Sometimes a Struggle Can Make Us Stronger

I’m a writer.

I’m a neat freak.

I’m a poet.

I’m a daughter.

I’m a college graduate.

I’m a fiancé.

I’m a friend.

I am many more things,

but I never thought

I would be epileptic.

In 2014,

six months after I graduated from college,

I woke my boyfriend and brothers up

with convulsions,

not a soft snuggle

or a laugh.

I answered questions

I don’t remember being asked.

I didn’t know who people were,

the important people.

I was sent on a tailspin

with no idea if it would ever stop spinning.

I walked through my days afterwards

as if a monster was following me,

waiting to jump out at me

and have a good laugh

as I fell to the floor.

I began to experience

something new as if I’d done it before.

I began to understand

how much of an influence medications have.

I began to fight

for the person I once was

and

for my voice to be heard.

I began to be my biggest advocate.

Until my family understood.

I let go of who I was

and started living for who I am.

This illness is a small part of me.

Now I’m ‘me’ with a different perspective

and a fighting heart willing to let the world know,

“Don’t ever underestimate me!”

Much like a puzzle

we connect the pieces with meaning,

and focus on the bigger picture.

Time is our friend for once.

We begin to live in the moments

not the future.

We find something we thought we never had.

For me it was my support system,

my need for independence,

and the love for myself

at my weakest and highest moments.

Anxious or not,

I’m getting to know myself again

with each passing day

as if I were a child

that never knew they could fall.