For many, many years after I was initially diagnosed with epilepsy, I found it difficult to speak with people I didn’t know. I believe that the reason that I was so quiet was because of the fact that I have epilepsy and feared that, should I seize while I was talking with someone, they might see me as a freak.

Now living with my dear wife, Ann and our theatrically talented (and passionate) 14-year old son, I have been able to find a lot of positive reasons to continue living with my chin up.

Even so, I recently found a nice online site called Epilepsy ChitChat that let me speak with others who are dealing with issues similar to mine. Ages  and degrees of disability caused by their own fights with seizing varied but nearly every single person whose posts I’ve read had a similar goal: continue to live as full a life as possible despite having epilepsy.

It has been only a few days since I sent out my introductory message but since then, many people have also introduced themselves, letting fellow readers know that they have epilepsy, how it has or does effect them or family members and what their overall attitudes towards life have been since their initial diagnosis.

A woman named Anne talked about her young granddaughter who was set to have her first EEG(electroencephalogram) and of how she was getting a little nervous about it. Others, like Martie expressed excitement and relief because her 16-year old child is going on 16 months being seizure-free and of how relieved she is to see such significant process.

Another lady named Stephanie wrote about her frustration with having to take so pills twice each day.  It was clear Stephanie wasn’t too happy about taking pills, but she was smart enough to realize how much worse things might be for her if she didn’t have  those meds at all.

There have been all kinds of people on this site and most everyone has felt comfortable talking with others who are living in one way or another to make sure epilepsy doesn’t totally ruin their respective lives. At the same time, it is a fight in which one needs plenty of strength, internal strength in order to keep positive outlooks on our respectful lives and our ability to do the best we can with whatever other challenges we each face in our respectful lives.