Madeleine Dippnall, a 29-year-old young woman, believed for several years suffer from depression and post-traumatic stress. Victim of a difficult relationship, she suffered from a series of anxiety and panic attacks. But after years of hardship and ineffective treatments, a diagnosis will turn his life upside down, as explained The Mirror.
Madeleine thought her anxiety attacks were due to psychological problems. She consulted doctor after doctor, receiving a series of diagnoses of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress. However, nothing really relieved his attacks. It’s a brutal event that will finally allow him to understand what was really going on.
Repeated inexplicable anxiety attacks
Madeleine was experiencing a complicated romantic relationship which plunged her into a constant state of stress. In 2022, at the age of 22, she decided to leave her partner at the time and return to live with your parents in Cornwall, by the sea.”I needed to be near the ocean“, she explains. “We had to leave. It was horrible“. Despite the breakup, the anxiety attacks persist. They manifest themselves by uncontrollable crying, excessive sweating, and intense feelings of fear. “It feels like we’re on a roller coaster“, she says. “The whole body sweats. I had to go to the bathroom to vomit. I was crying hysterically. We have this panic fear that something terrible is going to happen“.
Consultations with the psychiatrist, medication for anxiety and depression… Nothing helps. During three years, Madeleine scrupulously follows her treatments without observing any notable improvement. Her condition worries her and she feels that no one really listens to her. “My father had a feeling from the beginning“, she remembers. “He said these weren’t normal anxiety attacks.“.
“If I hadn’t been diagnosed in time…”
In April 2023, an event will finally shed light on the situation. Madeleine wakes up one morning with a bloody mouth.. She had had an epileptic seizure in her sleep. “My whole body was contracting. I bit the inside of my mouth. It was a nocturnal tonic-clonic seizure, with muscle twitches“, she explains. The next morning, she finds herself on the bathroom floor with no memory of how she got there. “I said to Chris, my husband, ‘Oh my God, I think I had a seizure.’“.
Consulted by her general practitioner, Madeleine is finally referred to a specialist who diagnoses her temporal lobe epilepsy. “I felt immediate relief. I wasn’t crazy“, she confides. “I was angry at all these doctors who told me I had mental health issues. If I hadn’t been diagnosed in time, I could have had serious problems“.
She’s finally making a new start
Since following treatment adapted to her epilepsy, Madeleine has returned to a normal life. The anxiety attacks disappeared and his depression lifted. “My husband says the difference is obvious.“, she rejoices.
Today, surrounded by her husband Chris, her two-year-old son Bo and her stepchildren, Madeleine enjoys life to the fullest. She even started her own graphic design company which she manages from her ecological chalet. “I turned something negative into something positive. My business is doing really well“, she concludes with optimism.
