Gary Chudleigh was 12 years old when he had his first seizure.

After banging his head against a wall while playing the day before, he was left confused and scared after losing consciousness at a friend’s house after a sleepover.

Now the graphic novel author is creating a character with epilepsy in a bid to help other young people living with invisible conditions view their uniqueness as a gift, and not something to try and defeat.

He said: “It’s taking my personal experience of having epilepsy and trying to apply it into a mainstream sci-fi children’s story.

“I’ve always liked the idea that unseen illnesses or disabilities actually let people view the world differently.”

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The Unseen, Gary’s working title, will feature a protagonist who lives with the neurological condition marked by recurring and unprovoked seizures who is able to see a “dark and dangerous” new reality after their first fit.

He said: “The main character will be an anti-hero who can save the world from threat and it’s all based on things only they can see and understand because of the epilepsy.”

Doctors never confirmed why Gary, 31, developed epilepsy but he thinks it could be connected to the impact he suffered while playing.

He said: “It really shook my brain. It’s never been scientifically proven that was it but it just seemed like such a coincidence that the next morning I had my first seizure.”

Gary is the author of the award-winning trilogy, Plagued: The Miranda Chronicles, illustrated by Tanya Roberts and published by Glasgow-based BHP Comics.

In the young adult fantasy series, that have earned him a spot at comic conventions and conferences across the UK, Scotland is ravaged by a plague and a magical witch battles to cure it with her supernatural powers.

He said: “I wanted to set it in Scotland because a lot of Scottish content is gritty and portrays alcoholism or poverty and I wanted to do something different.

“I really enjoy writing for young people. I like to take dark subjects and shed some light on them with humour.”

Central to The Unseen is that the main character, as yet unamed, doesn’t “succeed by overcoming who they are, they succeed by being different.”

Gary, who has a two-year old son, Nolan, with wife Kate, said: “In mainstream hero narratives there is an event in their past that causes them to gain powers. Our main character doesn’t gain the ability to fly or put on a suit, they’re going to be very grounded.

“When it comes to the representation of disabilities or illness one of the issues is it’s always about the person overcoming it, so it’s almost saying it’s not ok. But it is, it’s just part of you and your unique perspective or understanding of the world.”

One of Gary’s inspirations is his brother-in-law who lives with Asperger’s syndrome and who one of the characters will be based on.

Gary said: “He’s really into comic books and I’ve spoken to him a lot about his condition so I understand a bit about it. He doesn’t need to overcome it, it just makes him a different person - in a good way.”

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Having had more than 20 seizures since his first, Gary considers himself lucky as unlike many others, he gets warning of an episode.

“A lot of people with epilepsy, it’s sudden. They don’t know it’s coming, but I do,” he said. “I get what’s called an aura. It’s a general feeling, like an anxiety that washes all over my body and the room starts to spin.

“It’s terrifying but at the same time I know I can get myself to a safe position to lie down so I don’t hurt myself.”

Thanks to a mix of medication, Gary has lived seizure free for the last ten years but doesn’t drive after once having a seizure during a driving lesson.

He takes precautions like getting a good night’s sleep and not drinking to much caffeine because it overstimulates the brain.

He said: “I’m very lucky because I know a lot of people really suffer with extreme degrees of epilepsy. For a long while after [having his last seizure] I used to get really bad panic attacks thinking it was going to happen because they have a similar feeling.”

Gary, from Knightswood, has always been a storyteller and remembers getting good reports in creative writing at school.

He first thought up The Unseen years ago but it wasn’t until stumbling upon his old notes that he decided it was time to revisit the concept.

In his freelance role as creative producer for BHP Comics, alongside his day job in marketing and communications, Gary develops existing graphic novel titles for screen adaptation and he is tailoring his latest tale to work as well on screen as it does on the page.

Gary, a self-confessed sci-fi “geek” hopes The Unseen will reach young people who “feel a bit different”.

He said: “I would have found it comforting to see people can be a hero despite what they’re going through. It’s such a bummer to have seizures but it’s just that you have a brain that works in a different way.”