So I haven’t posted in a while but I was wondering is anyone else up set how sick people are portrayed in movies and tv shows is completely inaccurate. I recently rewatched a show on Netflix called Alexa and Katie. On the show Alexa has cancer and starts high school. At first only Katie knows she has cancer but soon the whole school knows. They give her presents and everyone is so nice to her. There is even an episode where she is in the hospital and everyone is nice and checking up on her. In… read more
I've seen movies and shows try to portray epileptics accurate as well and it irritates me, most of the time yet, others make me laugh cause they are awful. And people truly have zero knowledge about how to help people having a seizure.
@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member, you are correct. The way things are presented on TV shows and in the movies are not real. The same exists in most advertising.
However, decent helpful individuals do exist in this world. After the skull fracture and brain damage took place, I did not know myself. The specialist handling me in the SCV, ask my mother to contact the others in my office at Penn State. They were kind and drove the 1.5-2 hours to visit. Upon seeing them, reality became understandable.
Medical professionals had a harder time recognizing the fact, I was still having speech and seizure problems. It took 8 years to diagnose the seizures. