Conversion Disorder Journal (Part 1)

I have had functional neurological disorder (FND) for about three and a half years now, since April 2018. It really began to get bad after my grandma passed away in June 2018 though. Before I get too into my personal story about it, I will explain a little bit about what FND, or conversion disorder, is.

Functional neurological disorder is a disorder where emotions form in a physical form. This can be becoming paralyzed with no known cause, collapsing, seizures, and so much more.

I have seizures from FND, known as psychogenic non-epileptic attacks (PNEA), psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), and a lot of other acronyms. They look almost exactly like my seizures from having epilepsy too, making life even more complicated.

One thing about my PNEA that's both a blessing and a curse is that I can feel when they're coming on. I like it because I can then get myself into a safe position, usually laying on the ground. Simultaneously, it is scary and sometimes embarrassing to know that I am going to have one. The embarrassment is only really there if I am in too public of an area, such as school. When I am at work or home, it just makes me upset.

I have also had countless moments of feeling paralyzed, usually occurring at night, as I am trying to sleep. These moments keep up for much longer than a psychogenic non-epileptic attack typically lasts.

While emotions are a big trigger for my FND, any sort of stress, physical or mental, can cause a person's conversion disorder to act up. By "act up," I mean seizures and being paralyzed becomes really bad. Many people with functional neurological disorder refer to this as a "flare up."

I have had PNEA that lasted almost 2 hours before. I have clustered these attacks, meaning that it is one right after the other for several times.

The best thing that can be done for treatment is therapy. Any outside person can provide support to the FND warrior though.

However, just because someone has this diagnosis, that does not mean that they are any less normal, if such a thing even exists. While it may be debilitating for some people, others (myself included) can still attend school and work.

I currently do food preparation at a local college and attend a different college for classes. I am going to school for a medical office assistant certification. After all, I have wanted to be in the medical field since I was just five years old.

From the age of five to about eight, I wanted to be a dentist. The reason that changed is actually pretty funny. I changed my mind thinking, at eight, "People don't like dentists and I don't want anyone to bite my fingers." From eight to ten, I wanted to be a veterinarian but then I became more aware of myself and the fact that I would have trouble with putting any animals down. From ten to thirteen, I was completely unsure of what I wanted, other than knowing I wanted to be in the medical field. Since thirteen, I have gone back and forth between nurse and doctor.

The reason I am not going for nursing yet is that I know I need to do some work on myself, mental health and my epilepsy. I suck at handling stress and taking care of myself right now. I know what I need to do but I don't want to do it because I hate change and caring about myself would be a huge change for me.

I will probably make a story about what could help, what makes it worse, and explain why different things make FND better or worse. If anyone is reading and struggles with FND, conversion disorder, whatever you want to call it, I know you can get through this if you just keep trying. Keep fighting and stay strong! That goes for whatever you are dealing with.