Absence: the state of being away from a place or person.
This definition is strangely accurate when talking about absences caused by epilepsy.
From personal experience it’s like being pulled from my own body, with no memory of what happens when I’m gone but when I come back it’s almost like waking up from a sleep; I know time has passed but am unsure how much, there’s dissociation there as I steady myself back into reality, but it’s so common now, it’s barely noticeable.
For me these can happen up to 5 times a day lasting anywhere from 10 seconds to intermittently over an hour. That being said, some days they don’t happen at all.
Throughout school I was told to go to bed earlier and concentrate more in class.Annie
They’re often picked up by my boyfriend or family members who recognise my face when they’re happening. Although I’m thankful for this, coming back down to people watching you to make sure you’re ok is sometimes a bit jarring.
In public it’s not always so easy. From nearly missing my bus stops to missing out on conversation with friends, absences have their ways of jumping in when less convenient. It can often be mistaken for daydreaming which for obvious reasons doesn’t always reflect well on myself. Throughout school I was told to go to bed earlier and concentrate more in class. It’s never been mentioned by colleagues at work but sometimes, I find myself in a stressed state knowing I’ve had an absence in a meeting and will have to stealthily grab information again without making it look like I wasn’t listening.
If there was one positive thing I had to say about my own experience with absences, although influencing my emotions like many of my seizures do, the sense of escape from them is almost euphoric. The feeling of realisation when you come back is mystifying as there’s always a wonder to me about where I’ve been and how it all works, almost as if there’s some other world I don’t know about where I escape to for just a moment. I have a suspicion that those thoughts are a coping mechanism for me as I’ve had these absences since I can remember and I always hope that there’s something more to it than these episodes I can’t control.
I suppose I may never know, and for now I am comfortable with that. At the end of the day, those moments belong to me and although they can be annoying and inconvenient, at least they are the more peaceful out of all the seizures I could be having.
