It's like the inside of a tornado

I've been telling everyone who'll listen that I'm almost two years seizure free. I was met with a very intriguing respone from someone very close to me: "What does a seizure feel like? Do you remember what they're like?" Of course I remember what they're like, but it's not something I ever ever thought about, in descriptive terms. "How do you feel?" someone would ask, after a seizure would end, and I could communicate again. "Tired, and scared." Is how I would, always respond. By the time they were over I my body would ache, and mentally I'd be exhausted. I never gave much thought to what the actual seizure felt like.

It's like being in the inside of a tornado! Except there is no weather forecaster to tell you one is coming, so you can board up your windows and protect yourself.

I remember the first seizure I ever had. It was 2005. I was driving, and it started to snow. I'm from New York, snow is nothing unusual here. The start of that day's flurries sent me into an indescribable panic. I got lost one town away from the town I grew up in. I was on roads I had traveled several times before. Under normal circumstances I wouldn't have been lost. I took out my cell phone and started making random calls asking for help and directions. In the middle of that tornado I saw people, and landmarks that didn't exist. What I didn't see was the tree that did exist, that my tornado pulled my car right into.

 I was blessed (and cursed) with awareness during my seizures. I could see the world as it spun around me. I couldn't slow it down, or control it. I was aware of the panic on the faces, of those around me. There was no  pause button, to slow things down for the 15 seconds it would take for me to say, to them,"I'm ok!"

There's a loss of control, that you don't willingly give up. The irony of being rendered powerless by the, same body part that gives you control of your entire being, is sickening!

I distinctly remember, having a seizure, while sitting with my back against a wall. I unwillingly started banging my head against that wall. I thought, out loud: "Taniya, stop banging your head! You already had one Brain injury, do you want another one?" As the tornado spun, my physical body would not make the connection with my cognitive thoughts!

Maybe it's true: To think is easy to do is hard. Is that why they say talk is cheap?

Much like the fictional tornado, that takes Dorothy to Oz, all you want to do is find your way back. You lose what feels like hours, of time in a matter of minutes. Then you spend the next few hours picking up the fragmented pieces of what was your day , before the tornado came pummeling through you.

Dorothy get's caught in a tornado and sees a tin man, lion and talking scarecrow. During some of my seizures I've seen: a purple house, a cop wearing bunny ears, a black man delivering Chinese food and two Asian men dancing, in my hospital room, and a talking unicorn with an English accent.

...It's like a tornado. Having a seizure feels like getting trapped in the center of an out of control tornado.