Most people measure their productivity in hours or task lists. For those of us with epilepsy, we have to account for a hidden “tax” on our time that no one else sees. It isn’t just the few minutes a seizure might last; it’s the hours, or sometimes days, that follow.
When a seizure ends, the world expects you to “reset” because you look like yourself again. But internally, the brain is rebooting like an old computer after a crash. There is the post-ictal fog where words feel just out of reach, the crushing fatigue that no amount of coffee can fix, and the mental “re-calibration” required to remember what you were doing before the lights went out.
I often feel like I am running a race where my competitors have a clear track, while mine is suddenly interrupted by invisible hurdles. I lose time not just to the condition, but to the recovery of my own identity. We learn to become masters of efficiency in our “functional windows” because we never know when the next tax bill will come due. It’s a exhausting way to live, but it makes the moments of clarity and focus feel much more like a hard-won victory than a standard Tuesday.
Dealing with epilepsy 