Doing Life in Lavender

  Hello again and Happy Purple Day! Today is Epilepsy Awareness Day around the world (in Canada it’s even a national Holiday!) I always love Purple Day as it is a time to celebrate the people living with epilepsy daily and raise awareness for the condition that I’ve been living with for so long.   I’ve never known life without epilepsy but it’s so unknown, and yet it’s the fourth most common neurological condition, affecting between 50-60 million people globally. Because not many people know much about it, and it affects so many people, I like to use Purple Day to try and make some noise!   The past year has been a bit of a bonkers one for me, not because my epilepsy has changed all that much, but because of the way I have seen how much my epilepsy impacts everyday life. I started this blog this year focussing on my experiences living with epilepsy and it has forced me to sit down and reflect on things I’ve never really thought about before. Writing about my journey has...

Hello again! Today I wanted to talk about the importance of community in epilepsy. I've mentioned before that I grew up being the only person I knew with epilepsy. That was a really isolating experience for me growing up but I don't think I realised how isolating it was until I found others going through the same as me.  I have recently been welcomed into an epilepsy group where we can just share experiences, chat, have fun, and for an hour a week I can feel "normal". At least I don't feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. And if I do, it's because I'm me and I'm a little bit bonkers and not because of my epilepsy. I've loved discovering this little community and they've made me feel so welcome. I thought I didn't need to know other people with epilepsy. I didn't need to be part of a community because I had this epilepsy thing down, I'd been doing it for so long. And then I met other people, and I spoke to other people, and it f...