A little while back, Alyssa Curtis was selected as a recipient of the Lorna Myers PNES Scholarship. It is wonderful to see how far she has come since then; she not only graduated from college with multiple degrees but has now also written a wonderful book to raise PNES-awareness and which is a beautiful ode to the special connections that can form between humans and animals.
Introduction:
My name is Alyssa Curtis and I graduated from SCSU last spring. I earned degrees in social work, Spanish, human relations, psychology, social justice, and child welfare. I was able to earn these six degrees in 3 years. Now I work for a school district in a level 4 special education setting. I’ve had PNES since I was a freshman in high school, but my actual diagnosis came much later than that.
I wrote this book because I wanted other people with PNES to know my story and that there was someone else out there who was going through something similar to them. I wanted representation for our unique group. I hope that more people will learn what PNES is and how to appropriately respond through my publication. I also wrote the book because of my love for animals, and to demonstrate how much more understanding they can be than people.
Book Description: Even though I’m only a senior in high school, I’ve already lived through more than most. My seizure condition isn’t widely understood or even heard of, so I am an easy target for high schoolers. Graduation is coming soon, and I can’t wait to start over somewhere and take a breath. I never expected that “somewhere” to be a zoo. When I get offered a unique and exciting job opportunity, I pounce on it. Suddenly, I’m spending my days with animals who don’t judge me or look away – they all have their own scars and stories. A naughty coatimundi, playful bears, ferocious geese, gentle and fragile cubs, and a wise tiger who seems to understand me better than any human I’ve ever met. I thought I was going there to care for the animals. I never would have guessed how much they would care for me. The animals saved me from my trauma just as much as I saved them.
Excerpt from “Saving Stripes”
I knew something was off as soon as I was standing at the edge of the fence. The female, Sasha, always came up to the fence to say hello to me. A small crowd had gathered in front of their enclosure. My eyes darted around, trying to find out what was wrong. I saw the male, Nico, sleeping on his favorite perch, laying on his back with his legs straight up in the air. Normal. A second later, I spotted Sasha in front of the crowd of people. She was pacing back and forth in front of them. Everyone was shouting at her, clapping their hands at her, and someone was even trying to poke her with a stick. I stormed into the group of people and shooed them all away and said that this was no way to treat an animal. No one moved. I bellowed, “How would you like it if I did that to you in your home when you just wanted to relax in peace??”. Finally, they left. An older woman stayed back and apologized for the group’s behavior, but she directed my gaze toward Sasha’s leg. She was limping. Badly. I didn’t see any blood and her leg appeared to look normal, but the limp was unmistakable. Now that the people had left, she stopped pacing. The poor girl was hurting herself worse because all those people had been tormenting her. I thanked the woman and sent her off too. I walkied and said, “Lucas, I have a question about Sasha, will you come over please?”. I made sure to be cryptic so that any guests who were near a staff person with a walkie talkie wouldn’t come bother Sasha further. Because of the natural flow of the zoo, guests still appeared in front of the cougar enclosure. When they saw me standing there monitoring Sasha, they lingered. Come on Lucas. He finally showed up and I told him about the limp and how it was so much worse when the guests were around. We decided to lock her in the barn for the remainder of the day so that she could rest in peace. I held open the barn door, and he tried luring her to enter with food and sweet talk. She remained standing in place, nervously eyeing a man who was snapping pictures of her struggling to stay upright. I opened my mouth to send him off, but Lucas beat me to it. The man looked terrified and basically ran out of there, bringing the other guests with him. The cougar gate was really heavy, and the handle was just straight metal carving into my hands. I slipped and the door banged shut. “Here let me hold it. Maybe she’ll listen to you instead” Lucas said, and he grabbed the handle and leaned back to use his weight to hold it open. I didn’t have any food, but I just talked to her. First, I chuffed to get her attention, and she immediately locked eyes with me. “Come here Sasha baby. Come on pretty girl. You’ll have your privacy in the barn, okay? None of these people will bother you anymore. You just need to come over here, okay?”. I chuffed some more, and she started walking towards me. Even in her state, her footsteps were as silent as a ghost. Lucas started lowering the gate. “It’s okay, she’ll just have to figure out to go to the back. She isn’t going to listen to us”. “Lucas no, she’s coming”. He still couldn’t see because of his leaned over posture, but he strained himself even further to open the gate as high as it would go. I kept talking to her and she came straight to me. “Good girl, Sasha, great work”. She paused in front of me, and I scratched her back and ears through the fence. She moaned a little and then slipped inside the barn and immediately laid down to rest. Lucas slid the door closed and wiped the sweat from his face. He slapped my back and said that he had never seen anything like that before. The animals never do exactly what you want, especially if there’s no food involved. Especially if it’s a big solitary cat. He helped me load up all my stuff into the wagon so that I could go back to the Ramada. He started to walk with me, still going on about how I was an animal whisperer and had something special that no one else here did. I tried to say thank you, but he kept piling on the compliments, and I just reddened deeper and deeper. I lost all strength in my legs and fell. Before I lost all control, I managed to lean to my left towards Lucas so that he would catch me and I wouldn’t hurt myself. Before he even caught me, the tremors had taken over my whole body. I was already crying in pain. I was sweating and dizzy. My eyes fluttered and my head was pounding. Lucas struggled to even catch me because I was moving around so much, but he managed to lower me to the ground. He had to move me twice because I ended up too close to the path and would scrape myself up on the pavement, and because of the prickly plant growing up the side of the cougar fence. The whole time, I heard a growling and screaming sound. It wasn’t Nico. I knew his voice. It was Sasha. She couldn’t even see me, but she knew I needed help, and that she wasn’t able to provide it.
To purchase this book: Amazon.com: Saving Stripes: 9798242607705: Curtis, Alyssa: Books