Living with epilepsy; your stories

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Hi everyone! My name is Lauren, I am a twenty six year old female from the merry old land of Oz and am also a complete newbie to this forum! Therefore I am not sure if I am posting in the right section, but I thought I'd give it a shot. If I'm in an entirely wrong discussion section please let me know! I am currently in the middle of writing a novel regarding epilepsy, including the many seizure types, their implications on our lives and the stigma attached to it. As I used to suffer 40 partial seizures in a single day, I've got plenty of experience in the matter, but I would love to know others personal stories, because while we are all following a difficult path together, our individual stories are unique. I would therefore be very grateful if you could share your journey with me so I can spread the word and shed light on our "invisible illness" for the world to see. Thank you so very much!

Comments

Your very welcome Lauren! ;-)

Submitted by CrazyMikey on Wed, 2016-10-12 - 00:33

Your very welcome Lauren! ;-) My mom and me love spreading Epilepsy Awareness since most people don't think anything about it. Yeah, my youth and all the way up until now was and still is many times filled with hardship. The Right Temporal lobectomy Surgery that I did I regret doing but I wasn't the one that picked for me to do it back then cause I was averaging at least 1 grand mal seizure a day and sometimes as much as 8 so I was always out of it usually. The worst about my youth though was all the bullying when I had a seizure! Most of my seizures I would have in school and I would collapse in the middle of the hall or in class and pee and poop on myself every day. Luckily at the time we were living in a small town in Louisiana called Vivian about 45 miles away from Shreveport and my mom was right down the street at the hospital so she could come and get me or she would bring me a new set of clothes and sometime the EMT's would come and pick me up right before school ended on some of the days where I had a seizure later during the day.(( I was always on the honor roll up until when I started having seizures. For 4 years straight I made straight A's then those turned into Straight F's when I started having seizures.)) From the 6th grade up until my second year of college people bullied me and I would pee and poop on myself Very embarrassing back then from waking up surrounded by pointing fingers, people laughing and sometimes some of my teachers would yell at me for having seizures in their class. I had a few teachers that would sometimes get mad at me for having seizures in their classroom and yell at me when I woke up. but at that time I didn't know anything about discrimination. Other things bullies would do is tape "kick me" signs on my back when I was laying on the ground and some people would kick me. And the last things bullies would do is whenever I had a seizure in the cafeteria in high school, someone would always pour salad dressing all over my head. It was like that from the 6th grade up until my second year in college but it taught me to be calm. Otherwise called patience under pressure. ;-) Oh! Yeah the workforce is terrible for people like us. I've always wanted to work for the military as a fighter pilot of a F-16 Fighting Falcon or F-22 Hornet or be a helicopter pilot but of course they don't let people like us in the military or let people with epilepsy be policemen or firefighters. :-( At first I didn't know where I would make money until I finally started getting a small monthly checks many years ago but still it isn't much but I use some of that money to invest in the stock market and let my dividends grow. Hopefully by the time I'm 60 I will have at least a decent amount of shares to get a free $2500 every quarter from a company or more. while also making money somewhere else or live off the government check which I don't want to do. That's why I started volunteering at the hospital. To try to get a job. meet new people but the 1 job I had a chance of getting so far after 11 years there I didn't get. I can't even get a job as a dishwasher here in town. If your on Facebook Lauren look up our Epilepsy Awareness page called Team Hope: Epilepsy Awareness and Advocation page. My mom and me have liked it cause we helped make it.lol If you look it up and go under who has liked it, I'm Mike Anderson while my mom is Connie in there. Send me a friend request if you want. Have a good day!

