seizure disorder

I have finally figured out my character and what upsets people so much about me.

I am a person who suffered from a seizure disorder all her life and nobody knew it.

I covered it over as a child through constant reading.

At Kent School I felt constantly, physically stressed in a way that I did not undetstand. They took away my horse. I couldn’t do sports.

When I first met my husband we saw the movie, “Awakenings,” with Robert DeNiro and Robin Williams, about patients deemed catatonic schizophrenics who were discerned to have a seizure disorder in common when one of them reflexively reached out to catch something that the doctor dropped. He later called it “borrowing the will of the ball.” It was, of course, a true story. These patients were trapped inside seizures so deep they couldn’t move.

So, when I was on a psych ward in California at 4 months pregnant, I was able to participate in the group with the red rubber ball. I thought back to the movie.

I saw an ad on t.v. for Christian Children’s Fund with Sally Struthers from “All in the Family.” ”Somewhere out there there is a child who desperately needs you.” I thought of the baby and knew what to do.