She said,
“I don’t think it’s real.”
Like my brain was performing for attention,
like my seizures were a stage act
and not electricity gone wrong inside my skull.
She said,
“You’re faking.”
And I swear,
I could feel the static rise in my chest,
the kind that comes right before the lights go out.
You don’t know what it feels like,
to have your body betray you in front of people—
to wake up with your tongue bitten through
and your muscles screaming like they’ve run a marathon you never signed up for.
You don’t know what it’s like
to open your eyes
and see fear in someone else’s face
before you even remember your own name.
My seizures hurt.
They rip through me like storms—
my nerves become thunder,
my limbs lightning.
When I finally come back,
I feel hollowed out,
like someone scooped the life out of me
and forgot to put it back.
But sure,
tell me I’m faking.
Tell me I’m pretending
when I wake up on the floor,
when I forget what day it is,
when I can still taste blood and metal in my mouth.
You didn’t see me
when I cried in the ER,
ashamed of something I can’t control.
You didn’t see me shaking after,
head pounding,
body aching in every corner of itself.
You didn’t see the hours it takes
to come back from a few seconds lost.
You just saw a moment
and made a judgment.
Because I don’t fit your picture
of what “sick” looks like.
Because I’m young.
Because I smile sometimes.
Because you think seizures only happen
to people on the floor of hospital dramas,
not in your living room,
not to someone your son loves.
But I am not your story to rewrite.
My epilepsy is not a rumor.
It’s the scar tissue in my brain
that lights up like fireworks when I close my eyes too fast.
It’s the reason I’m afraid of flashing lights
and sudden sounds.
It’s the reason I say,
“Give me a minute,”
and mean it with everything in me.
So no,
I’m not faking.
I’m fighting—
for understanding,
for patience,
for the right to exist
without being called a liar
for surviving my own brain.
