What It’s Like to Have a Seizure (Or, Why I Hate Socks, Balloons, and Meat That's Been Stuffed into a Tube)

I hate socks. 

I have always hated socks.  Always.  As a child, I peeled them off the second I took off my shoes.  And I still do, on the rare occasion that I even bother to wear socks.  I hate how confining they are, how restricting.  They just make my wide-width shoes even tighter (my feet are about as wide as they are long—pretty much square blocks), and I feel like my toes are gonna bust out the sides. 

I hate balloons for the same reason.  They’re squeaky and loud, they contain and confine, and they have the potential to burst.  I hate that they might pop at any moment—you never know when they might blow.  They always sneak up and surprise you.  I remember the ushers at our wedding thought they were being kind by filling our getaway vehicle (hubby’s grandma’s sweet Jaguar) with balloons.  Two popped on the ride to the reception hall.  I nearly hyperventilated.

And meat that’s been stuffed into a tube is revolting to me.  I think hot dogs and bratwursts and sausages are vile.  I hate casings.  Again, with the confining—I hate that restriction.  (And I hate meat that has been so altered that it no longer looks like meat, but that’s another story for another time.)

I hate things that feel so overstuffed that they might pop.

And these strange pet peeves/phobias/what-have-you’s never made sense to me until recently: I’m pretty sure that they freak me out because it’s exactly what my brain feels like right before it fails me: so full it’s got to burst.

In spite of this brand-new, fancy, super-expensive drug I’m on ($7.00 a day!), I’m still having seizures.  I had one on Tuesday, and it was a nasty one.  And I had a migraine before and after it.  It hasn’t been a good week for my brain.

But I feel like there is this pressure that just buildsandbuildsandBUILDSANDBUILDS inside of my head, and it comes out as a seizure. 

The previous drug released this pressure in small leaks—I had frequent, minor seizures, like when you let air leak slowly from an untied balloon. (Ugh, that awful squelching noise.)  The act never empties the balloon—it just takes some of the pressure off.

This new drug (and the one prior to it) keeps the lid on for awhile longer—I went nearly two whole weeks without one.  But when I blow, the pressure that has built up is substantially greater, so the seizure that follows is, too.  This kind is pretty much the equivalent of a popped balloon.  Or a holey sock.  Or a hot dog that busted out of its casing.  (Shudder. I can think of few things more disgusting.)

So, seizures feel like socks and balloons and hot dogs.  


All things that I hate.