I often find myself wondering who I’d be if not for this disease. I’m a self described free spirit, but I sure don’t feel it. I imagine the different versions of me I could’ve been as I gaze out the window at the snow kissed mountains and sublime Douglas firs. I’m being driven back to my dorm by security, “just to be safe.” It’s day four of my new meds, and it’s just as awful as I expected. I told myself all day that I was just being dramatic. It’s just anxiety, I told myself. But when I started confusing words and making simple mistakes, I knew I had to go home. It felt like someone had turned up the brightness on my vision… suddenly, I was wading through water.
Every movement slow yet somehow still clumsy. Being at home in my bed is one thing, but having a seizure at work in front of all the guests and my coworkers,pissing myself, convulsing…. As if I’m not already judged enough by them. The company would probably find some nonsense reason to fire me not long after… it wouldn’t be the first time it happened. Pissing myself at home is one thing. I’m by myself. I wake up, realize I had a seizure, and i shower. Nobody is there to witness me throw my piss, sweat, and blood-stained clothes in the hamper. Nobody is there to witness how long it takes me to walk to the bathroom or move around from how sore the convulsions made my body.
They don’t see me clean up the cuts I gave myself and they aren’t there to witness it when I inevitably give up, slowly sit down in the shower, and cry because of the embarrassment, shame, frustration and weight of this disability. I hate this. I just wanna be normal. I wanna be healthy. I could’ve been an astronaut,a van lifer,a bartender,a raver. Maybe if I could do things like stay up late and drink, people would ask me to hang out more. But I can’t. I can’t stay up late. I can’t drive, I can’t skip a meal to starve myself and see how thin I can get. I can’t do psychedelics and heal all my traumas. I feel like I was robbed. How is it possible that medicine exists to control this disease, but there’s no cure? I call bullshit. I want my life back. I want the life back that I could’ve had. I want the person back I could’ve been. I want the possibilities that are my birthright. Freedom is a funny thing. A human can seem so bright yet have the shackles of disease upon them, never having had the will to choose it or self inflict it but rather it be a burden upon them from her birth.
