Identity Crisis

I've been seizure-free for almost nine months now. My hand sits quietly until I call it to action, and even as it moves, it follows directions. Not once since the afternoon of January 24th has it taken matters into its own hand, so to say. Not once has lightening struck my mind, leaving me a passenger in my own body. Finally, finally, I am master and commander of myself. I don't stagger around the city with double vision, waiting for nausea to pass before it's time to take my next dose of the epilepsy medications that leave me sick. I don't worry about making sure the coffee I hold is in my left hand, because I don't worry about dropping it with no notice, latte spilling up and over the edge of a cardboard cup as it hits the ground in slow motion like a TV commercial selling paper towels.

But if I don't worry about having a seizure, what do I do instead? A silly question, I know, and I sound like the millionaire lamenting her lack of liquidity, but it's something I think about. For most of my life, epilepsy has been part of who I am and has shaped me into the person who sits at her computer day after day, writing, blogging, tweeting, trying to figure out where she fits in the world. My seizures set me apart in a way that made me look at the world in a different way; I see the people who need help, the people who are made fun of for things they didn't choose, the people who are searching desperately for hope to hold onto. I see them because they are like me. No, were like me. I grew up as part of a group; a group that none of us meant to find, but did, and were bound together by electricity, but now I've lost the spark. Where do I belong now? Who am I when part of my identity was taken out with a scalpel? I'm grateful beyond words for the gift of this seizure-free life I was given on that cold, January day, but I feel like something's missing. Do I still call myself epileptic? Would it make me a fraud to say that I am? It's not the best group to be in, but it's a group, nonetheless, and one in which I made a place for myself. So who am I now? Where do I belong? How can I say "I understand" when my empathy emerges only from my memories?