Switch Places?

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

Juju26

Pillar
Messages
47
Reaction score
0
Points
31
I'm 27yrs old and recently got diagnosed with epilepsy in March 2013 and already I feel so alone, although I have supportive family members, they just don’t understand.

Specifically..…my mother, who I’m living with.

Too say she is religious and believe in the healing power of prayer is an understatement, I already have to deal with her thinking my epilepsy is due to evil spirits and can be healed and be gone from religious/spiritual rituals.

My mother is self-employed and her business hasn’t been going great lately, so with rent and other bills she is stressed, and has said to me more than once in the past two weeks, “You don’t know what I’m going through!”

I was supposed to graduate with a Bachelor’s from Florida Atlantic University in May of this year, had money, a car and was looking forward to starting my career and life….all of that is gone now, my car, my education, money, and now my health.

We were in the leasing office of her apartment complex filling out paper work adding me to the lease, we had a disagreement about a particular question on the lease, and she responds to me, “You don’t understand what I’m going through; I wish you were in my place”.

I had my 14th unconscious complex seizure last night and vomited on my bed for the third time since my seizures started, I didn’t tell my mother, and we get into an argument this morning over a lease and she looks at me and says that.

Switch Places, really?

She can’t, won’t, and still has not said to me, “I know you have epilepsy and it is a medical problem and nothing else.

After what she said to me, to say I “feel” alone….is an understatement, I AM COMPLETELY ALONE!!!!

:sad:
 
When a child is first born, every mother counts fingers and toes, looks at the baby's ears, face, and body, and calls the baby "perfect". You continued to be "perfect", went on to university, on the road to a successful career. Then suddenly it all came to a halt. A child who becomes ill or has a disability shatters that image or dream of perfection, and in a way she is right - you don't know what she is going through. Give her time to accept the diagnosis you have been given. Support her all you can, perhaps helping her with her business in some way, or whatever else you can think of. Just as you are scared, so is she. She may be thinking that she will have to support you, and may not be able to with a struggling business. If she has her own business, she is a smart lady. Right now she may be feeling she is a failure: thinking her genes made you so the epilepsy is "her fault", her business is failing so she may be seeing herself as a failure. Her thinking your epilepsy is due to evil spirits is likely just a crutch for her - something to hide behind, and it allows her to think it will magically disappear and it masks her feelings of inadequacy.

Hang out here for awhile; you will get lots of support and answered questions. In time, your Mom will come around. And slowly, slowly talk with her. Help her learn to understand what you are going through, and by doing so she will talk and you will understand what she is going through.
 
Stuck between a rock and a hard place, huh?

A lot of people here can relate. In addition to what masterjen said, this may be one of those times you just have to shrug it off. That's your mom and she's allowed to be wrong and selfish just like the rest of us every once in a while.

Like the signature says, NGU. Never Give Up. ;)
 
When a child is first born, every mother counts fingers and toes, looks at the baby's ears, face, and body, and calls the baby "perfect". You continued to be "perfect", went on to university, on the road to a successful career. Then suddenly it all came to a halt. A child who becomes ill or has a disability shatters that image or dream of perfection, and in a way she is right - you don't know what she is going through.

My son had all fingers and toes and "looked" perfect when he was born. But by the time he was 3 months old, he started having breathing problems and getting sick A LOT. He was in and out of docs and hospitals because he had a bad case of asthma and allergies. He had to be on nebulizers a lot and missed a lot of school growing up. Plus he was ADHD and had behavioral problems in middle school. Even tho he missed a lot growing up, he went on to college with honors, and finished law school this year. Never did it shatter my dream.... I knew he had potential. So from my perspective of a mother, I'd say that she is a bit selfish right now in telling her son he doesn't know what she is going thru. I had E, too, even when my kids were young, so they knew, but I never told my kids they have no idea what I'm going thru..... I would have felt like a horrible mother if I did.
 
Last edited:
Specifically..…my mother, who I’m living with.

Too say she is religious and believe in the healing power of prayer is an understatement, I already have to deal with her thinking my epilepsy is due to evil spirits and can be healed and be gone from religious/spiritual rituals.

Many years ago people with epilepsy were seen as children of the devil and were killed because of it!

I hate it when people bring religion into things! My husband and I are not religious at all. There are so many different religions out there with so many different Gods, which one is the right one? Which one created the universe? Made people? When you die which heaven or hell (or what ever) do you actually go to?

When people find out that I have epilepsy and what my seizures are like they will tell me they will pray for me. Well that's really nice but I don't think that's going to cure me! They only thing that someone with epilepsy can do is take medicine or have surgery to help stop the seizures, and even then that's not guaranteed to work. If I bow down in front of a cross every day for an hour I don't think that my epilepsy is going to go away....

My grandfather recently had heart surgery. When the surgeon came out to tell us how things went during the surgery he said he'd pray for him and us and hopes my grandfather does well after it. A doctor is the last person I want to hear that from! I wanted to yell back at the guy and say "That's nice you'll pray for him but you better have done the surgery right because that's what's going to make him better - not God!!!!!"


(Sorry about making this about religion but I just had to get that out)
 
Last edited:
Many years ago people with epilepsy were seen as children of the devil and were killed because of it!

I hate it when people bring religion into things! My husband and I are not religious at all.

When people find out that I have epilepsy and what my seizures are like they will tell me they will pray for me. Well that's really nice but I don't think that's going to cure me!

(Sorry about making this about religion but I just had to get that out)

You don't have to apologize.

My faith in God does not take me away from believing in reality. I love the quote, "God help those, who help themselves" and "The only thing to fear, is fear itself".

I am helping myself by joining a support group and educating myself about what epilepsy is and how to control it and I stay away from fear and keep myself in reality from not believing that epilepsy is an evil spirit or possession....nothing will EVER make me believe that.

What's make it's hard for me....is my mother, who I love dearly, and would die for. We have had over a dozen augments about her fear of evil spirits within me.

She whole heartily believes that prayer, holy oil & salt I found she hid under my bed and spiritual rituals and reading the psalms from the bible will take away my seizures.

I'm not surprised that you think that those that believe in GOD also believe in a supernatural world, because many do....I don't

I just love the feeling that someone is watching over me and faith in GOD gives me strength and courage, especially when you have no else to turn to and I don't judge others that don't believe in GOD......that would make me a conservative republican and those are the people I judge.

:e:
 
When people find out that I have epilepsy and what my seizures are like they will tell me they will pray for me. Well that's really nice but I don't think that's going to cure me! They only thing that someone with epilepsy can do is take medicine or have surgery to help stop the seizures, and even then that's not guaranteed to work. If I bow down in front of a cross every day for an hour I don't think that my epilepsy is going to go away....



(Sorry about making this about religion but I just had to get that out)

:agree:
After I had my Temporal Lobectomy and 14 months later the seizures returned worse than before surgery, I had many people telling me that they had prayed for me. Well.......... just keep on reciting those ritualistic words to the heavens 'cause no one is listening, IMO.
 
Back
Top Bottom