What's the closest you've ever come to dying?

[lostintheodyssey]

I had epilepsy when I was younger and I experienced it for about 3 years. At night just as I was about to drift off to sleep it would hit me. Epilepsy basically caused my brain to shut everything down. I would stop breathing, I couldn't talk, it was extremely difficult for me to move, and it felt like my whole body was in pain because it was doing something un natural. I can remember struggling just to roll a couple of inches off of my bed so I could hit the floor and hoping my parents or brothers would hear the noise and come help me.

It never lasted more than a few minutes but it seemed like an eternity when I was experiencing it. Afterward it was like everything would come back to me in parts. I would stumble around for a little until I regained my ability to walk. I would stare in the mirror and for a few minutes I couldn't formulate a single sentence in my brain so I didn't know anything not my name, where I was, or that what I was looking into was called a mirror. Speech was always the last thing to return to me. It was frustrating to be able to say the words correctly in my mind and then when I spoke out loud it came out as something incomprehensible.

I definitely don't miss those days and it's been years since I experienced it thank goodness. I've heard that people who experience epilepsy when they are younger generally have it come back stronger and worse when they are older and they usually don't survive the second time around. I hope I am one of the lucky people who only experience it during childhood.