It all started with a faint. We had the ambulance come and they took me in to
hospital to check me over and then that's when I started to have a proper seizure.
Before I had seizures, I was pretty much just your average
12 year old in school hanging around with friends thinking
I was really cool when I wasn't [laughs]
I felt like this was like the happiest I've ever been and I was so
looking forward to starting college then like the next day I woke up with a
really bad stomach pain then I just had my first seizure
The first time I ever heard of NEAD was when I was diagnosed I was like what,
what is this, never heard of that before.
There isn't a medicine you can take and you're better,
it's to do with your feelings.
Broke my heart, I was no longer the person that I wanted to be.
I felt very isolated and it made me feel very stressed.
I have lots of different types of seizures, a classic convulsion seizure,
a blackout seizure which just looks like fainting or passing out.
Silent seizures and ones where they're very violent and I kick out.
So my vision goes really weird and it goes really dark and slightly pixelated.
You know when you're underwater and you can hear people above you
and then eventually it's that you start hearing this like "Molly! Molly!"
And your like, what is happening?
My attendance at school is fairly poor.
I wasn't allowed to get on trains or anything on my own, or be on my own
and because I was becoming a teenager people, my friends are being more independent
I felt isolated.
It does frustrate me sometimes where I haven't been able to go out with my friends
because I'm like having a bad day with the seizures or something
My Mum would always be phoning me and texting me saying are you OK?
I didn't want her there,
you know I wanted her to leave me alone like a normal teenager
First of all they thought it was a brain tumour and then they thought it was epilepsy
and I was having seizures upon seizures one day I had 93
My consultant put his hands up and said I don't know how to help you
and then that's when I came here to St Thomas', the Evelina and my life changed [laughs]
I felt safe, I felt like they genuinely wants to help me
I was basically just a robot almost, like a machine.
Emotions are icky they're messy I don't do them like I'm shut off from the world
I was thinking I don't want to tell anyone, I was embarrassed
because they might think like seeing a psychologist that you're going crazy.
Well I was very definitely a big skeptic going into my first psychology meet
but you've got to work your way through it
She suggested why some of the things I do and the things I feel might be happening
I've learned to talk to people because I used to hold everything in
and I'd just bottle it up and then the way I deal with it I suppose is a seizure
I feel like dancing helped me because I can express my feelings through dance
especially during ballet and I thought it let my feelings go
and I could be... I felt more happy.
Going to the gym makes me feel so good it just gives me that sense of, erm, control
Drama for me is... it's definitely one of the best things I could have possibly gotten interested in
Because it's just... it's so freeing
like you don't have any of your problems at that time and it's like you can forget
all about that and you can just be that person in that moment
and you don't have to worry about anything
I think the most important thing to do is accept the fact that you've got NEAD and it will be OK
This is, it's who I am now.
and it's something that I need to and I have, like accepted
I'm not alone in this, somebody else has gone through this and they know how I'm feeling
it's just very very comforting
Everything will be okay
If you have great support then you'll be fine.