You know, I later wrote a letter to that same doctor describing a seizure as best I could since I just needed time to think of what to say. I never heard back. I'll bet some of you can identify with this.
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When you asked about how these seizures were experienced, I just had no words to describe them. In fact, though you've heard the answer hundreds of times, unless you also have seizures you can never really feel how impotent you are to describe them. It is not an experience that can be described at all, but people try, and I will, too. At first, it is like experiencing a strong vacuum pulling my concentration in to foccus on a strange numbess that is spreading from it. Real things are becoming unreal as that vacuum is getting sronger and pulling reality into its void. I don't feel like I'm aware of things outside that are beyond that void and I can't talk, though I try to at first, to explaine what is happening, but there is now no language at all. Even receptive language is gone and I can hear people talking but not words, only sounds, and somehow I try to speak automaticaly when the sounds stop, like a condiioned response, but all I can make is a repetitive sound, but without either clear vocalization or meaning. Later on as the seizure eases up I can try to make real words but even then I can only make the first initial sound like buh, buh but without any meaning, only that conditioned response. In trying to talk, my mouth must be moving because other people say so, and my hands and arms and whole body are making sudden tic-like movements, but I don't actually feel this movement. That vacuum is too srong. I can't move at all or recognize anything beyond me and I just stare, but that is just automated, not something I do consciously. I don't know how long this lasts but I'm told several mintes, until I can feel more aware of things beyond myself. I may find I had wet my clothes (which can be a real emberisment, later!). As it ends, I feel sort of dizzy and confused and weak and have quite a tremor when I move. I try to find a place to just sit down until all this confusion fades, usually about 15 or 20 minutes. Then it is all over and things go on as though it never happened. But I sometimes try to remember that strange feeling to try to explaine it to someone else who was there, and I can remember parts of it like it was far away and not part of anything real but most of it I can't even remember, just the impression that it must have happened. Now, that's the best I can do about explaining it.
