"Epilepsilogue"... have to end this once and for all !

Thanks for epilepsy.com for giving me this opportunity to start a discussion thread here... I'm fairly new to the fearful 'grand mal', occurring to me more or less twice a year minimum, ever since 2002.  Back then I was 21...

Trust me; this does not give me any consolation writing about this.  This will be long and hopefully not too boring... I never have been so elaborate in my analysis, not even to my physician, since this is not something I would enjoy telling my kids one day, not the usual storytelling to listen to, pretty shameful and quite disturbing from many points of view...

So here we go...

Before my first seizure

my first heroin experience started round thirteen years ago, when I was 16-17, secondary school years, long hair, hippy style, a huge grunge nirvana fan, with every possible depressive music there could ever be (for starters Nirvana, Trent's Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson’s Antichrist Superstar, Jane’s addiction, Radiohead, to name a few !).  

My father at that time was a serious whisky party sinner and that probably discouraged / disgusted me to party alcohol, I never liked any alcoholic drinks (except beer and cider, before I got diabetes) but I loved (and still do wuv) the sweet smell of marijuana and the vinegary perfume of heroine, crawling through my veins.  AT that age, I had made up my mind to all the time stay in such a state... all my life.  I made this personal shameful vow and I have been sticking to this habit (nature) for the past 12 years, even now, against my will but still a habit that has now completely ruined my work life, personal life, and family

At that age, cigarettes were a necessity for me, no doubt about this and thee companionship for my fix and my weed. Was I a medium to heavy smoker at that time? Nearly there.  Back then, I did not understand the 'get a dose get a fix' theory so even when I was on/off heroine back at secondary school, I was experiencing cold turkey, sweaty faces, and most terribly a contagious state of slack behaviour all the time. I was always in a depressive state except when I was high and 'fixed, back on track'.  I could study for hours till 2-3 in the morn, sometimes skipped whole night's sleeps, feeling too good to waste my hours in crappy boring sleep.  I would carry my trip for days until my fix and high were both gone.  Adding to these were cough syrups, Actifed, Rohipnol, dried banana peels instead of tobacco on my weed, and a host of other hippy try-outs. I even smoked weed with Codeine pills once.

:(

Just before my first seizure...

I was a functional addict by 20 years old, working as a cargo sales clerk for a prestigious airline company.  My close surroundings never knew about my 'savvyness' for heroine, not even my girlfriend, she could only enjoy the nights we had sex together, most of the time just after my fix and my smoke; I never bothered bragging about this either; every 2-3 days, I made it a must have a regular marijuana smoke to accompany my shot and have sex just after.  When I'd get back home, I would open up my excel sheets from work and deal with complex Applied Visual Basic formulas to create state of the art intelligent spreadsheets.  This systematic lifestyle has been going on for a whole one and a half years before my entry letter for university came home.

Uni years... 2 whole years away from heroin, far from home, the only drug I could lay my hands onto were bankies of medical and hydroponic marijuana (those were wow days I would never forget!) but no heroin at all; hydroponic/medical marijuana was fairly cheap as compared to the price I paid as compared to the amount obtained back home.  My friends and colleagues were not the type to shift to heroine/cocaine and also not so close enough to tell them my little secret.  My mind did not feel the need for heroine but my body, ouch, unknowingly on behalf of this... I still had the 'self-incomprehensive' slack attitude, morose state of mind, cold turkey and running nose every 2-3 days, still not understanding what I had and unknowingly disregarding the fact that I was in a constant need for a dose, maybe? Maybe not? Something was missing even though it has never ever occurred to me have a fix during my Uni years.  Hydroponic was more than enough!

To cut it short, during my Uni years, I got 2 seizures: the first time, I drank like a fish at my dad's friend's place, the whole night not sleeping... The next morning, while walking on the street in the hot scorching sun, I lost consciousness, abruptly, bruising my tongue, clenching my whole body like a fist (I was told this later).  The doctor associated this with a sleepless drunken night and called it a day, simply put! In fact, years later, I realised that I had experienced my first seizure most probably because of the heroin withdrawals.  Doc didn't know this, me neither...

The second time, I was playing tut-rugby in the hot blazing sun (again...) when all of a sudden *blackout* so, the night before, I must have drunk about 12 cider cans while smoking pot (hydro, ahem) off hubbly bubblies (ahem ahem), and at the same time, playing starcraft for 2 days in a row.  I stayed 2 nights at the hospital for this.

I almost forgot: computer arenas... another deadly epileptic enemy.  Just imagine, skipping house parties and outings just because of broodwar multiplayer games, every weekends in residence, add the running nose, cold turkey, weeeeeed, whole lots of cider cans, and no sleep..  Every Sundays, I gave French tuitions to school students just after my 2 days' partying and I was still looking good to their parents, to a point of trust that they would pick me up at my res to drive me all the way to their houses... and back, with my 75 Rands/hr tuition fees.  This covered up my weed supplies, excessive munchies and drinks.  I could only drink cider; anything above would give me pukes.

Just after this...

When I decided to do my last 2 years at Uni on a part-time basis, that was when the 'second me' started to get real, off the edge, in the real action.  Back home, there was nothing like Uni days, it was boring 'village' with nothing interesting. So that wasn't too long before I started to get my shots back through my dealer, who was very happy to see his regular customer back, after 2 long years. 

New job, new apart, new girlfriend, new life. 5 years like this.  Every 6 months, a seizure would 'pop up' and the family doctor finally prescribed Tegretol, folic acid and b-complex vitamins.  2 years later, I got diabetes (by the way, munchies were most of the time sweet munchies, following greasy beef burgers)

Marriage and Withdrawal...

I'm still trying to withdraw from heroin but it's very hard, even after my marriage; yes life goes on. Workwise, I managed to stay in my field, now a Senior User Experience and Software Designer for 9 years, surpassing 60 websites in my portfolios this year, that excludes multimedia flash animations and banners, from project management to analysis, design, development, maintenance, etc...  I'm traumatising my wife with her fears and mine of me falling back into hard drugs again.  The 'grand mal' seizures still pop up every 6 months. 

I've been off heroine since 3 weeks and 2 days ago, I got another grand mal, even when I wasn’t skipping my pills (both diabetes and epilepsy) and was clean on behalf of this for 3 weeks.  I presume that this seizure in question might have been the signs of heroin withdrawal.  I'm still on weed, once a week.

What's next: 'epilepsilogue' !?

As you can see, I've cut a long story short, for the benefit of everyone reading this loll! Drafting the most important parts of my storyline, hopefully I didn't miss anything, though if I do, I will modify. 

I so want to rid the heroin off my body and most importantly rid the seizures out, since I wasn't born with this sh*t, no one in my family ever had this plus I'm not at ease bearing one burden alongside another one.

For how long can I stand this way of life? Like my wife said so well, if you go back to your drug-addict life, it's better if you overdose and 'rot your fix onto an eternal fit'!

Now, I want a normal life: healthy balanced diet, good vitality, sexy muscular and happy body off heroin and off epilepsy too.  I might consider those 15 years of my life as a good-for-you and lesson-learnt perspective. I don't want this life back.  I still get a few fixes now and then... as well as the epileptic fits that come along every time I'm withdrawing!

How can I get out? Both heroin and epilepsy!?  I don't want these, anymore !

:(