I Faked Epilepsy as a Child to Get Attention

I thought I was just a liar, but years later a therapist explained a deeper reason for what I'd done.

Illustrations by Kelsey Wroten

When we arrived at the neurologist’s office, I ran to the bathroom and pretended to have a seizure. For the past two months, I’d been faking seizures to get out of chores and high school, so it was a habit — when I had a problem, I had a seizure. Today, I had a big problem: Mom had taken me to the neurologist for tests, and in minutes the doctor was going to hook me up to a machine that would tell her I was a liar who should be sent to some sort of facility for the disturbed.

“Help!” Mom yelled out the bathroom door. “She fell by the toilet! Somebody help me get her back up!”

I could have gotten back up myself since I hadn’t really fallen, but I stayed put, crying in the fetal position and hoping Mom’s theatrics would prove that I had too much epilepsy to be here and needed to go home right away.

The receptionist, Vanessa, who had long, brown hair she liked to flip when she moved, ran down the hallway to help Mom haul me off the floor. She led us back to the…