Gravity- a warning sign that I couldn't read....

GRAVITY...... (This might be the last epilepsy post for a little while.... )

   

         I was in my senior year of high school. Like most kids that age I was stubborn, opinionated, and all but sprinting to get out of the town I grew up in to experience somewhere, anywhere new. However, I was not like everyone else. I am not referring

to my innate ability to alienate myself from anything resembling a clique- I was good at being myself whatever the consequences, it's a wonder anyone stuck by me at

all. What no one knew however, was I was beginning to have these "things" happen to

me. Now at the time, I had never had a grand mal, I knew absolutely nothing about epilepsy, and I sure as heck didn't know I would soon be diagnosed with it. What I knew, was my uncle was a schizophrenic. Schizophrenia could be genetic, and although 17 would

be early onset of the disease there was nothing saying that I couldn't be going crazy at 17. So when I started having these "things" I started quietly thinking I might, just might, be going insane. Every so often I would blurt out some sort of loud noise- which I had absolutely no control over but was fully aware of. Then there were the times I actually jerked a limb uncontrollably. Imagine that, you can see it, feel it, but you can't stop it. You can't even recreate it, not really. Then came the first full petite mal... however, I had no idea

what it was, all I knew was I blurted out something unintelligible, then fell and raised as if it were on purpose- all in front of the bathroom mirror (talk about a double whammy) and had no way to stop it. It only takes a second or two for everything to happen but the

fear remains. I sat there afterwards, purposely, reactively cursing a few times (I was 17)... thinking, 'this is it... I'm going crazy. How long do I have before I loose the real world completely.'  I should mention, that for about a year I had been having what I called 'gravity' fairly regularly. I would say to my mom, "I can't go to school I have gravity." Her response was, "I can't tell the school you can't go to school because you feel gravity." Pretty much there was this unspoken, 'What the heck is she talking about....', but to put it mildly I was a difficult teen. So I think it was passed off as me trying to get out of going to school. In a way I was. I loved school and being with my friends, but I was really freaked out by the fact that it felt as if there was an extra gravitational pull on my body to the ground... just I felt... well gravity. Like unseen tethers were uniformly pulling every molecule of my body at the same time with the same force towards the earth with stronger force than usual. If you don't know what's going on- it sounds not only ridiculous but a bit nuts... so I stopped

talking about gravity and didn't tell anyone about the other "things" that were happening. Until February. I had my first seizure. That was the beginning of everything starting to make sense. At least for a time I thought - I know what the problem is, I'll take my meds and I'll not have another seizure again- just like the doctors said. At least I wasn't going to loose the real world to a world that was only in my head.

kimbersfrog