2020 - the year everything changed

By now it's pretty cliche to say that 2020 sucked. Of course, the pandemic and it's associated disruptions to our lives had quite an affect on on a lot of us, but for me in all honesty it was not too much of a bother at first seeing as though I was not one to go out and socialise anyway, most of my social life existed online. The bigger disruption for me, in fact, the life changing disruption was getting epilepsy.

I had my first seizure in June, completely terrifying  and out of the blue, bought on by stress I later discovered. Since then, I have experienced 2 more and now have to get used to the fact that it can happen again, and all I can do is learn as best I can to spot the signs, keep myself safe and try my best to get my quality of life back; because this is what has happened. Since June, everything I enjoyed in my life has been put on hold, and I am having to make changes in myself to get used to the new me, and try my best to forget about the old me and move on. 

What was clear from the beginning was that I needed help to adjust to this new me. I sought out help in the form of online therapy, and talked to the wonderful and supportive people from Epilepsy Action. When you've lived for nearly 40 years without having Epilepsy, you can imagine it is quite a lot to take in when you suddenly do, and you find yourself on medication every day, like many others with a long term illness. Needless to say, I found myself at my lowest point ever. I had to give up playing video games through fear of it being too overwhelming. I had to give up my hobby of building mecha models through fear of the precision, levels of concentration and time required. I had to give up watching TV shows and movies that I loved. Not through any medical advisement I might add, just through fear alone. I also lost my biggest sense of freedom, my legal status to drive. It also made me terrified to be alone. Although I am gaining back some aspects of my life that I enjoyed now, slowly and in short bursts - there's still a long way to go. 


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