I was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 16. The specialists couldn’t tell me what caused my epilepsy, but it was later found out that I was suffering with grand mal seizures and fitting (seizing) in my sleep. For my medication, I was put on Eperlim, 200 mg 3 times a day, which eventually led to it being increased to 1000 mg a day because I was getting worse.
At 22, I had my worse fit. To make it short, I had a grand mal seizure, but after I was taken to the hospital, they wouldn’t let anybody near me. A nurse got too close, and I attacked her, which was not me! They phoned the police, and they said I attacked them when they came in through the door. When I woke up out of my fit, I was in the police station, lying on the floor handcuffed from behind. Everything about the hospital I have no memory of. It made me feel really scared because my fits were getting worse every time they happened.
I realized that I had a hyperactive brain, which means I was always thinking ahead of myself. I could be talking to someone and still be thinking about something else at the same time. I was overworking my thought process, which was sending out too many electrical signals in my brain which led my brain to be unable to cope. This was why I would go into an epileptic fit. For me, the best way to cope with this is to concentrate on one thing at a time and not allow my mind to wander. I call it playing mind games with myself. I would focus on what I was doing and not think about anything else.
Never allowing your brain to rest is like running 100 miles an hour. Going to bed, never allowing the brain to rest properly, and always lying down thinking about things while trying to sleep is what happens when going to sleep with an active mind. My last fit was when I was 22. I stopped my tablets at 27 years old, and I haven’t had a fit since. I’m 59 now and live in Birmingham, England. I hope a lot of you relate to my story, and if you want to learn more, let the epilepsy foundation know about it. Thank you a lot for reading my story. It’s the first time I have ever told my story.😁