Things Given Up to Epilepsy tagged posts

I have written several articles about people being fired or arrested while having seizures. As a result, I have received several emails from readers and close friends asking: “How can it be legal in the United States of America to fire someone for epilepsy?”

It isn’t. But up until very recently it was. Here’s how it came to happen.

In 1924 sterilizing epileptics was all the rage. Three thousand people were involuntarily sterilized in the United States — 2,500 in California alone (1) based on a system designed by one Harry Laughlin. In a continued effort to get rid of “defective persons,” Virginia sought to follow California’s lead and a seventeen-year-old girl named Carrie Buck was chosen to be the first citizen of that state to be sterilized under the program.

Witness...

People look at me and most of the time I look normal. I act normal. To be honest, except for those moments when I am flopping around the floor, I think of myself as a pretty normal guy. Yet I cannot discount those moments as easily as people who observe me on the street do. In reality, society does not discount those moments, either. The minute a seizure occurs, our lives are changed forever. As seizure patients, everyone around us views us differently.

I understand this is a difficult statement to accept. Those who view themselves as the most “easy-going” and “accepting” of people will immediately respond by saying “I don’t do that.” Of course you don’t. You aren’t sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic or anything else either. You are a wonderful person...

I had a seizure around some people who don’t know me very well.  Naturally, they were incredibly uncomfortable around me for the next several days; trying to say things that were supportive or interesting or whatever.

A young woman walked up to me.  She was obviously nervous.  “So,” she said, “how was your seizure?”  The minute the words sunk into her head, and before I had a chance to say anything, she turned and walked away.

People have no idea how to deal with us.  Do you know whose fault that is?  Ours.  It has been easier for us to live in secret for as long as possible rather than let people know about us.  As a result, people do not understand who and what we are.  Those people who say stupid things to us usually mean well...

I started jogging recently.

I should say that I started jogging “again.”  Years ago I ran but I had to stop because I started having seizures when I ran.  I guess I forgot that because when I started to run this time I started to have seizures again.

There are so many things in my life that I have given up because of seizures.  Things from my life that I once enjoyed or used that are no longer a part of my life.  Things that I avoid because they are now and forever associated with a seizure.

I am a big fan of “The Simpsons” and “Futurama.”  I had a particularly bad seizure while watching an episode of Futurama.  There was a musical number during that episode.  I have heard the song several times since then.  It totally triggers a memory of that seizure...