So I started having seizures in 2017 and at the time I had no idea what was causing them, it could have been a wide variety of things. The main suspect, substance use. I had started heavily using drugs when I was around 13/14 years old and it went from ‘milder’ stuff to the harder ones, even going as far as using Gravol to get high and hallucinate. I was willing to do anything at the time to feel anything other than what I felt when I was sober. I still unfortunately have a problem with substance abuse, and some of what I have used has contributed to some of the seizure activity. But it was revealed to be caused by a lesion (scar) on my hippocampus, giving me psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES). My seizures first emerged as grand mal (full body convulsing) and has since shifted to a few other types of seizures. Focal/Partial (staring off) seizures being the most common. After a seizure episode, I most of the time end up going into a form of psychosis. It can be repetitive phrases, paranoia, auditory/visual hallucinations, and more. It can even cause intense irritability/anger, and I end up taking it out on those around me due to the fear/anger caused by my psychosis. Most of the psychosis episodes I am not lucid, I am not aware personally of what goes on. And I am not always able to be brought back on my own, most seizure/psychosis episodes tended to get me sent to the hospital, for the safety of myself and those around me. Because of the seizure activity and psychosis, I am on and have been on a wide variety of anticonvulsant and antipsychotic medications, as well as a few benzodiazepines (lorazepam/clobazam/clonazepam). As a side effect of one or more of these medications and the aftermath of my seizures, I have partially lost the ability to maintain or make long term memories, as well as having lost some of my older memories too. It had gotten so bad that I could have been having several seizures a day, several a week—and it has more than once caused my body needing to be put into a comatose state when my seizures will not stop, they had to put me that far under to save my brain from anymore potential damage. I’ve even spent days to weeks in a psychiatric unit when my psychosis would persist and continue for more than a day. What is most common during my psychosis episodes, I tend to think that either the television is talking to me or I’ll go straight to thinking I’m dead, which scares me so much more than I initially was to begin with. If I’m watching a movie with my girlfriend and my psychosis starts flaring up, I’ve had her recite every word of the movie just to be sure that it definitely isn’t talking to me. The amount of times I’ve made her watch and recite Liar Liar is really depressing, but she does it anyway without any fuss or getting upset. She has taken care of me a lot over the several months we’ve been together, sometimes I feel like a burden for putting her through this but she reassures me every time that I am not a burden and I am not at fault for what may happen. It somewhat eases how I feel, but being this way and going through what I do as often as I do—it fucks with me. I get so emotional but I feel like if I talk about it to anyone here, I’ll be an annoyance. Since they’ve all put up with my disorder. While we do know what is causing this, it wasn’t actually too long ago this year that we made that discovery despite how many MRI scans that every hospital I’ve been to has done for me. Every doctor who looked over my scans, missed something that should have been obvious to them. Considering each of them are  neurosurgeons. Yes, technically they don’t all specialize in epileptic/seizure based brain issues, they missed something that could have been taken care of YEARS ago and I wouldn’t have had to continue living a sheltered life in misery. I am too scared to leave my own damn house alone out of the fear of just suddenly collapsing. Thankfully, thanks to the persistence of my dad—a clinic specializing in seizures,both epileptic and non-epileptic, found a way to potentially rid me of seizures all together. Since they found the cause, they can remove it and I can maybe have some semblance of a normal life again. It’s not that I am not happy, I love my life, but I want to live a life that isn’t in fear and a life that I don’t feel like I burden everyone that I love. If there is a chance that it can happen, I’m going to do everything in my power to make it happen. It isn’t always easy to handle, but I’m never alone, I’ve got my overly supportive girlfriend and a dad who never gives up. 

If you or someone you know has gone through or does continue to go through something similar and need advice or to just talk, my DMs are always open. 

I am much more than my disorder though! I really enjoy going clothing shopping, I like to watch movies, and I really like to cook despite not having too much practice with it. I also watch TONS of YouTube videos. I think at this point I’ve watched just about everything there is on there, at least the good ones anyway.