Hello all, and it's a pleasure to meet you. I apologize for the length this post may achieve, but I will break it into chunks that can be skipped if you so choose. Thank you, if you don't read, for just letting me post.

I am terrified. I've been putting off this doctor's appointment for about four years now, and have finally made it for next Monday at noon. To put my fears into perspective, I'm a single divorced mother of a beautiful seven year old. I'm a veteran of the Navy. I hold a job that pays me well above minimum wage and I'm currently going to school with the goal to become a doctor. My daughter has a sensory disorder that makes school very difficult, and I am often called to the school to handle the issues. We live pay check to pay check. My father just had open heart surgery after a massive heart attack, and my mother has been diagnosed (finally!) with bipolar and is coping with her new medication.

On Monday, my house of cards may crumble. If you want, you can skip this part and go down to the symptoms I've been experiencing, but I needed somewhere to get this off my chest.

If I am told I have seizures, I know my car will be taken from me. I live no where near any type of public transportation. I cannot afford to move closer, and my current house is smack in the middle of the three locations I currently frequent. I have no support that will take me from one place to the next to the next. I'm an incredibly busy woman, and losing my car will make me completely homeless, jobless, and withdrawn from my future career. I fear losing my child because I will have no house or income.

But I also fear leaving her without a mother. If I let this go and suddenly come down with horrific grand mal seizures and one of them kills me, will it have been worth it?


So now that my fears have been laid out, I ask for someone to take a look at my symptoms who experiences seizures. If you can, give advice. I understand no one is a doctor (that's why I made the appointment ), but I'd like to go in with a more clearing understanding of seizures. What I read is kind of confusing; I feel it would be best to get the info straight from the horse's mouth, so to speak.

I don't understand the auras. If my experiences sound similar, please let me know. About four years ago, I experienced an intense (what I originally thought) breakdown for no apparent reason. I was losing time, becoming extremely depressed, hearing voices occasionally, experiencing dissociation, feeling intense fear and panic for no reason, and seeing things. The seeing things included: little shadow 'bugs' (for lack of a better word) going up and down my field of vision, larger shadows moving at my peripheral, and at one point watching my little Christmas tree bend, sway, grow bigger and smaller, and then return to normal. All of this terrified me as all of this was happening at the same time. I thought I was going insane, so I immediately sought out a psychiatrist and therapist.

They immediately latched onto my mother's bipolar history and claimed I was bipolar. I was placed on Depakote first, and it worked, but I was still having intense visual issues and depression. They added Seroquel. It didn't matter how much Seroquel they added, it didn't do anything except make me gain fifty pounds in three months and bring on horrible tics.

I sought out a different psychiatrist and therapist (the therapist was awful; he was very condescending and actually would make me feel like a horrible person!). I was then diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, due to the time loss. I was weaned off the medication. The therapist was great, and I started to feel much better after about a month, but I could tell DID wasn't my issue either. Unfortunately, I had to move before we could find a better diagnosis, and I haven't had a therapist/psychiatrist since.

A coworker of mine suffers from temporal lobe seizures and, due to my own personal interest, I asked her about them. I always thought seizures were like the movies; nothing but twitches or drooling. I don't mean that in a rude way, I was just ignorantly unaware of the true condition. She started to tell me her auras, and I almost fell over; my issues sounded very much like hers!

I have issues with memory that are progressively getting worse. Time has become very odd to me. I can still tell when time has passed and about how much, but if I'm asked to recall when an incident happened it would feel as if it happened years ago, when in reality it was yesterday or two days ago. I never know what day it is; I have to constantly remind myself.

I used to be pretty articulate, but now I can barely find words! I'll be trying to ask my daughter if she could fetch me a water from the fridge, but I'll forget the word 'fridge'. I then, as frustration and embarassment builds, try to describe the fridge as "the thing that holds food!". Sometimes she understands, sometimes I'll eventually get the word out, or sometimes I get up and do it myself. This happens very frequently, and it's becoming disturbing.

I 'smell' cold. Have you ever gone from a warm house into freezing cold weather and taken a deep breath through your nose? That's the smell I'm talking about. My nose gets tingly and I 'smell' cold. I don't really get other olfactory issues, just the cold.

I still dissociate, but sometimes the world will come roaring back to life. Colors will seem brighter, I'll suddenly feel very connected and aware, and I'll become very happy as you can imagine. And then, it'll slowly slip away again, back to the hum drum and my thoughts. I didn't think much of those episodes until my coworker told me she experiences those too.

Chest pain. This might be a separate issue (I'm going to a cardiologist too to make sure). I'll be sitting down doing homework and suddenly it'll feel as if my heart is fluttering. I feel panicky, tingles rush from my cheeks to the rest of my body, and I'll even feel as if I've been kicked from the inside near the breast bone. I'll just keep breathing, though sometimes I cough, to keep from panicking. And then I just feel my heart pounding for a while until that calms.

I'm always exhausted too. I can't figure out why, as I sleep well.

I get these head tingles. I had a friend once jokingly tell me a spirit was touching my scalp. It's like goosebumps, but without the bumps. In fact, I'm experiencing it now. I used to get full body tingles while trying to sleep, but those would lead to incredibly vivid and terrifying sleep paralysis. I suffer from those very often, though lately they've petered off.

Crying spells drive me nuts. I'll be listening to a song, and suddenly feel the need to cry. I'll be swallowing the lump for about a minute and then the sensation is gone. I'm not depressed when these episodes come along nor am I even listening to sad music; they just happen. It's not always music that brings these on either, though they are more frequent when music is playing.

I'm sure there is more, but I have to head out to work. If you've read this far, I thank you. I understand I posted a lot, but I hope you can understand my trepidation. If you can, I'd like to read your own stories; your auras, your actual seizures, how you feel during them, etc. I'll update this post when I get home with what I believe are the seizures I've experienced.

Thank you again for your time, and thank you for having me here. I hope you all are having a wonderful day!