I am twenty two at the time of writing this, and come from the Mackay area. I’ve just completed a Bachelor of Secondary Education at Griffith University in Brisbane, and have recently started my first teacher posting. And I also have epilepsy.

I would like to tell you about myself, and what it’s like to be a teenager with epilepsy. I was diagnosed with epilepsy when I was ten. The one thing I remember about this, is just how upset my mum was. For that reason, I pretended I wasn’t interested in anything to do with epilepsy. I didn’t even ask why it had happened, or what would happen to me now. I simply took my tablets, and I was stopped from doing lots of my usual activities. I just wanted to be strong for my family, and I didn’t want my mum to see how scared I really was. I could see what she was going through already. You see, epilepsy can affect not only the person who has it, but everyone around them as well.

However just a few years later, this all changed. As a teenager, I had to learn a little more about epilepsy, because my life was changing. There were so many new issues that could impact on my epilepsy.

Going to High School was an exciting time and it was a step towards independence, but there was a downside. I wanted to fit in, and be cool, yet I couldn’t do a lot of the things that other kids of my age were doing. Cigarettes and alcohol were definitely out of bounds for me, because, even now, they do not mix well with my tablets. Parties were generally out too, as lack of sleep from being out late can bring on seizures. Flashing lights can also cause them for me, as I have photosensitive epilepsy. Sometimes I would try these things just so I would feel like I was fitting in, and part of the group, but most of the time I was the one who came off second best.

As the years went on, it became more difficult for my when my friends were all getting their driver’s licenses, while I wasn’t able to get mine. Parties were on almost every weekend, but in the end I just didn’t bother going. I knew everyone else would be drinking, and I just didn’t want to risk it. It even got to the stage where I couldn’t go on rides at the Ekka. So I would just go there with my family, rather than get hassled by my friends.

I think, as a teenager the worst thing for me to deal with was the feeling that I just wasn’t ‘normal’. Fortunately, I never had a tonic clonic convulsion at school. However I did have some partial seizures, and because the kids at school didn’t know or understand what epilepsy was, I was called all sorts of things. Anything from weird, to freak, to people saying I wasn’t normal. For me that was the hardest thing to take. All I ever wanted was to be just like everyone else, and to be able to do the things all my friends did.

Now I look back, I realise that throughout this time, I didn’t understand what epilepsy was, nor did I accept that I had it myself. I knew from the age of ten that I couldn’t do a lot of things because it may increase the chance of seizures. I also knew that I had to take tablets every day, to help control them. But I have only really come to understand and accept my epilepsy, since moving to Brisbane, and contacting Epilepsy Queensland. So it’s really important to learn more about your own sort of epilepsy, how to manage it so it doesn’t become too much of a problem, and how to live a full and happy life with it.