Friendships and my Epilepsy

Hello again lovely people! I am sorry for the delay but I’m glad that this blog is finally here! Today I wanted to talk about friendships. I do not think my epilepsy had a big impact on my friendships. However, I do think my friendships impacted my epilepsy and how well I adjusted to it.

 I had a couple of friends who were close, practically since birth who really got my seizures, but also weird quirks and all the emotions that came with my seizures. These girls grew up with my epilepsy and were there right from the beginning. Our friendships were never affected by my seizures. We were just best friends who loved spending time together but when they needed to, they looked after me. They accepted me and my slightly special brain and they helped me feel normal when I felt different. I never felt like an inconvenience around them. As kids, I’m fairly sure they were still more qualified than most adults to handle my seizures. They were the only people I could have sleepovers with because they could not only manage my seizures, but they also understood the importance of my tablets. For a while as a pre-teen/young teenager whilst everyone else was finally exploring having independence, I was only allowed to do anything if either of them were there because they were the only people my mum trusted to manage my seizures if something suddenly happened. Even as young as three Izzy could manage seizures. When Izzy started nursery with me and I had a seizure, the teacher tried to remove all the rest of the kids (sensible idea to be fair to her…) However, my poor teacher wasn’t aware that Izzy was probably far more used to my seizures than she could imagine and that trying to remove Izzy wasn’t a smart idea. I’m told that suddenly there were two screaming kids instead of just one because Izzy wanted to look after me and wasn’t being allowed.

Both of these girls weren’t just my friends. Growing up they were like my sisters, and they knew my seizures as well as my brothers, if not better! They knew all my odd quirks but aside from that, we were best friends. We’d grown up together and played together as kids. We shared secrets and inside jokes. The fact that they helped look after me didn’t hurt that if anything it made it stronger.

 Whilst I never hid my epilepsy from my friends at school, I was always a bit more shy and awkward with friends who hadn’t been around since the beginning (and yes, I know I’m just awkward anyway!). For some of my friends, they were supportive and kind, but they never really saw the implications that epilepsy had on my life. I will forever be grateful for their support. However, particularly in secondary school, when my seizures just weren’t as visible, it sometimes became just theory.  My friends let me feel safe enough to not be held back and just continue to grow into a nerd. I was spending my time geeking out over music and TV shows. My epilepsy didn’t become a burden on those friendships. My opinions on Harry Potter characters were more important than the fact I had a neurological condition!

 All my friends have been wonderful about learning to manage my seizures if they are out and about with me (and my mum has gradually become less paranoid!) This has meant that I’ve been able to keep some independence without as much anxiety. 

Having friends who will help and give me emotional support has meant so much. Knowing that I have people I can talk to when things get tough or I have difficult decisions to make is amazing. There is so much comfort in being able to ask people for prayer requests if everything is getting too much and knowing that you can trust that you’ll be taken seriously and that they will be praying for you. Knowing that you have people supporting you and helping you through tricky stuff like hospital admissions really helps you get through it. I’m so grateful for all the people I know I can depend on in this way.

Having friends who are also willing to support me in practical ways as well means the absolute world. I mentioned in my ‘Hospital Stays’ blog one of my closest friends growing up coming to visit me in hospital. Friends have been willing to open their homes to me, so I don’t have to be home alone when I have been twitchy. People have also been willing to spend time and sit with me to try and help distract me from what my brain is doing. People have also been willing to lend me their shoulder when I was distressed and needed to cry. I’ve even known the occasional person to be successful in talking me down from that situation.

My friends just let me be weird little me. My epilepsy has never negatively impacted the relationships I have with my friends. I might have had to sit out of things every now and then, maybe miss an in-joke or amusing story, but my epilepsy never negatively impacted my friendships. If anything, it made them stronger. It’s meant that I’ve needed support in ways that I wouldn’t have otherwise done, forcing me into helplessness at times where I’ve needed to depend on my friends and trust them in a way I might not have needed to. God has blessed me with amazing people around me. They understand me and they’ve taken the time to understand my slightly special brain.