Being Alice: When My Brain Scares Me

Stirred, not shaken.
That's what you need to remember about me.

All day, I had been hurting. The migraine was not stopping. It was almost nine in the evening. Time is important. It was several minutes before nine. I had gone into the bedroom to lie down, because sometimes that's what happens. I had been on the couch, and...
See, sometimes it's like marionette strings. Sitting on the couch, I suddenly felt a taut string beginning to yank at me, trying to pull me out of my body. I began to feel disconnected. I went and laid down in bed. I lay on my back and closed my eyes. The main bedroom light was on, and I began to see unusual things behind my eyelids. Too much darkness. Too solid. Too deep. This was not right.
I got up and walked to the entertainment room. I felt like someone in a dream. That string, that marionette string. That floating disconnect.
I stood leaning against the doorway, my eyes watching my husband, who was on the floor with the PlayStation 3 controller in his hands. He glanced at me, and frowned. "What's wrong, hon?"
My voice said, "I need you to hold my hand. My brain scares me."
"Oh..." He paused his game, sat up, reached out to me. He patted the longer couch behind him. My legs walked me there and I sat and I stared. He took my hands and knelt in front of me. "Why does your brain scare you?" he asked.
"I don't know," said my voice. It was shaking. He asked if I was okay. I said no.
Adam straightened up, took my chin in his hand, said, "Look at me, look at me." My eyes blinked and blinked and shuddered, and I looked into his eyes, I tried, it was too hard. My eyelids fluttered. I can't look people in the eyes, not when I'm like this. He snapped his fingers around my head. I felt my eyes struggle to follow.
"What can I do to help you?" he asked. "Talk to me."
My mouth almost didn't work. "Hug me," my voice whispered. He did. I grabbed on and held on, his shirt bunching between my fingers, my face pressed into his neck. My heart was pounding and my pulse was racing like mad. My breathing was erratic and rapid. Part of me thought I was running from something deadly. I pulled away, still breathing that panicked rhythm.
"There's a train in a storm and it's in my brain," my voice said.
"Okay," he said. "Lie down, honey. Here." He took my legs and slid me onto the couch all the way, so I was facing the back of the couch, clutching the pillow. My breathing was too fast.
Adam began to stroke my hair, to rock me. "Let's see if this still works," he whispered. He leaned into my ear and breathed a word, or two words maybe. The next thing I remember is lying on my back, looking at him. He was smiling slightly. "Did it work?" he asked.
"Did what work?" I asked. His smile grew wider. "Good," he said. "How do you feel now?"
I breathed in and out, feeling myself. "Relaxed... very relaxed, but... like I'm standing in an ocean letting the waves wash over me, letting the energy pass through me." The disconnect was gone. The marionette strings were gone. The train and the storm were gone. I was exhausted. But I felt at peace.
Rose jumped up and nuzzled me, staring at me with her bright eyes. She mewed a few times and patted my face. She curled up near my head. Adam went downstairs, saying he was going to bring me some of the chicken he'd cooked. I lay there, and realized, ah. The hypnosis thing. It still works. That's what he did. He had done it years and years ago to help with my anxiety disorder, and apparently the command phrase, whatever it was, still worked.
He returned with pieces of breast meat, and fed me and then fed Rose when she demanded a piece.
I went to bed early. I was still incredibly disoriented, drained, exhausted, head pounding. That is normal.

Stirred, not shaken.
The media-driven view of the epileptic is the classic tonic-clonic seizure, formally known as grand mal. Drop to the floor, shaking or twitching or jerking madly. That is not what happens to me. I have temporal lobe epilepsy with complex partial seizures, formerly called petite mal. I look like someone tripping, hallucinating. I say strange things, I do strange things. I might change my clothes and not remember. Pour myself a drink but not drink it. Pull my hair, stroke my limbs, scratch my face, chew my lips.
My brain is a train derailed in a storm. Don't panic. That is all all I ask. You must not panic when you see me like this. Or, if you do feel panic, don't let me see. It will make things worse. It will drive me deeper. I'm in a tunnel, you see. Rabbit hole. Looking glass. The mists and forests that lead to Faerie, the mists that hide the monsters and the Sluagh. I need to be guided out, and you cannot panic. Hold my hand. Hold me. Talk to me and guide me out. Don't panic. We all need to stay calm because the brain is a scary place and holds too many secrets. If you stray too far off the path, will you find your way back on your own?

In related news, the migraine is long gone, but I have unexplained bruises and pains in my hips and it hurts to walk down the stairs.

In other news, The Child Thief by Brom gives a rather accurate description of the Mist and its denizens.