Your very welcome Lauren! ;-) My mom and me love spreading Epilepsy Awareness since most people don't think anything about it. Yeah, my youth and all the way up until now was and still is many times filled with hardship. The Right Temporal lobectomy Surgery that I did I regret doing but I wasn't the one that picked for me to do it back then cause I was averaging at least 1 grand mal seizure a day and sometimes as much as 8 so I was always out of it usually. The worst about my youth though was all the bullying when I had a seizure! Most of my seizures I would have in school and I would collapse in the middle of the hall or in class and pee and poop on myself every day. Luckily at the time we were living in a small town in Louisiana called Vivian about 45 miles away from Shreveport and my mom was right down the street at the hospital so she could come and get me or she would bring me a new set of clothes and sometime the EMT's would come and pick me up right before school ended on some of the days where I had a seizure later during the day.(( I was always on the honor roll up until when I started having seizures. For 4 years straight I made straight A's then those turned into Straight F's when I started having seizures.)) From the 6th grade up until my second year of college people bullied me and I would pee and poop on myself Very embarrassing back then from waking up surrounded by pointing fingers, people laughing and sometimes some of my teachers would yell at me for having seizures in their class. I had a few teachers that would sometimes get mad at me for having seizures in their classroom and yell at me when I woke up. but at that time I didn't know anything about discrimination. Other things bullies would do is tape "kick me" signs on my back when I was laying on the ground and some people would kick me. And the last things bullies would do is whenever I had a seizure in the cafeteria in high school, someone would always pour salad dressing all over my head. It was like that from the 6th grade up until my second year in college but it taught me to be calm. Otherwise called patience under pressure. ;-)   Oh! Yeah the workforce is terrible for people like us. I've always wanted to work for the military as a fighter pilot of a F-16 Fighting Falcon or F-22 Hornet or be a helicopter pilot but of course they don't let people like us in the military or let people with epilepsy be policemen or firefighters. :-(  At first I didn't know where I would make money until I finally started getting a small monthly checks many years ago but still it isn't much but I use some of that money to invest in the stock market and let my dividends grow. Hopefully by the time I'm 60 I will have at least a decent amount of shares to get a free $2500 every quarter from a company or more. while also making money somewhere else or live off the government check which I don't want to do. That's why I started volunteering at the hospital. To try to get a job. meet new people but the 1 job I had a chance of getting so far after 11 years there I didn't get. I can't even get a job as a dishwasher here in town. If your on Facebook Lauren look up our Epilepsy Awareness page called Team Hope: Epilepsy Awareness and Advocation page. My mom and me have liked it cause we helped make it.lol  If you look it up and go under who has liked it, I'm Mike Anderson while my mom is Connie in there. Send me a friend request if you want. Have a good day!

Your very welcome Lauren! ;-) My mom and me love spreading Epilepsy Awareness since most people don't think anything about it. Yeah, my youth and all the way up until now was and still is many times filled with hardship. The Right Temporal lobectomy Surgery that I did I regret doing but I wasn't the one that picked for me to do it back then cause I was averaging at least 1 grand mal seizure a day and sometimes as much as 8 so I was always out of it usually. The worst about my youth though was all the bullying when I had a seizure! Most of my seizures I would have in school and I would collapse in the middle of the hall or in class and pee and poop on myself every day. Luckily at the time we were living in a small town in Louisiana called Vivian about 45 miles away from Shreveport and my mom was right down the street at the hospital so she could come and get me or she would bring me a new set of clothes and sometime the EMT's would come and pick me up right before school ended on some of the days where I had a seizure later during the day.(( I was always on the honor roll up until when I started having seizures. For 4 years straight I made straight A's then those turned into Straight F's when I started having seizures.)) From the 6th grade up until my second year of college people bullied me and I would pee and poop on myself Very embarrassing back then from waking up surrounded by pointing fingers, people laughing and sometimes some of my teachers would yell at me for having seizures in their class. I had a few teachers that would sometimes get mad at me for having seizures in their classroom and yell at me when I woke up. but at that time I didn't know anything about discrimination. Other things bullies would do is tape "kick me" signs on my back when I was laying on the ground and some people would kick me. And the last things bullies would do is whenever I had a seizure in the cafeteria in high school, someone would always pour salad dressing all over my head. It was like that from the 6th grade up until my second year in college but it taught me to be calm. Otherwise called patience under pressure. ;-) Oh! Yeah the workforce is terrible for people like us. I've always wanted to work for the military as a fighter pilot of a F-16 Fighting Falcon or F-22 Hornet or be a helicopter pilot but of course they don't let people like us in the military or let people with epilepsy be policemen or firefighters. :-( At first I didn't know where I would make money until I finally started getting a small monthly checks many years ago but still it isn't much but I use some of that money to invest in the stock market and let my dividends grow. Hopefully by the time I'm 60 I will have at least a decent amount of shares to get a free $2500 every quarter from a company or more. while also making money somewhere else or live off the government check which I don't want to do. That's why I started volunteering at the hospital. To try to get a job. meet new people but the 1 job I had a chance of getting so far after 11 years there I didn't get. I can't even get a job as a dishwasher here in town. If your on Facebook Lauren look up our Epilepsy Awareness page called Team Hope: Epilepsy Awareness and Advocation page. My mom and me have liked it cause we helped make it.lol If you look it up and go under who has liked it, I'm Mike Anderson while my mom is Connie in there. Send me a friend request if you want. Have a good day!

Living with epilepsy; your stories

Comments

Your very welcome Lauren! ;-)

Submitted by CrazyMikey on Wed, 2016-10-12 - 00:33

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