i’ve been cleaning….. this is almost a miraculous event. not only have i been cleaning the kitchen, i’ve been doing laundry; defragging my hard drive; updating the index; and talking to myself.
i always talk to myself when i clean. i don’t know why.. its just one of those odd things i do.. like walking around while brushing my teeth… i’ve never understood why i do that. i think i started that when i was about 7.. where was i? oh, talking to myself. yes. i have these intricate conversations with myself, where i’m explaining something to a metaphorical ‘someone else’. i guess, in a way, it helps me to understand what it whatever is that happens to be the topic of ‘conversation’.
tonight, i was talking about my childhood. specifically, how i was affected by finding out at age 11, that i was born with epilepsy. this is not something i tell a lot of people, so you can now consider yourselves one of the enlightened few.
i threw my first fit when i was 3 days old. the doctors refused to diagnose me until i was two years, 3 months old. by that time, my mum knew what was wrong (she’s an ex-nurse, and was aware of the history of epilepsy that runs through my dad’s family), and was frustrated by the doctors’ (plural) refusal to diagnose me as such. but, at 2yrs, 3months, they finally ran me through an ECG, and the diagnosis was epilepsy. i was on Dilantin from then, until i was nearly 4. my last seizure was shortly after i started taking the Dilantin.
(apparently the medical cause was a chemical imbalance. i had an overload of potassium in my system, which was restricting my ability to absorb calcium. (that’s a rough description, based on my vague memory of what mum told me. don’t quote me to a doctor.) essentially, low calcium = seizure.)
i don’t remember any of this. mum told me about it when i was 11.. i was going on a school camp, and she had to fill out one of those “This child has suffered the following illness/conditions” permission forms. it was quite a shock to me..
i was paranoid about it returning one day; i was filled with the “there’s something wrong with me” kind of self hate; AND i felt betrayed that she hadn’t told me about it sooner. i honestly believed that i would have been able to understand it at an earlier age.
all that angst at age 11. no wonder i’m still fucked up 🙂
who knows, though. there’s no way to tell now, if i would have been able to handle it.. and there’s no point in getting angry about any of it now.
i just felt like sharing that..