Doing Life in Lavender

Hello again wonderful people! Today I wanted to talk about independence which is something I’ve talked about before. This time though, it will be the sole focus of my ramble. The feeling of not being as independent as I would like to be is something I have struggled with continuously as I have grown up, and as I get older it has only gotten worse. Any young child is pretty much totally dependent on grown-ups to help them through life, whether they have epilepsy or not. This meant that when I was little, I really didn’t notice too much difference between myself and my peers. There was little difference apart from me being the only kid in my swimming class to need 1:1 supervision in the water. As a child I lacked independence anyway, so my epilepsy didn’t change much. This was helped along by the fact that my parents were determined for me to have as “normal” a life as possible. Things only started getting more complicated as I got older and I started sticking out like a sore thumb. Wh...

 Hello again wonderful people! Today, with it being the beginning of September and schools going back, I thought I’d share some of my experience of epilepsy at school. I tended to be quite a quiet and awkward child at school, but that was just my personality. I was only loud and a little bit crazy with people I was completely comfortable around. That tended to mean I had fewer but closer friends at school. I was a bit of a nerd. I loved books. I was always reading and genuinely loved learning (if geography wasn’t involved!). I was also unashamedly a teacher’s pet. However, I was also not very good at standing up for myself, which ended up with me being bullied a bit. The group of friends that I did have made being bullied so much easier. I didn’t really care if at lunch I could go and hang out in our tiny corner of the school. I also had a motto that got me through any kind of bullying whether related to my epilepsy or not. I think it was my mum who first said to me that no one’s...

Hi again! The support from my last two blogs was overwhelming and I just wanted to say a massive thank you to everyone who took the time to read them! Today I wanted to talk about my personal experience dealing with misconceptions and myths surrounding epilepsy. However, if anyone would be interested in a blog where I actually go through some commonly held misconceptions and myths, tell me in comments or drop me a message and I’ll try my hand at myth busting blog style in the future. There will always be people who make assumptions about epilepsy, and think they know everything they need to know. I know this isn’t everyone, but unfortunately it happens a lot. Thankfully most people are willing to listen.   I am so grateful for my Primary school who listened and worked with me and my family and never showed any kind of preconception when I arrived. The kids were great and just got used to me seizing in the playground, in class, and sometimes (embarrassingly) in assembly. Th...