I was 7 years old when I first had a seizure in school. My doctors told me that this didn’t always mean that a person had epilepsy, but, after having a cluster of 3 seizures just after lunch one day, I went on to have an EEG and MRI, the results of which led to my doctors diagnosing me with epilepsy. They diagnosed me with a rare form of Reflex epilepsy known as Eating Epilepsy.

People around me used to make fun of me all the time as I stood there: in the spotlight, frozen, trying to recollect something, or to locate the words in my brain about the story I was telling them or the presentation I was giving. Whatever the occasion, by the time that I’d come to, I knew that I’d screwed up. But I don’t blame the people for being mean either…

Hostel ragging was unfortunately very common back when I was at college and my batchmates (those in the same year as me) were being ragged. During all of this one of my batchmate’s who had epilepsy suddenly dropped to the floor and started shaking in what turned out to be a generalised tonic-clonic seizure. We rushed him to the hospital

It’s been 9 years since I have been seizure free, but I never had the courage to share with the world until I learned how resilient is my brain. In traditional cultures, having a disability is like a scar and people would still continue discriminate you even if you do not have that disability. Unlike western countries, I was raised in India and got brain damage when I was 7 months.