What it’s like having a hidden disability

My epilepsy is there when, in the middle of a lecture hall with hundreds of other students around, my pen pauses mid-sentence, my vision fades as though I’m looking at the scene before me through an unfocused microscope with a strange amalgamation of colors like the worst Instagram filter you’ve ever seen hindering my view of the professor.

It’s usually right around then that the nausea hits me in a wave, followed by an overwhelming sense of fear. Am I going to have a seizure right now? Should I say something in front of everyone even though it might not happen? That’d be such a distraction and everyone would be looking at me...

If I’m being honest, it’s this train of thought that more often than not leads me to choose not saying anything despite the risk of something actually happening.

But the classroom setting is just one example of many. Last week, I was beyond excited for the opportunity to attend a gathering with my new sorority sisters. As we arrived at the venue, I felt confident, optimistic and comfortable. Then I walked into the room where everyone was dancing only to have my eyes assailed by a rainbow of bright colored lights, a strobe effect adding to the lights’ searing intensity.

While on the outside I tried to appear calm and collected and dance through it, internally, I was already fretting over whether or not I was going to have a seizure. My nerves, in combination with the lights themselves, did in fact lead me to feel the beginnings of the “aura” I described earlier.

I fled the dance floor. My friends were understanding and even offered to turn off the lights, but that couldn’t console me about the fact that there are just some moments when my epilepsy makes me feel more isolated and limited than others.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that almost all of us have felt the pervasive academic pressure and sense of competition that permeates Hopkins and, consequently, have pulled an all-nighter at one point or another to put the finishing touches on a paper or complete a problem set.

Well, as I quickly learned over the course of my first semester here, in the wake of those kinds of late nights, my brain simply can’t function correctly. The “day after,” as I have termed it, I find myself constantly misplacing or forgetting things.

I can’t focus; I experience more seizure symptoms (including debilitating headaches), and the exhaustion hits me really, really hard. I know what you might be thinking, but this isn’t a cop out: It’s simply my reality. Just ask the Housing Office in Wolman how many times I’ve locked myself out of my suite because I left my room without my key. Ask my boss about whether or not I, the girl who is usually ten minutes early to everything, missed a key interview recently.

I’ll be the first to admit, I’ve left my wallet in Gilman more than once only to have it returned to me by a Good Samaritan. Meanwhile, when I look back on my notes from lectures on such especially tough days, I can often barely make heads or tails of what I’ve written, even though in the moment I know I was raptly paying attention.

First semester, I struggled to come to terms with the ways I felt like my epilepsy prevented me from fitting into the “constantly working, always stressed out” mold of the students I saw around me. I thought I’d come to terms with my epilepsy in high school, yet looking back, it’s clear to me that there were many times last fall when I still felt shame about it or feared being judged as less capable because of it.

Even so, the point of this article isn’t for me to throw a pity party for myself. I’m the kind of girl who believes in angry determination rather than self-indulgence. Hopkins truly does have a great resource in place for students with disabilities in the Student Disability Services Office, whose help has proved invaluable to me.

Additionally, something I’ve come to realize that has played an even bigger role in helping me adapt to life at Hopkins is that it only takes one person speaking out about their disability to inspire others to come forward and start a real conversation about the unique challenges we face as disabled students here, the means of coping we’ve discovered, and how we can better support one another.

By writing this piece, I’m hopeful that I can raise awareness not solely about us, the students who deal with the challenges of epilepsy, but, more broadly, the everyday struggles that members of our community face that might not be obvious from the outside looking in.

I think sometimes each of us is so caught up in our own little bubble, so completely focused on studying for that midterm that’s coming up or our plans for the weekend that it’s easy to lash out at others when they do something as little as knock over our cup of coffee or bump into us on the street.

Instead, we should consider giving each other the benefit of the doubt more; We rarely know what forces outside of their control might be impacting our peers.

Additionally, I aim to remind my fellow students who face similar obstacles in their day-to-day lives at Hopkins that they aren’t alone. We make up a strong, courageous part of the Hopkins community that deserves to have its voice heard.

We should be unashamed of admitting our weaknesses or asking for help in times of need, and we should be proud of the influential roles we play in this community, proud of the fact that when we could’ve made excuses or held ourselves to a lower standard, we chose to push ourselves to achieve more, to rise above and reach for the challenge of attending this institution in spite of our circumstances.