Category: Epilepsy

Be still, be silent.

I’m disappointed for being too “respectful” the kind of respectful that had me stuck in situations where I accepted the outcome because I didn’t have strength to overcome it or I just didn’t have faith that there’s any chance that I’d get out of my situation.

It breaks me and steals a little of my faith everytime I write this but the words that do laps around my head will always be “be still and be quiet, it’s you and nothing ever works out for you”

I remember rapidly losing weight, I went from 58kgs to 47kgs in less than two months, my iron became very low and I just didn’t have much energy to be productive. I tried eating but I still didn’t put on weight but because of people making me think that being thinner was better I convinced myself to suffer in a body that can barely survive, it’s always society that paints you a picture of how things should be even when it’s wrong.

We dive more into 2019 where I just kept dropping weight and began getting these jerks or shivers from time to time, I didn’t take much thought into it because everyone said “wow, you lost weight and you’re looking so much prettier.”

It was July when it finally hit me, I’m not safe and something was going wrong, I remember walking pass a lake with my younger sister and asking her if she also saw these stars and snakes flying around from time to time, these “shadow looking kinda things” and she looked at me asking me “Are you gone mad?”

Well that’s the last I remember after waking up covered in my own blood, flat on the ground surrounded by people and my brother in law asking me “Are you okay?”

Well of course I’m okay because I was walking around perfectly but why is there blood all over my jeans, why are both my knees bleeding? Why is there blood all over the floor and why am I tasting blood?

He looked at me in shock and said “you’re okay” but I heard someone calling the ambulance and I shouted “WHAT HAPPENED?” They said you just fell and bust your lip, nose, knees and you have some bruises on your fingers. I asked to look at myself and I couldn’t hold back the tears, my lips were slit in half, my nose bleeding, my front tooth loose and about to fall out and everytime I asked what happened I just received a weird look like no body wanted to stress me.

I then found out that I had a grand mal seizure, an epileptic attack. I went two weeks unable to talk properly, unable to eat, I had to stick to liquids and till today I can’t bite using the front of my mouth because I’m afraid that my tooth might fall off because I haven’t yet gone for my root canal, my lip has a bump on it which will remain here forever and I had to limp and walk for a few weeks but that’s not where it ends.

In August I had my second seizure in campus, I didn’t receive any injuries and I was taken care of during the seizure however I was still recovering from my injuries in July. As much as all this really affected my self esteem and I lost faith and trust in myself, it doesn’t seem to get easy.

A few days after my seizure I began teaching practice, I made it aware to the school that I have low iron and I’ve been having seizures, I’m very shaky and due to my tooth being loose, some of the words I say don’t come out clearly, my writing will be untidy because I’m very weak but I will try my best.

It’s days like these where you see the lack of humanity and understanding, due to my illness I was taken out of the school because they believed I’m sick and physically incapable, they believed my writing was too untidy and I’m not good enough because of my health and this has delayed my degree and it breaks my heart till today that they wanted me to keep quiet and accept that I was taken out of the school due to my health, it breaks my heart that I’m unemployed and I now have to pay to study an extra year.

I feel as if it’s time that women stand up and voice their opinions; express their feelings and make it known when they’re being taken advantage of, make it known that they’re not sheep and will get things done given the opportunity, that things shouldn’t be taken away from us because of our health, that we’re strong and will succeed no matter how difficult things are and I know even with my physical health being testing, I would have succeeded in all I did if I was given the opportunity to try and not just taken away from it because they didn’t have any faith in me.

I’m now on medication and I’ve put on a lot of weight and things have been much better for me, it’s safe to say I’ve learnt to be healthy and not worry about the opinions of others.

Continue reading “Be still, be silent.” →

The beauty often brings pain.

We grow up bruising our knees and falling off a bike only to get back up and walk around unashamed of the scars we have, not afraid of the trouble the bike caused or even the fact that jumping back into what hurt you will reopen the wounds it caused you.

Much like love we run back to what causes us pain because we keep holding on to the beautiful moments and forgetting all the bitterness that we experience just to cling to that temporary satisfaction and happiness because we have something to love. It’s the belief that these moments can only represent happiness and love that leaves us wanting more and not being afraid to swim in the deep end knowing there could be consequences to every move we make.

But everything can hurt, the beauty in the night sky can just as well be the pain you feel in the darkness, the water you consume to hydrate yourself, can sometimes be the pool of depression that you’re drowning in, the picture perfect smile you’re portraying so society sees your beauty belongs to the same person who grinds their teeth because of the constant anxiety that they have because of not knowing that they’re good enough.

And we said the scars and falling down are better than being an adult, but that’s because we avoid these situations, we avoid physically hurting ourselves because we’re constantly running around in a circle of finding new ways to emotionally damage ourselves. But what’s worse? The purity in falling off a bike or growing up knowing that age brings deterioration of your health, of your skin, of all the beauty you were okay with scarring..

Today I write fully aware that sometimes the stars in the sky are the most beautiful thing you’d experience but it’s also the most painful thing you’ll see when you’re staring blankly at your surroundings and your head starts spinning like a record and you see these spots of the light, light, that’s not even there, it suddenly hits you like standing in the middle of a field and getting hit by a ball and you’re on the ground, you don’t know how you got there, you don’t know why you’re bleeding, but as you remain there feeling helpless and hearing nothing but your heart beat because you’re afraid of knowing why people are asking you if you’re okay and wiping the blood of your knees and lips, with a calm smile they tell you “You just fainted, you’ll be okay.” But that’s the last thing you need to hear, you don’t wanna know that you’re failing at being physically and emotionally strong, that you can see something beautiful and it’s not even there, it’s just a picture your mind draws up before you fall to surface, painting the ground red with drops off blood so you can wake up the next day and be asked if you’re okay, so you can wake up two weeks later and be afraid that one day you’ll see the sparkling stars but it’s not always a good thing, so you can wake up a month from today and be afraid of yourself because you don’t even remember how you ended up destroying your body with the scars and wounds that heightened every insecurity you ever had. So you can wake up everyday with uncertainty, not knowing if you’re gonna be okay, so you can wake up knowing you’re a seizure away from breaking a mirror because you can’t deal with the memory your epilepsy leaves behind.