The Only Way Out is Through

I haven't slept well in a while. My legs stung as I woke up, a sign of another night of restless sleep. I dragged my feet to the kitchen and made a pot of coffee, passing roommates asleep on the couch after a late night of drinking. It's 6 AM and I'm on my sixth…

waking life, in the light

My memories are few and far between. Whether it's the medication or years of uncontrolled seizures, many times I find myself missing key pieces when I see friends and reminisce. I smile and laugh, trying to avoid the gnawing feeling in my chest. I fiddle with my clothes, sip on my coffee, look around the…

Little Numbers on a Screen

I do it every morning. I have for years, on and off. I strip down to nothing and step on the scale. I close my eyes, wait, and look down. Its been slowly moving smaller and smaller each week. I eat half the food on my plate and feel full. I spend afternoons feeling nauseated…

Tick, Tick, Tick

The walls are closing in and suddenly the air is smokey. For months, there has been shifting in the air, promises of new life around the corner, but now there is stillness. Sudden and unprovoked. There is a sense of urgency, that every second I spend breathing in the polluted air of an apartment with…

Back Steps

Things had been going well for months. No flukes, no missed work, no staying home alone while my friends are out. I have been living normally for the last five months. It was a dream, the longest streak I've had in years. But yesterday hit me hard. Why is it that this is happening? I've…

Survived By

I see your name in the newspaper. The photo next to it is unfamiliar to me, you're smiling but I don't know what at. I've seen glimpses before. A photo from a Christmas before I was even a thought, one of you in a kitchen with yellow appliances and a patterned, laminate floor. My mother…

The Lifelong Work of Acceptance

In dealing with a disability, like many things, one of the hardest steps is acceptance of the situation. I believe a couple years after my diagnosis, I did find acceptance of it. Understanding that this is something that I will live with, likely, for the rest of my life. But at fifteen years old, it's…

When Things Aren’t Good

When things aren't good, I don't usually share much. I wait it out. Make the changes I need to, go to the doctors appointments, follow orders. But the last couple weeks have felt like too much to handle. What is there to really do when you have a week until you can see your doctor,…

Fear and Health Care

Health care has been on my (most people’s) mind a lot lately. I’ve been thinking (panicking) about how the upcoming changes to the Affordable Care Act would be effecting me and those around me. While considering this, I thought about what I could add to the conversation. There’s so much out there already: opinions, statistics,…

A Years Time

Let me preface this by saying that this is my first writing that is not directly related to my epilepsy. I created this blog to write about it, but I felt that there was so much more to my life that isn't just my condition. I think that it is all-encompassing, but not defining. Most…