I think some of the seizures I have at times are considered a type of focal aware, but I might be wrong. I would feel "out of it", basically. I would also forget the most basic of info - my name, where I lived, who my parents are, what my eye color was, etc. Unfortunately they often happened at night or in the morning. I'd wake up, go to school, and then be out of it all day long. I'm not sure when the seizure started and when it ended because I would be having difficulties in school all day long. I'm wondering if that was a result of multiple seizures. I know my mom would recognize the look in my eyes after a while and describe it as this "glazed over type of look," but my teachers didn't notice it and other students didn't. She begged for me to be homeschooled, but I always resisted, unfortunately. I don't think she should've given me the choice, but...
I couldn't do any of my school work. I was too out of it, I couldn't recall any information I needed to take tests. These seizures happened a lot before tests (probably a stress factor some of the time), but it was also hormonal, too. I couldn't follow instructions at all. The teacher would ask us to get out a certain book and turn to a specific page and I couldn't do it. I'd grab the book and it would be the wrong one, before I knew it - I'd have a whole stack on my desk of books and they were ALL the wrong books. It created a scene.
By the time I got to high school, the campus was a large one and during seizures like these, I'd just start wandering because I didn't remember where any of my classes were. I didn't have information for anyone to look up my schedule, a security guard asked an upperclassman to help me find my classes, but I didn't even know my teachers! So this poor student was going around, asking if teachers knew me or any of my classes. It just so happened to be all the wrong teachers. Eventually, I remembered the name of one class and the the other student was like, "Yeah?! What's the name?" and I told him and he said, "I know where that is! C'mon!" We got there and the teacher was locking up his class and looked super confused. The upperclassman was explaining the situation and the teacher said, "I'm sorry, I don't have a sixth hour class. I'm locking up for the day." My brain kind of felt a panic, "Sixth HOUR?!" I had been wandering around campus the entire school day. This not only happened one day, it had happened a couple of other times, too.
Often times when I would get home...and I feel blessed I never got hit by a car or wandered into the road or something like that...God protected me every step of that way because I'm entirely convinced I should be dead by now, but by his grace, I'm alive...I would start "coming out of it". Slowly, my memories would return to me and this was the worst part because I would remember all this stupid stuff I did or had a list of people I wondered if I should apologize to or not when I went back or feared I'd get made fun of.
Later in life, I had focal aware seizures that led into tonic-clonic seizures. This transition takes hours, though...my onset is slow.
I feel incredibly tired and crummy afterwards, though, and I sleep for a long time. I was usually able to go back to school the next day and be okay if that's how I wanted it to go.
I can say, I feel a lot more tired when I have a tonic-clonic seizure than when I have a focal aware one.
