​I bring this story up, because, about three years later, we moved back to that area. Seeing her again was actually a lot of fun. In our reminiscing, I brought up the Big Fight of Third Grade. She denied having any memory of it. My twelve-year-old self was floored and dropped pretty quickly, REALLY?!?! One of the most traumatic events of my childhood and the key second party claimed to have no memory?!?! My younger brother, who was SIX at the time, remembers how bad it was.

That day, when I got back to family and told my mom about her lack of memory, I was sobbing. I didn’t understand why it cut so much, but man that sucked. Now I know the term gaslighting (great movie, by the way), and there is a lot of public discourse on how it is used as manipulation an abuse tactic. That’s not the goal of this blog post, though.

Before I go further, I do want to pause to wrap things regarding my young frenemy. While I will never fully understand why she denied remembering our fight, she was 11, and 11 will 11. As for what happened in 3rd grade, from things my parents have said about her upbringing and my own adult perspective, she faced a lot of why-can’t-you comparisons. To be frank, my third-grade year was stellar. I was involved in some really stand-out extracurriculars that would take at least 257 blog entries to do justice. Even with how she treated me, it was by far my best school year. In conclusion, she’s not someone I wish to ever see again, however, I wish her well.

Back to why I’m writing this blog: Those events were important because they heavily contributed to my decision not to let people get close enough to hurt me.

As you may have guessed, that didn’t go well.

Among other flaws, it turns out our brains are beautifully made with a limbic system and is intricately designed to manage and process emotions. It is anatomically separate from the more cognitive portions but integrated with overall network to allow for the processing of memories, motivations, and other complex thoughts. Like anything brain-related, we are only just beginning to understand how this all works, but this is one thing the scientists seem to agree upon when it comes to the function of the limbic system: EMOTIONS WILL BE EXPRESSED. We can only store them for so long, then they start coming out one way or another.

In other words, we cannot choose to erase our own emotions.

Lately I’ve been wondering how choosing to pretend events never happen affects the denier. In a way, it’s more rational than emotional, but since the limbic system contributes heavily to memory…? Is this why some people suddenly become overcome by guilt?

Recent events have me wondering how erasure affects people at the cultural level. Think about it:

1. Culture is formed by people and has a lot rational and emotional traits in common.
2. Claiming witnessed events did not happen “that way” is a form of gaslighting. Therefore, it is bound to have an impact on members of that culture.
3. EMOTIONS WILL COME OUT, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER.

 
Now that I am at the end, I realize I needed to tell that story from my childhood to arrive at the following question: when you consider the way we are designed – our brains, DNA, trees, fungal networks, the interconnectedness gorgeousness of absolutely everything – how could history possibly be erased? 

Keep telling the stories.

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​The ambulatory EEG didn’t pick up any epileptic activity while I was experiencing symptoms. This is very common during focal aware seizures, which is what I am most likely having. They can affect only a tiny part of the brain and that can be hard to catch. Additionally, my symptoms experienced during the study were fairly mild; I’ve had much stronger.

The next step is additional medication. It’s being added incrementally and should reduce seizure symptoms. So, if it does – yay! – focal aware seizures it is!!! If not, it looks like I may have developed some kind of headache disorder. Evidently there is a significant overlap on the Venn diagram comparing the two.  Migraines, or the like, are not a desired diagnosis as that just would be another thing to have to deal with. No thank you.
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Looking into a comparison of both, I am confident enough I’m experiencing focal aware seizures to tell people who ask that is what’s going on. It not being official is frustrating, but I understand why the neurologist can’t give me an official diagnosis yet. The data is too qualitative. They need to make sure they’ve verified everything. And I respect that.

Now that I’ve reached the end, what are focal aware seizures exactly? They are a form of partial seizure that affects, as the name implies, only part of the brain. The person also maintains a certain amount of awareness. The auras many people experience before a large seizure are a focal aware seizure that eventually expand to affect the whole brain. However, they don’t always do this.

