My travels through FND

[ShaMallyO777]

My body and mind have seemed to be on a constant search for absolute disassociation over my lifetime and especially the last few years. I would say that my body and mind finally found its height of disassociation once I started to have Psychogenic Non-Epileptic Seizures (PNES). I have also struggled with anxiety my whole life. I became an addict to fuel the need to numb. Last year, about March of 2021, I began to have episodes of losing consciousness, PNES, and even paralysis in my lower limbs. I was back and forth to the emergency room via ambulance about 50 times this year. Not even exaggerating. I finally was admitted to a teaching hospital where I was monitored and diagnosed with FND and PNES as a subsequent symptom. This whole experience has made me realize just how POWERFUL our brains truly are. Towards the end of my hospital stay I lost feeling in my legs again. I was paralyzed for about 12 hours before the feeling came back. Even though I could feel my legs again, I was having trouble walking, barely being able to lift my feet when I took a step. At this time my grandparents were very ill. After a FaceTime conversation with my Mother and Grandmother, I became grimly aware of just how close to leaving this earth my Grandmother was. Something inside of me sparked. I HAD to get home to be there for my family. It was as if once I made this decision, because I felt it with such conviction and now armed with the knowledge of my diagnosis, I forced myself to get up and walk. At first, with a walker. Then, without. Each lap around the hospital floor with the Physical Therapist got easier. I wasn't running, but I was steady enough to get home. In under a month's time from leaving the hospital that day I had lost both of my grandparents. That day will stay with me always. I took the knowledge of my diagnosis and that it was connected to mental health, and flipped a symptom of FND over in the same way that FND had flipped me over. I continued to average a seizure a month for about 7 months and have not had one for about two months now.