Starting High School was just another school year. I was now in the 9th grade. Life was getting harder and I never understand what was happening to me. I was starting to feel ill and did not know what was wrong with me. My doctor told me that I was having mini seizures. I was taking phenobarbital and had been for so long that I was wondering if maybe it was losing it's affect. I started to feel uncomfortable in the school caferteria. I could not eat lunch anymore without feeling like I was going to go into a grand mild seizure. The cafeteria noise started to make me feel uneasy. I would sometimes be in the lunch line and would start to feel so anxious. I would be talking to Janie or she would be talking to me and I would just want to run and not stop running. I did not want anyone to know what I was feeling so I tried to hide it anyway I could. I would leave the line many times and would walk as fast as I could to the girls bathroom. I would hide in one of the stalls and many times I would cry and ask God to please not let me go into a seizure. I would feel better after awhile but I was missing lunch. I began to take snacks to school and would go into the bathroom to eat so that no one would know that I was feeling ill. I did not want anyone to find out that I was having these feeling. Many times when someone would ask where I was during lunch, I would just say that I had a stomach ache and was in the bathroom. I did not like lying, but I sure did not want to tell them that I was feeling sick. I thought if they knew that they would be always watching me to see if I was going to black out or go into a seizure. I did not like anyone looking at me with pity or did I want them to be afraid to be around me. I know that my sister would never let me go with her and my other sisters downtown, when I was younger, because she was always afraid that I would have a seizure. And since I had not had one in such a long time, I was afraid of having them again. I came to believe that crying and praying help the feeling go away so every time I began to get that feeling that is what I began to do. I know now it was more the prayer than the crying that helped.
I don't know how I kept it to myself for so long. It was not easy and if I had known what I know now, I would have told someone. Even Joe did not know. I would always say I had a headache, stomach ache or I was naseaus if I felt the horrible feeling coming on. I went through so much stress whenever we went on fieldtrips because many times there was no place to run. I remember once being at the Symphony, when all of a sudden this fear came over me. I could not swallow and I began to sweat profusingly. I got cold chills and I could not sit still. I felt that I was going to literally die. I did not know what to do. I put my hands over my eyes and prayed like I never prayed before. I was almost jumping out of my skin, trying to make this feeling go away. I swallowed until my mouth went dry. I wanted so much to run out of the auditorium, but that would just cause people to notice that something was wrong. I did everything that I could think of not to make others see that I was feeling the way I was. Janie would ask if I was okay and ofcourse I would think of something to tell her so that she would not worry. Now that I look back, I realized that I was not going to go into a seizure, but that I was having panic attacks. The doctor having my history on record of me having seizures assume by the similar symptoms that I was having mini seizures. But I did not understand why I was able to stop a seizure from coming on. I thought as a child I was not able to stop them and now here I was a teenager and I was having the symptoms but not the seizures. I began to think that one day I was not going to be able to stop it and that I was going to have a grand mild seizure and die. This just caused more anxiety than ever.
I remember not being able to relax when there were lot of people in a room, when the music was on too loud, or when the room was too cold. I was a wreck inside, but outside I was putting on the best act I could so no one would notice. |
