For the sake of explaining myself, I'll probably ramble for a while, so bear with me here for a moment. It's gonna get lengthy.

So my whole life, I've had these issues where certain parts of my body will suddenly cramp up and stiff or contort, or pinch and close up, or tingle and go numb. I can remember instances as far back as elementary school, and my mom can remember instances from infancy. When it got bad in high school, my mom and I tried bringing it up to my doctor, but they told my mom and I that my health issues were all in my head and were most likely panic attacks. While yes I do suffer from --and am being treated for-- anxiety and major depressive disorder, the difference between my panic attacks and what we called my 'muscle attacks' was pretty obvious to anyone who actually used their eyes. And it could be brought on by any emotion or physical overexertion, not just anxiety. It's just that anxiety and panic tended to bring out the worst of it.

I could sing in the car and lose feeling in my nose and eyes. I could laugh with friends and lose control of my lips and fingers. I could compete in swim team and find that I had lost the ability to flex my fingers, or feel my thighs. I had to quit band because my fingers would suddenly pinch shut and be unable to pluck my guitar. These attacks could last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, and often times would lead to painful cramps, most notably in my hands and face. My mom and I tried doing our own research at home for years, but could never articulate ourselves well enough to find answers. Eventually we gave up trying and I learned to simply live with it.

But this year, back in May, we had a horrible accident happen at work. After the adrenaline died down and the accident was resolved, I found myself having one of my muscle attacks. Except it wasn't stopping, and it worked its way from my arms through to my legs. Suddenly every limb was contorting in the wrong direction. Suddenly my tongue was swelling and going numb. Suddenly my throat was thick and I could no longer breathe. Suddenly I was struggling like this for 20-- 30-- 40 minutes. My fingers were bent so tightly that they lost circulation and went cold. My legs were stuck so far out that my back began to arch. An ambulance was called for me, and I was wheeled away on a stretcher while my friends and coworkers tried to get ahold of my family, and I lay contorted on that stretcher while an IV was attached to my arm and a benadryl drip was inserted to try and stop my throat from closing completely. I remember feeling the benadryl hit the back of my throat so hard that I started coughing and began to panic. And then suddenly I could breathe again.

Once we arrived at the ER, I was lifted bridal style out of the stretcher and placed into a wheelchair, where the triage nurse attempted to fold my legs to place my feet on the foot rests. My legs refused to bend at the knee, continuously and painfully springing back up into their stiffened position, and the nurse had to give up on it. I was then wheeled out into a waiting room where I sat for almost an hour before I was finally seen, but throughout that hour my symptoms eased away bit by bit. My mother ended up finding me before any doctors did. By the time I was seen by any staff, the contortions had stopped, and I was left in an exhausted and shaky heap. I was finally wheeled into a room the size of a broom closet, piled with old supplies that looked like they'd been stacked there for months, where I spoke to a doctor for all of five minutes before I was told it was a panic attack mixed with an allergic reaction (I don't even have allergies). And then I was sent home with shame in my heart and a packet on managing stress.

I haven't been the same since.

In the following months, I began having those full body contortions periodically and increasing in frequency, starting off at once per month, and steadily becoming once to twice per week. I have been back to the ER twice, and had paramedics called on me four times. My longest contortion attack has lasted just a little over two hours. My qpr partner and I have long since fallen into a twisted little routine. The tingling aura begins, I lose function of my limbs-face-tongue, my partner helps push a benadryl into my mouth, and then I am stripped and carried into a warm bath to try and relax my muscles. I have been carried in the rain, I have been carried up the stairs, I have been piggybacked while my limbs fought themselves, and I have been stripped in front of all of my closest friends in desperate attempts to cool my body down and help my muscles relax. My hands are placed under my ass, where my own body weight can force my fingers apart from where they are attempting to curl over each other. And then we wait. We wait and we time it like it's a seizure.