For a long time, as my body continued to break down under the weight of sustained stress and lack of safety, I started having symptoms that completely terrified me.
At first, I thought I was dealing with Functional Neurological Disorder. Whenever I got overwhelmed even by small, everyday stressors my body would just start shutting down. My eyes would start rapidly blinking or shutting uncontrollably. I’d notice a delay on the left side of my body, like my arm wouldn't respond right away. And if I couldn't immediately stop what I was doing and get away from the stress, my body would curl up into a tight, shrimp like shape and start convulsing.
I later learned that what I was experiencing were Psychogenic Non Epileptic Seizures (PNES). It was my nervous system's ultimate emergency circuit breaker. When the cognitive and emotional load became too heavy for my brain to process, my body finally pulled the plug to force me to stop.
During those moments, my service dog, Pharaby, will lay on top of me to provide deep pressure therapy to help ground my system until the episode passes.
Living with this kind of neurological response means my capacity looks totally different from other people's. On bad days, my brain short circuits in ways that are hard to explain unless you’ve lived it. There are days when I physically cannot read words on paper or process text on a screen. If I get overwhelmed or put under pressure in the moment, I completely dissociate and lose the ability to make decisions or retain information I’m receiving at that moment.
I’m sharing this specific part of my story because I know how terrifying it is when your body starts doing things you can’t control, and you’re left sitting there feeling crazy and alone. It isn't a personal failure or a flaw in your character. It is a severe physical reaction from a nervous system that has been pushed far past its absolute limit for way too long.
When your nervous system gets pushed to the point where it literally starts shutting your body down with seizures, you realize real quick that you cant just power through anymore. My health got so bad that I had no choice but to put up a GoFundMe just to keep a roof over my head and keep things stable. If you want to help support Pharaby and me while I navigate living with this, or even if you just share the link, it truly means more than I can say.