A hidden disability - with a twist!

When I was a junior reporter on a local newspaper (years ago - it was my first job), the sports correspondent said: "You don't look like someone who has epilepsy."

What???

I never got to the bottom of how he thought people with epilepsy should look. Perhaps with people in front of them ringing bells and shouting UNCLEAN?

Of course I asked and stared at him but he just blushed deeper and deeper until our news editor sort of pulled me off him and changed the subject. As I say, that was years ago - getting on for 40 - but public attitudes to epilepsy haven't changed much.

There is no physical 'look' attached to people with epilepsy. It is an 'invisible' disability and as we all know 'not all disabilities are visible'. You've all seen the signs telling you that (in buses/trains/toilets etc).

However unlike other problems, it does rear it its ugly head very visibly if someone with epilepsy has a seizure. Not always flaking and shaking on the floor, as many people tend to expect, but also stopping mid-sentence and daydreaming. Or shouting a word. Or walking around looking for something that doesn't exist. Or twisting around in their chair as if they're dancing.

Epilepsy can be one hell of a visible invisible problem!

I have to tell you something - I don't drive

We live in a completely car-centric society and sometimes I don't know what's more of a challenge: telling people I have a form of epilepsy - or breaking the horribly unusual news to them that I don't drive- and at my age!
I met a couple of women at the weekend and arranged to see them this week - and then the awkward happened. (Bear in mind that epilepsy is a hidden condition and they had absolutely no idea that I had it.)
Woman Number 1 gave me driving instructions to her house.

Me: "I don't drive. Are you near a train station or on a bus route?"

WN1: "You don't drive???"

Me: "No, but I'll get to you by public transport."

WN1: "How?"

Me:" I don't exactly know yet but if you're not near a train station I can look up bus routes."

Woman Number 1 looked at Woman Number 2 with a 'that's odd, what-have-we-got-here' expression.

WN2 said: "How did you get here?"

Me: "Walked."

WNs1&2: "Walked!"

I was beginning to find this amusing, but also a bit difficult.

Me: "Yes, walked."

They thought about that for a minute...legs as a form of transport. Then -

WN2: "If you don't drive, how do you do your food shopping. I couldn't carry mine."

Me: "Online. It gets delivered."

WN2: "I prefer to do it myself - you can never be sure what you get."

Me: "Yes, I'd prefer to do it myself too but I don't drive so I have to work around it."

Now they have me cornered. Either I let them believe that I choose not to drive because I'm lazy and haven't bothered to learn or I'm banned because of an offence. I could make up a story about being kind to the environment but I'm not going to lie to help them out with their prejudice. So I tell them that the DVLA wouldn't give me a licence because I have a condition where I have a type of seizure - sometimes.

This somehow satisfies the two women. WN1 tells me the numbers of buses that go near her home and WN2 offers not only a lift home but also invites me to join her on a her next weekly shop.

I think the car thing is quite funny. People will spend hours bemoaning their weight (too much); diet (when they're going to start one). Then they jump in their car to drive a few yards down the road to buy a bunch of something they shouldn't be eating.

People ask me if my medication helps keep my weight off. I don't think so. It's not because we pop pills that the 'epileptic community' tend to stay fairly trim. It could be down to the fact that they're used to walking everywhere. Walking isn't a big deal or a huge exercise programme: it's a way of life.

(I still have seizures but those that haven't had one for a year - with or without medication - can reapply for their licence. Charities like Epilepsy Society have all the details)

Life was rosy - then at 52 he developed epilepsy

Epilepsy is limiting. Many of us get the chance to get our heads round that, if you know what I mean, because our minds start misfiring early in life. But can you imagine if you've been happily motoring along life's journey and suddenly your brain flips a switch at the grand old age of 52. You have to give up your job, your driving licence and adapt your way of life  - because you get 'that thing called epilepsy'!

That happened to Ryan* when out-of-the-blue two years ago, aged 52, he developed a form of epilepsy. He was employed as a security guard and, with the best will in the world, people who have recurrent seizures can't hold onto that kind of job. Of course, he could no longer drive either and because in the UK we have to be seizure-free for one year before the DVLA reissues a licence, he's still not driving.

"I thought my life had come to an end!" he says. "Everything I knew was taken away from me."

That seems a bit dramatic to me (and I've told him so - but, then again, I was a teenager when I was diagnosed so have lived a pretty epi-ful life and had plenty of time to get used to it. Yep, in some ways I've had it easier by having it longer!)

He says: "I kept telling the professor he couldn't be right when he diagnosed 'epilepsy'. I told him I didn't fall on the floor and shake. I didn't believe him - and I didn't want to believe him. I thought my life would be over."

Ryan wanted answers - why had he suddenly developed epilepsy? There had been no accident so no head injury. There was no history of epilepsy in his family. It had descended without warning for seemingly no reason. But doctors had no answers for him. He had to accept that sometimes, it just happens. So what does Ryan (who now realises, by the way, that his life is not over) do when he has a seizure?

"Well, I need to sit, otherwise I lose my balance and sort of stagger around. I get a dreadful headache and tremble - although people can't always see that I'm trembling. Afterwards I feel very, very tired and I just want to sleep for maybe two or three hours."

Apparently some people might even think Ryan was drunk if they saw him during a seizure - and that's fine by him because even two years down the line, he's told very few people about the diagnosis. He would rather people make that assumption than 'come clean'!

It seems it's partly to do with cultural attitudes. Ryan comes from an area of Russia and although he and his sisters came to the UK when they were very young, it sounds like epi-troubles are very much hushed up in their corner of the world and Ryan's keeping true to the tradition. He hasn't told half his family or most of his friends in case they'll reject him. He's only let me tell this story by changing his name to protect his identity.

Shame...because the more of us who try to hide will only be helping to fuel society's fear of disability. Believe me, I understand the temptation. I just refuse to give into it.


*Name has been changed to protect identity.