My mother told the doctor I was faking my seizure for attention while I was unconscious on the floor

She asked if she could speak with me privately. “Absolutely not,” my mother said.

“Whatever needed to be discussed could be said in front of her.”

Linda’s smile went even tighter. She explained that hospital policy allowed her to interview minors confidentially when there were concerns about their welfare.

My mother’s face flushed red. She demanded to know who had made a complaint and what they’d said.

Linda didn’t answer. She just asked my mother to step outside.

The curtain closed behind my mother with a sharp snap of fabric. Linda pulled the plastic chair closer to my bed and sat down.

Her voice went softer. She told me I wasn’t in trouble.

She said the medical staff had concerns about my mother’s response to my medical emergency. She explained that refusing necessary treatment for a minor could constitute medical neglect.

She asked me if this was a pattern. She asked if my mother had dismissed or minimized my health concerns before.

I wanted to say yes. I wanted to tell her about the time I broke my wrist and my mother said I was being dramatic until the bone was literally sticking out at a wrong angle three days later.

I wanted to explain about the migraines she said were just me trying to get out of chores. But Linda was a stranger, and my mother was right outside that curtain, and I’d have to go home with her eventually.

So I said I didn’t know. I said that maybe I was being dramatic.

Linda wrote something in her notebook. She asked if I felt safe at home.

The question hung in the air like smoke. I’d never been asked that before.

Not by teachers who saw my mother’s perfect PTA volunteer act. Not by coaches who thought she was supportive for coming to every game.

Not by neighbors who watched her garden and thought she was a model single mother. The truth was complicated.

My mother had never hit me, never screamed, never did anything that would leave a mark someone could photograph. But she had a way of making me feel like every need I had was an imposition.

It felt like being sick or hurt or struggling was a personal attack on her. It felt like I existed primarily to be low-maintenance and convenient.

I told Linda I felt safe. It wasn’t exactly a lie.

I was safe from physical harm. I was just not safe from the slow erosion of being treated like a burden instead of a person.

Linda left after making me promise to call her if I needed anything. She handed me a business card that I slipped under my pillow.

Dr. Patel came back and told my mother that since she was refusing overnight admission, I’d be discharged with strict instructions. These included no driving, no being left alone for 48 hours, and a neurology appointment within the week.

She also ordered a prescription for anti-seizure medication to start immediately. If I had another seizure, I needed to return to the ER right away.

My mother signed the discharge papers without reading them. She grabbed her purse and told me to get dressed.

The nurse gave me printed aftercare instructions and helped me into a wheelchair for the ride to the exit. Hospital policy stated I wasn’t allowed to walk out after a seizure.

My mother walked three steps ahead the entire way to the parking lot. The car ride home was silent.

My mother stared straight ahead at the road with both hands gripping the steering wheel. I could feel her anger radiating off her like heat.

We pulled into the driveway of our house, and she finally spoke. “You’ve embarrassed me, made me look like a bad mother in front of the hospital staff, made me miss work, and waste an entire day dealing with drama you created.”

I tried to explain that I didn’t choose to have a seizure. She cut me off.

She said that epilepsy was convenient timing right before my chemistry test next week that I’d been complaining about. She said she wasn’t stupid and she knew when I was manipulating situations.

I sat in the passenger seat with the discharge papers crumpled in my lap and felt something inside me crack. It didn’t break, just cracked like the first fracture in ice before it shatters completely.

She told me to go to my room and stay there for the rest of the day. There was to be no phone, no computer, and no dinner since I clearly wasn’t that sick if I was capable of orchestrating elaborate medical episodes.

I went upstairs and closed my door. I sat on my bed in the clothes I’d worn to school.

They smelled like floor cleaner and fierce sweat. My head still ached.

My tongue had a bite mark on the side where my teeth had clamped down during the seizure. I pulled out Linda’s business card from my pocket and stared at it.

The card had a direct phone number and an email address. It had the words Child Protective Services in small print at the bottom.

I put it in my desk drawer under some old homework assignments and lay down. My phone buzzed from wherever my mother had confiscated it.

I closed my eyes and tried not to think about having another seizure alone in my room with no one to help me. I woke up disoriented and nauseous.

The room was dark. My alarm clock said 3:00 in the morning.

I’d slept for almost 12 hours straight, probably because my brain was still recovering from the seizure. My mouth was dry as sand.

I got up carefully and went downstairs to the kitchen for water. The house was quiet.

My mother’s bedroom door was closed. I filled a glass from the tap and drank it standing at the sink.

That’s when I saw the prescription bag on the counter. Dr. Patel had sent the anti-seizure medication to the pharmacy.

My mother had picked it up but never given it to me. I opened the bag and read the label.

“Take one tablet twice daily with food. Start immediately.”

I took the first dose right there at the sink with tap water and a granola bar I found in the cabinet. School the next day was torture.

Word had spread about my seizure, and everyone treated me like I was made of glass or like I was a spectacle. Derek asked if I was okay, and I said yes automatically.

Mrs. Garrison pulled me aside before class. She asked if I needed accommodations or extra time on assignments.