The symptoms of a focal aware seizure vary with the person and with it’s focal point within the brain. Very often, it’s a strong feeling of déjà vu or jamais vu. I have this. It’s weird, disorienting and scary. If, as a child, you ever had a really high fever, and, that night, you had a hallucinating nightnmare about Mary Poppins , that's the kind of disorienting and scary I'm talking about.

Sometimes words get really hard. I can’t form them or find them. Picture a brain fart with constipation. Words can also suddenly change their meaning and spelling, so my sentences no longer make sense. Other symptoms include strange acts of clumsiness, absentmindedness, or feelings of numb tingles. 

In summary, brains are weird. It’s no wonder that it takes time to figure out what’s going on.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I know I could benefit from the discipling of sharing regularly. On a personal level, I’ve been in a dysregulated tumult since mid-December (see previous post). Writing about my progress and setbacks would likely help me gain more stability. It might help others, too, but I’m not in a place where that should be my focus.

On a more universal level, there’s a lot of concerning and confusing things taking place right now. I’m in a unique position of having interacted with many of the conflicting groups. I think a lot about simply telling stories about the things I’ve learned and experienced. This feels heavier and more important than writing about my health. I feel a tension between wanting to do justice to the stories shared while being 100% okay if no one ever hears what I have to say.

To summarize, I am simultaneously holding the understanding that this will benefit me personally, concerns about presentation to an audience, apathy about an audience reaction, and feelings of pointlessness if no one sees it.
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Rather ironic to post all this on a blog that nobody reads. However, a routine posting schedule here is also the best place to start. So future person, how did I do?

 Think about how strange it is to recall a dream. You have the ability to remember specific events and feeling, but they don’t quite connect. There are gaps in the logic. Now imagine you had access to someone who saw everything that happened in your dream and could fill in all the missing pieces.

That is what happened to me last week.

My younger brother and I were both climbing the walls a little, so this past Wednesday, I convinced him to go on a hike with me. It was a nice outing. We grabbed lunch beforehand and the hike itself was short and pleasant. Leaving the trail, the route home goes through downtown Hot Springs. While driving past all the tourist shops and bathhouses, I started feeling really weird and nauseated. I pulled over, and crouched behind the car. My brother turn on the hazard lights because we were in a no parking zone. I remember not wanting to get sick on my shoes or in my muffler.

After that, my recollections get really vague. For example, I remember cheerfully telling the stranger who offered me water, “No, thank you!” The stranger was my brother.

I also remember wanting my brother to look at the pattern in the pavement (there was a face in the white paint). He reports that I became fixated on all kinds of patterns, particularly the lights in the jewelry store and the dirt on my car window. I even wanted paper towels to clean it off. I don’t remember any of this.

I also don’t remember going into my trunk to get my sodium tablets out of my box of useful things. My brother says I first grabbed a travel bottle of contact lens solution and insisted it was sodium. He was smart enough to know that wasn’t correct and found the right bottle. I don’t remember getting into the passenger seat and fastening my own seat belt either. But I did.

My brother says the whole thing outside the car lasted maybe 10 minutes. I was cheerful and talking, but was clearly “circling Mars” until the drive home, when I fell asleep. I didn’t start regaining awareness until we arrived in Malvern. I slept for at least another hour once home. Since then, I have been extra tired and fuzzy, but otherwise fine. I’ve actually been a bit more productive.

So, what happened?

I think it was a TLE seizure, or a focal seizure that only affects the temporal lobe. Reading the description, and it sounds like what I experienced. My brother agrees that it fits what he saw on his end. My chattiness was a little strange, but not unheard of. There’s no way to officially confirm it without an EEG and/or having more, and nobody wants that. It most likely is because I’ve been having trouble with my medication. The kind I’m on has a side effect of lowering sodium. Late last spring, it was confirmed mine had become chronically low, so my dosage was reduced. Evidently, that solved one problem while creating another. I have some blood work scheduled for today. I’m 99.9% positive my medication will be changed.

Meanwhile, all is well. Honestly, the event itself is borderline hilarious. My brother was definitely concerned and handled it brilliantly, yes/and-ing me to safety. However, we both agree, all of the humor quickly disappears when thinking about what might’ve happened if he wasn’t there…

Moral of the Episode: Scary things become fun when my brother is around!

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