"I thought I was the Messiah and I did not recognize my own family because of a rare brain microbe"

Like many other young women in their twenties, Evie Moore was fit and healthy. She liked going to the gym and spending time with her boyfriend.

But then she was struck by a rare brain microbe that completely changed her personality and prevented her from recognizing her own family.

At the height of her illness, Evie even believed that she was the Messiah and a messenger of God.

Evie, now 23, from Cirencester, Gloucestershire, said: "I remember lying on the floor next to my hospital bed and creating the sign of the cross.

"Then, when the young doctor came to see me, I said to him:" Hello, I am a messenger of God and I have been sent from heaven "."

Almost four years ago, Evie was a 20-year-old health-conscious woman who was careful to eat well and exercise regularly.

Despite everything, despite the fact that she lived happily with her boyfriend in Stroud, Gloucestershire, and enjoyed her job as a customer service badistant, her personality mysteriously began to change.

In the months leading up to her first seizure, caused by encephalitis, a severe inflammation of the brain, Evie suddenly began to feel jealous and paranoid.

She said, "In the three months that preceded my encephalitis, I became paranoid and started to get nervous about things that would not normally bother me.

"For no reason, I really worried that my boyfriend at the time was talking with other girls, which never bothered me before.

"And looking back now, it was clearly the beginning."

Then, in September 2015, she was hit by a severe flu and could not get up from bed for a week.

At home alone while her boyfriend was out one night, she called her parents.

They immediately felt that something was wrong and his father, Ivan, 53, an orthopedic engineer, drove home and brought him back to the Tetbury family home. , 18 kilometers away.

Evie, 20 years old at the time, said: "Mom and Dad knew something was wrong with me because I was very distressed and upset.

"It was becoming clear that it was not just a flu, they were on hooks."

And then she was struck by her first crisis in their living room.

Frantic and unable to get her out of the crisis, her parents called an ambulance.

The paramedics defibrilled her once in the ambulance to give her a crush and bring her back to consciousness.

Evie was transported to the Gloucestershire Royal Hospital 20 km from Gloucester, where she was in a coma for 48 hours to reduce the brain damage caused by the crisis, which doctors were not sure.

She said: "My memories are gone and I have had to piece together what my parents and my younger sister, Ruby, 19, have said.

"But I remember coming to look at the bag of the probe at the end of my bed thinking," It's strange, I wonder what could have happened? and then feeling an excruciating pain from where I bit my tongue during the crisis. "

And when her family came to visit her, a disoriented Evie did not recognize them because of her condition, which attacks healthy brain cells.

She could barely even be able to form sentences.

Gradually, more than a week in the hospital, his memory and his faculties returned with the help of steroids to reduce brain inflammation and Evie was allowed to return to the hospital. Apartment that she shared with her boyfriend of the time.

But he was never told what caused the crisis.

Still confused, she was advised to have someone with her for the first two weeks and could not leave the apartment without being so overwhelmed that she had to run away to the house. ; inside.

Evie said, "I started to get so crazy." One time, I watched the information on television completely petrified because I thought I was in the war zone they were reporting on. "

And the worst was yet to come.

A week after leaving the hospital, Evie was lying in bed with her boyfriend when she suddenly thought her mother, Alison, 52, was dead.

She stated: "I recovered and I am totally convinced that she died, as if someone had just told me, and I prepared to leave the apartment and to go at my parents' house in the middle of the night.

"It was clear then that I had to be hospitalized again."

Back at the Royal Gloucestershire Hospital, Evie was diagnosed with psychosis, a common symptom of encephalitis, which usually develops a few weeks after the initial attack.

"I became an animist," said Evie, following which a diagnosis of encephalitis was diagnosed two weeks after his return to the hospital.

"I did not know who I was anymore.

"The doctors put me alone in a room and I could see the birds flying outside and I thought I could do it too.

"I was desperately trying to jump out the window and fly and my father was using all his strength to push me back.

"I turned around and just shouted" F *** ", and I remember seeing it rip those words."

Despite the sudden change in Evie's behavior and personality, her parents tried to be as comforting and helpful as possible.

They visited every day and entertained in his often incoherent conversations.

Unfortunately, his relationship did not survive because two weeks before the end of his nine weeks at the hospital, his boyfriend confessed that he could not cope with the change in her.

Evie said, "The illness really changed who I am, and I think for a young relationship, it was too painful," she said.

"He came to visit me and started crying and we both decided that everything was fine.

"He left and I closed my curtains and I just started crying."

When she was finally released, Evie returned to live with her parents and, while her psychosis was declining, she could not work for 18 months because of her exhaustion and disorientation.

"For a long time, I had to rely on my mother to help me get dressed in the morning and put on my make-up," said Evie, who had a meteoric rise from the 8th to the 14th month in September. the space of 10 months because of steroid treatment.

"I felt so tired all the time, but my parents were great at getting me up and doing things so that I would not sit and wallow.

"And that really helped me get up emotionally and physically."

Initially hired part-time as a shop badistant, in November 2017, Evie was able to return to work full-time as a sales consultant at travel agent Thomas Cook.

But she feared never to find love again.

Evie said: "And, after breaking my last relationship, I stopped looking for love because I was afraid that my illness does not mean we just broke up."

Then, in February 2017, despite the wish not to engage with another man, she met 25-year-old business badistant George Moore, who had attended school above her clbad, although they never spoke before.

Meeting for the first time on Snapchat, the two men clicked and met for a coffee. They soon met and moved to Cirencester six months later.

Evie said, "I told him everything about my encephalitis and what had happened to me on this first date.

"He was brilliant and very encouraging, I fell in love with George and made me feel a lot better.

"He really tried to change things for me and help me recover.It was very important to overcome this nightmare.

"Sometimes it may sound a little strange, but he just said how much he thought I had to survive all that, and it made me feel really good about myself.

"Now that I get back and I have George by my side, I am completely comfortable again in myself."

But even though she no longer has religious illusions, Evie says that encephalitis has changed her personality, making her less inhibited.

She said: "It's very upsetting, because I feel better and I'm back to normal, but I know something has changed and that mom and dad sometimes comment on things that I could say before we did it. " . "

To learn more about Encephalitis and World Encephalitis Day on February 22, visit www.encephalitis.info.