Seized by Stillness: Living with Epilepsy.
I’ve lived with epilepsy for close to 15 years now. I no longer call it a disease. I call it a doorway to the self. The first seizure came after a bout of typhoid - a collapse that no one saw coming, not even me. Since then, the episodes have struck without pattern. In restaurants. At family gatherings. On quiet evenings with friends. And once, curiously, in a moment of stress - right after I helped an old lady who had fallen. For the longest time, I felt powerless. I would slip, trembfle, vanish into unconsciousness. When I came to, I would apologize. Sometimes to others, sometimes to myself. But something shifted 5–6 years ago. The Aura as a Gate Those who live with epilepsy know what an aura is - a strange premonition, a soft shiver through the nerves, a fading of the edges of reality. In earlier years, it would always end the same way - collapse. But one day, as the aura hit, my mind cried out: “Varahi Amme… Varahi Amme… Varahi Amme…” Not a mantra I planned. Not a ja...