where it all started (pt.2)

Anemia. Anxiety. Dissociative Disorder. Panic Attacks. Narcolepsy. Migraines. Seizures.

These are all labels for medical problems I have been tested for as a result of events that have been occurring since I was 16. I currently do not have any of these labels and am on no serious medication. This is how it started.

When I was 16, I started to "fall asleep" in class. There was a lot of explanations for feeling so tired. I had a lot in my plate. I was eating too much food with high glycemic index. I was stressed about making perfect grades for college. I slept more. I drank more caffeine. And still, nothing.

My senior year of high school I went on a choir trip to New York City to sing with 5 other high school choirs and perform at Carnegie Hall. It was all very exciting, because I knew that with a performance at Carnegie comes many hours of rehearsing. At this point, I couldn't go more than an hour of sitting down without "going to sleep". I knew that if we were sitting down for 3 to 4 hours I likely was not going to make it through the whole thing without passing out. An hour in to our first rehearsal, my vision went to blurry, I started shaking, and got really dizzy. Before it could get worst, I left the ballroom to go up to my room. Suddenly, I couldn't remember where I was. I had been up to my hotel room before but I suddenly could no longer tell where I was. What I didn't know at the time was that I was likely experiencing something called an absent seizure.

It wasn't until my sophomore year of college that I really started to seek help for these episodes. My counselor at school was surprised by how I was handling a seemingly large amount of stress. He worried that I my body may be holding the stress in an unproductive way, but I didn't know what he meant by that. Then he asked me if I ever forgot where I was or blacked out. I responded, "um yeah. But only when I get really tired. But thats normal, right?". It was not normal.

This began what has now been 6 months of tests for a dissociative disorder, seizures, epilepsy, migraines, and every other problem under the sun. This involved trying new medications, an EEG, an MRI, wearing a heart monitor, going to vision therapy, blood tests, and my personal favorite, a self-administered intramuscular shot. fun.

We still don't know why these events are occurring. Everyday presents challenges and that hasn't been easy but nothing worth having comes easy.

--Sabrina