After rumors swirled on social media about faking seizures “for attention" back in high school, 19-year-old TikTok star Dixie D'Amelio felt she had to explain what really happened during her sophomore year to her 35 million followers.
D'Amelio noticed posts from people who claimed to be former classmates of hers, alleging that she would pretend to have debilitating seizures in order to get herself out of class, with an anonymous source even saying a former teacher told his class that Dixie's fake seizures were "annoying."
After her "very, very personal” livestream explanation ended, D'Amelio gave The TikTok Shaderoom permission to post a clip of her saying: "It's just so dumb, the things people say, so they can take other people down."
A longer recording of her stream shows D'Amelio go into detail about experiencing severe anxiety during her second year of high school, which led to Psychogenic Nonepileptic Seizures (PNES).
She remembers feeling “shaky” one day during class and asked one of her friends for help walking out to her mother’s car. "I fall to the ground and have a seizure," D'Amelio says. "Then I'm taken to the hospital and I'm there for two days while they are constantly monitoring me and I have over 400 of these convulsions over the next few days."
Dixie left school after being hospitalized and was put on five-month bed rest, eventually transferring schools and starting her junior year anew. That decision also drew comments and rumors about her reasons for switching schools.
Because of her condition, D’Amelio says she developed a stutter and found herself shaking in anxiety-inducing situations. “That's something I don't like talking about at all, but I'm not going to let anyone think of me any other way," D'Amelio said.
"I was a person when I was at my old school who I did not like. I was not myself, because I had so much anxiety and everything going through my brain at the time where I couldn't even have a proper conversation with anyone. I'm so thankful for who I am now and what I am and all that. "
Immediately following her livestream, D'Amelio posted on Twitter that she was "done with the internet," but posted a short time later that she was looking forward to spreading awareness about the things she's been through.
Dixie and her sister Charli, who have garnered nearly a hundred million total followers from their combined social media channels, are teaming up with Ramble and Cadence13 to launch a new podcast this summer aiming to uncover the parts of their lives that are largely unseen on their social media platforms.
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