Hello everyone.

 I'm 23, and I've had seizures my whole life but just this year realized that's what they were. When I was a little girl, I lived with them thinking they were just a part of life. I had a special relationship with them and it wasn't until I was about 10 or 11 that I realized that I was different. I went from the diagnoses of panic attacks, lyme disease, depression but normal EEG's made my neurologist skip past epilepsy. It wasn't until this year, at 23, after about 20 years of these "spells" that I found out I was epileptic. I found out by doing a study with John's Hopkins, and i'm glad that I know but I'm still just as frustrated.

 I'm currently taking Lamictal. I'm only on 75mg in the morning, and 100mg at night. I know that with lamotragine, it can take up to 400mg for seizures to be controlled but the increase has to be slight. I'm working my way up, but with each day I'm finding epilepsy is controlling my life.

I am still unsure what the seizures are, as far as I know they are what's called simple partial seizures. The hardest part is that I am the only one who really knows, because I feel it all internally. It rarely affects my motor functions, mostly just makes me sit still as I wait for the seizure to pass. Sometimes I do the lip smacking or grip my hands really tight in a fist, but I feel completely alone when I'm having them.

I am so frustrated. I'm reaching out in hopes to find some people that understand, because it's hard to find that here with my family who's never seen/felt/experianced these. Somedays I feel like I'll never get better, other days I'm okay.

I need to find some good resources and support, because these things are started to take over my life. Even though they are scattered, vary in intensity and are alleviated eventually by my medication and advil (the headaches are horrible) I find myself frustrated, scared and feeling quite alone.

I'm hoping that with sharing this, I can get some insights to epilepsy, as I have found that I know little about the condition. I searched for so many other causes but never thought I would be epileptic. Eventhough I'm excited to have a diagnosis and begin treatment/medication, it's a completely new set of challenges.