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Of the many comments that people have made over the years regarding my epilepsy the one that probably disturbs me the most has to do with other peoples' limited perception that epilepsy means seizures.  Yes I still do have seizures but I wish others could understand that epilepsy is much more than a "seizure disorder".I read a neat quote from David Taylor in a large medical book, The Treatment of Epilepsy; Principles and Practice that goes:There are three components of epilepsy:Disease--the underlying processIllness--the clinical manifestationsPredicament--It's not the environment but how one is placed in the environment, their context, the sense in which they are understood.  I wish you well in conveying the predicament of living with epilepsy.

thank you for your help i am writing this book as a way to explain to  people my story and so they can understand that epilepsy is not  just seizures and all this other stuff it can effect them in so many ways for example i dont have grand mal seizures but i have multi focal epilepsy and i have seizures every ten seconds bu people think im fine because they dont notice or see them

thank you for your help i am writing this book as a way to explain to  people my story and so they can understand that epilepsy is not  just seizures and all this other stuff it can effect them in so many ways for example i dont have grand mal seizures but i have multi focal epilepsy and i have seizures every ten seconds bu people think im fine because they dont notice or see them

sorry but im not sure what you are trying to say and it doesnt have anything to do with what im doing

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:The Idiot is an example of how art can contribute to scientific observation. Dostoevsky lets us see into the mind and emotion of the person with epilepsy through his character Prince Myshkin.  Here  Prince Myshkin describes the onset of a seizure with an ecstatic aura:He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.  All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable.'This description is very similar to Dostoevsky 's  observation of his own epilepsy:" For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:The Idiot is an example of how art can contribute to scientific observation. Dostoevsky lets us see into the mind and emotion of the person with epilepsy through his character Prince Myshkin.  Here  Prince Myshkin describes the onset of a seizure with an ecstatic aura:He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.  All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable.'This description is very similar to Dostoevsky 's  observation of his own epilepsy:" For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:The Idiot is an example of how art can contribute to scientific observation. Dostoevsky lets us see into the mind and emotion of the person with epilepsy through his character Prince Myshkin.  Here  Prince Myshkin describes the onset of a seizure with an ecstatic aura:He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.  All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable.'This description is very similar to Dostoevsky 's  observation of his own epilepsy:" For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack.

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:The Idiot is an example of how art can contribute to scientific observation. Dostoevsky lets us see into the mind and emotion of the person with epilepsy through his character Prince Myshkin.  Here  Prince Myshkin describes the onset of a seizure with an ecstatic aura:He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.  All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable.'This description is very similar to Dostoevsky 's  observation of his own epilepsy:" For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack.

 All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

If my Geschwind Syndrome writing is too much, here’s a Charge Orgs’ UK Dostoevsky citation:The Idiot is an example of how art can contribute to scientific observation. Dostoevsky lets us see into the mind and emotion of the person with epilepsy through his character Prince Myshkin.  Here  Prince Myshkin describes the onset of a seizure with an ecstatic aura:He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light.  All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable.'This description is very similar to Dostoevsky 's  observation of his own epilepsy:" For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack."Dostoevsky was affected by physical and mental disturbances following a seizure (This is also called the 'post-ictal 'state) It took him up to one week to recover fully.  His chief complaint was that his 'head did not clear up' for several days and symptoms included, "heaviness and even pain in the head, disorders of the nerves, nervous laugh and mystical depression"http://www.charge.org.uk/htmlsite/dost.shtml

For several instants I experience a happiness that is impossible in an ordinary state, and of which other people have no conception.  I feel full harmony in myself and in the whole world, and the feeling is so strong and sweet that for a few seconds of such bliss one could give up ten years of life, perhaps all of life.I felt that heaven descended to earth and swallowed me.  I really attained god and was imbued with him.  All of you healthy people don't even suspect  what happiness is , that happiness that we epileptics experience for a second before an attack.

 All his agitation, doubts and worries, seemed composed in a twinkling, culminating in a great calm, full of understanding...but these moments, these glimmerings were still but a premonition of that final second (never more than a second) with which the seizure itself began.  That second was, of course, unbearable

He was thinking, incidentally, that there was a moment or two in his epileptic condition almost before the fit itself (if it occurred in waking hours) when suddenly amid the sadness, spiritual darkness and depression, his brain seemed to catch fire at brief moments....His sensation of being alive and his awareness increased tenfold at those moments which flashed by like lightning.  His mind and heart were flooded by a dazzling light. 

I understand what you mean.  As I talk to people about pursuing brain surgery for my seizures they often seem surprised that I am considering such an extreme treatment for seizures which they have never seen.  I wonder what they are thinking.  Michael collects Social Security Disability Income, doesn't have a job,  and sees a lot of doctors for his epilepsy.  Do they think I am lazy or have a serious psychiatric problem as I worry too much about my epilepsy?But then they are shocked when I cannot remember the party I met them at or the trip we went together on.  I had complex partial seizures which screwed up my memory of past events.  I tell them that I am short tempered because of the medications I take and because of my seizure focus.  They seem oblivious to my feelings.   But when I react aggressively they are surprised.

yes so this book is to try and get people to undersand a bit more about our day to day life that if they cant see it to them that means youre fine but we are not for example my mum denies that I have epilepsy. and if possible could you reply with some day to day questions people keep asking and what you answer is and your day to day struggles like your wellbeing and just how you feelthank you very much for all your help