Epilepsy. People always want to know---even if they are too polite to ask me---if it feels as weird as it looks.
“What’s it like to have a seizure?” a young man currently under my tutelage asked me. “Is it true you can tell when one’s coming on? Does it hurt?” He had the right to ask as he’d just rescued me from being hauled off in an (expensive: $500) ambulance following one such episode, and he was worried.
[1] 'Ignore it and it will go away.' No, actually, it won't.
I had my first seizure that I know of when I was a year old. I had some sort of viral illness. It might have been meningitis, but was never diagnosed as such. After that, I didn’t have any problems until I was in second grade; I had a seizure one day in school. I was doing a writing exercise and suddenly I couldn’t write anymore. I was terrified and started to cry. I didn’t fall down or anything; I just couldn’t write. My teacher was surprised because there was nothing she could see that would explain it. My parents were annoyed, as they thought I'd just had a bout of hysterics. My father was more annoyed when, following the seizure, my handwriting deteriorated completely and I went from making 'A's' to making 'C's.' It was as if I really had forgotten how to form the letters; eventually---several years later---I re-taught myself. Nowadays, of course, handwriting wouldn't matter so much; but it mattered then.