Seize the day

“I THOUGHT I lost you.”

These were the first of the many last words I’ve heard as I slipped in and out of consciousness because of my condition. Struggling with a seizure disorder is not as black and white as it sounds—it’s not as simple as taking medications and avoiding flashing lights to keep the brain healthy. Rather, it’s also a constant fear of social stigma, anxiety, and death that rots the brain inside out.

My relationship with my brain has been a complicated one. On the one hand, I’m thankful that I’m able to have the mind that

I have, the thoughts that I think, and the feelings that I feel. On the other, I hate that I constantly have to take medications for a disorder I never asked for, take extra precautions my friends don’t have to, and fear that I might close my eyes and wake up on another hospital bed. Back in high school, I had a classmate who suffered from the same disorder. The only difference between the two of us was that he told our class while I kept it secret. Every day, there would be a new joke about his condition—they would tease him with the lights, liken him to a fish flailing without water, and laugh at his abnormality. This was where I learned that it’s dangerous to not be normal.

When I first learned about my seizure disorder, I was playing video games in my room with my sister. I was a little short on sleep, but it was still a normal day of us gaming and playing Pokémon. According to my memory, I took a long blink to rest my eyes. But, the next thing I knew was that I woke up in an ambulance—my mom at my side, oxygen being pumped into my lungs, and an unprocessed confusion in my body that made me cry in fear.

My mom said, “I thought I lost you,” with tears and panic on her face. In retrospect, it was quite traumatic hearing that you were this close to knocking on death’s door. You’d think