New Year ...Same Epilepsy


It is crazy how it is now 2018!!!! Where did 2017 go! I would love to tell you all that I have a huge list of resolutions and goals for this new year and how excited I am to accomplish them all. I would also love to tell you that I am taking the “new year new me” thing seriously and have spent the past two weeks eating nothing but salad and super green smoothies. That is however so not the case. I don’t have the time or the energy to even write a list of resolutions, nevermind actually achieve them!. As for the smoothies I am lucky if I get chance to grab a banana in a morning, so you can forget about whipping out the food processor (not even sure I own one) and making myself a smoothie, even if it does contain all of my five a day, every vitamin I could ever need in my life, 6 different types of antioxidents,essence of diamond and a sprinkle of unicorn horn.

Lets be honest life is demanding. It’s even more demanding when you have epilepsy ….and are raising a teenager. In fact, I think the teenager is the most demanding part of life. So far this year the teenager has drawn on his bedroom wall with furniture polish, and yes before you question yourself he is 15 and not 5, he has ignored every plea I have made at him to revise for his up coming exams and has had more attitude at times than Donald Trump himself. Add to that work, school and epilepsy and I am sure you will understand why I haven’t blogged for a while.

Anyway, I digress. Back to new year resolutions. I don’t have any. I have never in my life kept one and if I am totally honest, the chances of that changing now, particularly since the epilepsy diagnosis are slim to none. I see no point in setting myself up for disappointment. Last year my goals were to have more energy (yeah right!), to blog every day and to keep all my commitments. Here’s how that worked out …. It didn’t. All it did was make me feel rubbish at the end of the year when I hadn’t achieved all those things. The truth is those goals were unrealistic for me. Those who know me well will tell you that I very rarely keep all my commitments. Not through lack of trying but because I have epilepsy issues. I have that many side effects of epilepsy that even my side effects have side effects. I suffer from fatigue all the time as a result of the headaches I also suffer with all the time, which are a result of both my epilepsy, brain issues and medication. After a day working I am exhausted and it takes all my energy to make tea for my family, so the chances of me attending a meeting or a party are pretty slim. Weekends are also often a washout. I end up so tired from a busy week that the only thing I can guarantee doing on a weekend is napping.

So this year I am not putting any pressure on myself to be who other people would like me to be or to do all the things others think I should be doing. If I was to make a goal for this year it would be to go a little easier on myself, to not feel guilty for not always being where others feel I should be. I am just going to be me. Those people who know me and love me will be fine with that and those that don’t really don’t matter.

I think this year the only goal we should all make, with or without epilepsy, is to be a little bit kinder to ourselves.

Happy 2018 everybody!!

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