One of the most frequent questions I grapple with is: When do I tell them? In a job interview, you are there to sell your best self. You highlight your skills, your reliability, and your drive. You don’t exactly want to lead with, “By the way, my brain occasionally glitches and I might need to lie on the floor for twenty minutes.”
Continue reading “Career Counseling: The Disclosure Dilemma”The Lifestyle Trap: It’s Not Just “Stress”
If I had a Euro for every time someone suggested a “lifestyle change” to cure my epilepsy, I could probably fund my own research lab. We’ve all heard it: “Have you tried yoga?” “Maybe you should quit gluten.” “Is it just because you’re stressed?”
While sleep and stress management are vital tools for any chronic condition, there is a dangerous misconception that epilepsy is a failure of discipline. It frames a neurological disorder as a lack of “wellness.” When people offer these tips, they are often trying to be helpful, but they are also trying to make sense of something scary. If it’s just about “stress,” then it’s something they can control. If it’s a random electrical storm in the brain, that’s much more unsettling.
Continue reading “The Lifestyle Trap: It’s Not Just “Stress””Myths debunked #3: “If you had a seizure, I would know what to do”
Most people think they’d handle a seizure well.
They wouldn’t. Or not automatically.
Confidence is not preparation
People assume it’s common sense. It’s not.
Otherwise, fewer people would:
- panic
- crowd
- give random instructions
- try things they saw once and never questioned
Good intentions don’t equal useful actions.
The classic mistake
Continue reading “Myths debunked #3: “If you had a seizure, I would know what to do””The “Epilepsy Tax” on Time
Most people measure their productivity in hours or task lists. For those of us with epilepsy, we have to account for a hidden “tax” on our time that no one else sees. It isn’t just the few minutes a seizure might last; it’s the hours, or sometimes days, that follow.
When a seizure ends, the world expects you to “reset” because you look like yourself again. But internally, the brain is rebooting like an old computer after a crash. There is the post-ictal fog where words feel just out of reach, the crushing fatigue that no amount of coffee can fix, and the mental “re-calibration” required to remember what you were doing before the lights went out.
Continue reading “The “Epilepsy Tax” on Time”The loneliness nobody talks about after a seizure
A seizure is visible. Recovery isn’t.
That’s where things get quiet.
Dealing with epilepsy 
You must be logged in to post a comment.