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I was talking to a distant relation and a friend of his, my relation knew about me being an epileptic but his friend did not, anyway he brought up the topic of his sister and how she had just been diagnosed with epilepsy and said about the poor thing and her brain, what she could not do and so on. I sat there listening until he was finished. I was angry with him for what he said, so I launched into an attack on him, this was unfair and I stopped myself in time and spoke to him, some of the things that came up were about children and driving, jobs and so on and he was amazed at what I thought and twice as amazed when I told him I was an epileptic. Then my relation turned to him and said “I bet you feel sorry for yourself now.” This is basically what I think am I right or wrong.
There are a lot of, well to be polite misunderstandings about people with epilepsy. One of the first you will hear is about how slow a child will be at school, however this is not true. A child can be “slow at school” for a lot of reasons none of which we have any control over but epilepsy is not a reason, it may play a small part. Not being able to work is one I like, it does not apply in these days but it did. It was assumed that if you had epilepsy not alone was your intelligence limited but your ability to get up and work was an unattainable expectation. Your ability for concentration or communication with others was limited and better not to be tested as the consequences did not bear thinking about. One thing often proposed was leave them on there own, not to mix with “normal” children.
Then you had the physc ward which was suggested, I was lucky the offer was never accepted. Of course the treatment most favoured was electric shock which I am sorry to say happened too many. Then you had driving, something frowned upon and even to this day is something that no epileptic should be allowed do, the obvious reason for this is safety, the safety of others more than the safety of the person. Understandable no one likes the thought of injuring another person and God forbid take a life. But what about the injury to the person this happened to or there life. Then there is sport, this is a definite no as well because the head injury caused could be irreversible, nothing about the person who was injured.
The way I see it is a lot simpler. A lot of the most famous people had epilepsy. The people who have epilepsy never run around shouting, look I did this. At times I think doctors look at an epileptic nearly the same as a trained monkey. The thing is the one or two things mentioned which may apply to certain epileptics, depending on which type of epilepsy you have may not allow you to work or drive. The part about intelligence would depend on how ability, common sense and intelligence usually of the “ordinary person eg doctor.” The jobs which are commanded by epileptics are of ability just like “the ordinary person.” So for any person to qualify for any job first they must have ability to do the job in the first place.
The thing about sport is anybody with epilepsy knows what they cannot do eg boxing but there are a lot of sports and I am sure there is something one can do, why not. So is there a difference between the “normal person” and some one with epilepsy. No there is not, everybody has a health issue and we all know what we can or cannot do, a diabetic needs to cheek sugar content and so on. Epileptics in general are more intelligent, better informed, better able to find a solution to a problem. I may be biased, actually I am because I am tired of listening to people telling me what an epileptic can and cannot do, there poor ability and so on. The ones I see with the least ability are these people and doctors. Then they ask you to agree with what they say. The best part is when I tell them at the end that I am epileptic.
There are a lot of, well to be polite misunderstandings about people with epilepsy. One of the first you will hear is about how slow a child will be at school, however this is not true. A child can be “slow at school” for a lot of reasons none of which we have any control over but epilepsy is not a reason, it may play a small part. Not being able to work is one I like, it does not apply in these days but it did. It was assumed that if you had epilepsy not alone was your intelligence limited but your ability to get up and work was an unattainable expectation. Your ability for concentration or communication with others was limited and better not to be tested as the consequences did not bear thinking about. One thing often proposed was leave them on there own, not to mix with “normal” children.
Then you had the physc ward which was suggested, I was lucky the offer was never accepted. Of course the treatment most favoured was electric shock which I am sorry to say happened too many. Then you had driving, something frowned upon and even to this day is something that no epileptic should be allowed do, the obvious reason for this is safety, the safety of others more than the safety of the person. Understandable no one likes the thought of injuring another person and God forbid take a life. But what about the injury to the person this happened to or there life. Then there is sport, this is a definite no as well because the head injury caused could be irreversible, nothing about the person who was injured.
The way I see it is a lot simpler. A lot of the most famous people had epilepsy. The people who have epilepsy never run around shouting, look I did this. At times I think doctors look at an epileptic nearly the same as a trained monkey. The thing is the one or two things mentioned which may apply to certain epileptics, depending on which type of epilepsy you have may not allow you to work or drive. The part about intelligence would depend on how ability, common sense and intelligence usually of the “ordinary person eg doctor.” The jobs which are commanded by epileptics are of ability just like “the ordinary person.” So for any person to qualify for any job first they must have ability to do the job in the first place.
The thing about sport is anybody with epilepsy knows what they cannot do eg boxing but there are a lot of sports and I am sure there is something one can do, why not. So is there a difference between the “normal person” and some one with epilepsy. No there is not, everybody has a health issue and we all know what we can or cannot do, a diabetic needs to cheek sugar content and so on. Epileptics in general are more intelligent, better informed, better able to find a solution to a problem. I may be biased, actually I am because I am tired of listening to people telling me what an epileptic can and cannot do, there poor ability and so on. The ones I see with the least ability are these people and doctors. Then they ask you to agree with what they say. The best part is when I tell them at the end that I am epileptic.
She'll actually understand her patients better than most doctors if one of her best friends also has epilepsy!
