minute I was handicapped.
The seizures I had were tonic-clonic seizures. In the tonic phase I lose consciousness and fall to the ground. Then, in the clonic phase, my body trembles and my limbs jerk. After the seizures, I enter a postictal state – when the brain has recovered from the seizure, but not quite back to normal – and that’s why I seem drunk and can’t remember anything.
Pieces of the puzzle started to fall together. It wasn’t genetic – thank goodness, because my sister had become my unofficial taxi driver. It was caused by stress (my impending exams and the annoying break-up of a friendship at the time). The same part of the brain that deals with stress is also responsible for seizures, so if stress hormones are released, it can lead to seizures.
I’m not going to say I won’t go into it. The day after an attack is usually spent grumbling with a head-wracking migraine while crying as I try to recreate my dad’s comforting chocolate pudding. And the thought of another attack fills me with dread. I’m certainly not living the life as a young adult that I dreamed of as a 14-year-old (although driving through Europe with Niall Horan seemed like a tall order anyway).
But I feel incredibly happy. I have wonderful friends and a wonderful family who sleep on my bedroom floor until they know I’m safe and follow me around the house to make sure I don’t fall down the stairs during the postictal state.
I’ve also learned that if a conversation bores me, I can tell everyone I’m talking to that I have epilepsy, which instantly makes things more interesting for me and 100% more uncomfortable for them. Throwing a fit while painting tote bags is also a great way to strengthen a friendship. And while I may lose bladder control in my friend Megan’s bed again, I know she’ll be as gentle about it as ever.
What could have been the albatross around my neck dragging me down is instead my favorite party joke. My excuse to come home early from a club. And an easy way to get sympathy on a bad day. This bad turn of fate has taught me not to take myself too seriously and to prevent stress from dictating my life. Most importantly, I’ve seen how the people who love me will do anything to help. Without them I wouldn’t have made it.