Hey you,. Yeah you. Close your eyes and imagine for one second that you’ve lost complete control over your body. Your voice is nonexistent, your lungs have been robbed of air, and your body is nothing but dead weight. You can't flinch, enunciate, you are helpless and alone. You are a victim. This is what it's like to be an epileptic.
Epilepsy medically is described as the misfiring of neurons in the brain. To a non-epileptic, this term still probably sounds pretty imprecise. Sadly, there isn’t much more you can look up to enlighten your knowing of this illness. Epilepsy is a vastly understudied disease, so there’s little even neurologist can tell you without sounding like they are inventing medical terms. From an epileptic’s point of view, epilepsy is much more than the mere misfiring of neurons, it’s more than a disease. To an epileptic, epilepsy is an invisible ailment that feels like walking through the Sahara with two massive anchors shackled to your feet.
Epilepsy can happen to anybody, at any age. To an epileptic, having the occasional seizure is a part of your life that for some never ceases to abandon you, sort of like a shadow. It is always tiring, even on good days. Being an epileptic isn’t all that different from being a recovering alcoholic or druggy, or at least in my case I find the two rather akin.
I have been an epileptic for as long as I can remember. Epilepsy and I have never truly parted ways. Every now and then, the seizures will go into a repressed dormant sleep, sparingly giving me a few months to live my life normally, and that’s when you start counting the months and referring to yourself as seizure-free, as if you are a recovering addict.
This suppressed state is rare and extremely delicate, just a tiny amount of stress or not enough sleep can bring on a fit even when on medication. These little fits are known in the seizure world as break-through seizures. Some people don’t ever get a reprieve from their epilepsy. There are others out there with different types of seizures that are triggered by different things, like other illnesses, injuries, hormone imbalances for instance, too much caffeine intake, or flashing lights.
A common misconception is that we all suffer from the same type of seizure, which generally happens to be the big scary, thrashing about on the ground, clonic tonic seizures. This is false. Epilepsy is pretty diverse when it comes to seizures and should be looked upon like how people view sharks. Each and every one can be fatal. There are cluster seizures, while not as brutal as the grandmal these occur in small clusters which can deprive the brain of oxygen. There is partial seizures, which generally effect one side of the brain, and then there is complex partial seizures, seizures that mainly impact one region of the brain but are too deep to be pinpointed to one location.
Growing up with something like epilepsy I can tell you now it is no easy task. Nobody could understand why I had to go to sleep early, while other kids my age watched the sun rise before calling it a night. Picking up numerous different type of anti-epileptic prescriptions at the pharmacist and organizing pill planners made me feel old past my years too. Not to mention all the bullying I caught from kids who couldn’t grasp what was going on when my eye would twitch of its own accord, and my entire body would go completely rigid and my face would turn blue from a lack of oxygen.
I hated it for a while. I hated the cocktail of pills and all their kooky side effects. I hated the blood work. I hated the MRIs. I hated the EEGs. I hated the Sleep test. I hated having this dissimilar brand placed on me that forbid me from going on roller coasters, getting my license, and hindered me from ever having a completely muddled humdrum life. I’ve learned to accept it though, because really that’s all I can do.
Yes, it may feel like walking through the Sahara with anchors shackled on your ankles, and the walk may be excruciating and tiresome but I’m going to continue my march. Life doesn’t slow down for anybody, and it certainly shouldn’t slow down for us epileptics. For some reason, we are different. We’ve gone through things others can’t understand. That is why we must use this disease to our advantage. That’s why we must spread awareness and educate those unaware of our struggle.
