Seizures forced complete change of lifestyle for ad exec

Published on Friday 20 March 2009 08:57

IT was another frantic weekend for Paul Scott involving heavy drinking, little sleep and high pressured networking.

But while he had grown accustomed to the lifestyle of a London advertising rep, his blossoming career was about to come to an abrupt end.

First into the office on Monday morning, colleagues were expecting to arrive and hear of the new contract he had struck after hectic contact building.

Instead, they found him wandering around with blood gushing from his head. He had suffered the first of what was to be hundreds of epileptic fits, and it was directly attributable to his work. The massive "tonic-clonic" seizure had caused him to thrash his head against an office table.

A decade on, and he has been recruited by charity Epilepsy Scotland to front a conference in the city in May which will not only raise awareness of the condition, but also the mental health problems that accompany it.

"I loved the way of life at the time," said the 32-year-old.

"That weekend in particular was very stressful, there was loads of drinking, no sleep and tight deadlines to meet."

Doctors at a London hospital diagnosed him with epilepsy triggered by acute stress, alcohol and lack of sleep.

Everything had to stop; his social life, hobbies, drinking habits and work. Within a few years he moved back home to Edinburgh in an attempt to rebuild his life, which had been devastated not only by the epilepsy, but the subsequent depression.

"I felt completely isolated from everyone and everything. I couldn't work late, couldn't network, couldn't do my job properly, it was only when I moved to Edinburgh that things changed for me."

Ten years on, now working as an after-school worker and living in Canonmills, he still has seizures fairly regularly and even suffered one on Wednesday when jogging round Arthur's Seat.

"I always know a couple of seconds beforehand because I get a taste of bile in my mouth," he said. "I know then to stop what I'm doing."

His seizures aren't as bad as they could be, he usually is able to sit down or hold on to something, and then for two minutes his eyes roll to the back of his head and he drools.

"It doesn't sound that long, but it is for someone watching you," he added. "I am able to have a few drinks, and I'm comfortable doing that if I'm with friends who know about what happens to me.

"If people are ignorant of it – as I suppose I would be if I didn't have it – they think you're either on drugs or had too much to drink. I do need to watch, though, and relax, and thankfully I don't have a job with tight deadlines anymore."

But while his life has improved, he still has moments of doubt.

He said: "It's the unpredictability that affects my mental health and the fear of loss of control but ultimately it's the support from Epilepsy Scotland which helped me and I found meeting other people that had epilepsy not only cathartic but I felt that they could empathise and understand me.

"Although I'm classed as disabled, I'm not in a wheelchair so it's difficult to class myself as disabled, but I'm emotionally disabled."

The conference will take place in the Capital on May 14. For more information phone [phone].