On my return from the Caribbean I started to portray some strange behaviours.

I giggled constantly for the whole 9 hour flight back home (which at the time my boyfriend put down to me having too many sweeties!). Once I had returned home I went through stages of uncontrollably crying for no particular reason, then laughing hysterically when nothing funny was happening.

I became confused and vague, and answered every question with “I don’t know!”.

One morning I came downstairs and walked into the kitchen where our cleaning lady Trish (who had been coming to the house once a week since I was little) was cleaning…this is how the conversation went:

Trish: “Good morning.”

Me: “Who are you? Why are you in my house?”

Trish: “It’s me, Trish.”

I then got very distressed and left the room…five minutes later…

Me: “Here is your coffee Trish, milk and one sugar.”

In just a short amount of time I had gone from not recognising her at all to remembering how she took her coffee…

Then other strange things started to happen…

I forgot to pack my gym kit when going to the gym and had to do my workout in my dress, I was forgetting to take care of myself and didn’t wash for days, i would become blank behind the eyes like there were no lights on upstairs, I was suffering from insomnia and couldn’t seem to sleep at all.

Then it started to get really strange, I was seeing faces in corners, hearing voices that weren’t there and smelling aromas that didn’t fit.

Was I going mad?

It wasn’t long after this that I had my first seizure…this was to be the first of over 200 in the next 6 months.