Tell a secret

I’ve never been diagnosed or treated for it, but I believe I have a mild form of epilepsy. I’ve only ever had one grand mal seiziure, I remember it clear as day. I remember the way the morning light came in the windows, and I was eating my cereal, probably fruit loops, reading Gary Larson and laughing my butt off. Then my funny bone hit the edge of the kitchen table and I was in massive pain, yelling owie. Then blackness. The next thing I knew I woke up on the livingroom carpet, soft face smooshed into the weave. My first thought was “It must be Monday. Time to go to school.”

There’s nothing else particularily remarkable, no further grand mal seizures, but I have petit mals. I get them quite frequently. I’ll just stare at a small spot and suddenly no information gets into my head. People could be having meaningful conversations with me and quite often I’ll “space out.” I’ve learned how to cover for it reasonably well, just nod your head in agreement once you can move again. There actually have been a couple of times I agreed to something that wasn’t . . . agreeable. People sometimes also assume I’m not listening to them, which is true but for a medical reason, and then they get all tetchy.

***************Bonus Secret!**********************

I commonly have auditory hallucinations. Ironically, these didn’t begin until I started taking pharmaceuticals to combat depression, then manic depression. There’s nothing particularily remarkable about these either, quite often I hear my name being called, during withdrawal from Paxil I kept hearing the sound of a huge truck passing by, sometimes just a pounding frequency. When I went really crazy I had very distinct voices telling me things, and church bells. But my hallucinations are pretty benign, and I cover for them pretty well so I can pass as normal. I’ve just learned not to react every time I hear something similar to my hallucinations. Unfortunately this sometimes makes me look a bit stupid or standoffish if it’s not a hallucination.