It's a rare but serious condition and the severity of its damage we were all too familiar with. My niece was diagnosed with encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain, usually caused by an infection. I can imagine how I felt would resonate strongly with their experience, the desire to find enjoyment in life and to be your ‘normal’ self, whilst feeling yourself carry a cloud of trepidation and sadness everywhere. The incident opened my eyes to those suffering with depression. The following few weeks I would find myself praying in train carriages and felt a heavy pain linger with me that felt like a cement block on my chest. I write these words as I wanted to open the conversation about how trauma can impact us as adults.

But we're the adults now and there was no assurance, and every day following the initial incident I’d go to bed hoping this was all just a bad dream.

When you’re young, you look at adults for answers and go to sleep with their reassurance that everything will be okay. She had another seizure that very night and amid the ambulance sirens, my sister’s screams and midnight phone calls, I found myself paralysed with fear and overwhelmed. I remember the night she came home in flashes. It blurs them and tries to muddy each moment to allow you to continue moving forward as it worries the pain will compress you. They say your brain in order to protect you omits details of memories that you perceive as painful. But in times of crisis, you desperately crave normality and reassurance, you put your faith into the hands of the professionals, and you hope for the best. A part of me felt unsatisfied with this answer, the questions remained unanswered as febrile seizures were typically rare in instances and were shorter in lengths.

A day later, the doctor diagnosed it as a febrile seizure, and she was able to come home. Why did this happen? What does this mean? How could this happen? In these moments you comb each memory desperately to seek answers. A thousand thoughts paced through my head as I sought to gain some clarity. It was a Thursday when my sister rang me from a hospital room and informed me that my niece was not well, she was in school when she had her first seizure and, in the hospital, she had her third. Not a bright, exciting or tranquil blue, but a dark daunting blue, the type that mimics the depth of an ocean, the type that makes you anxious as it threatens to encapsulate you within its waves. The past few weeks have flurried past but akin to the change in climate, for me they have been blue.

We were all beside ourselves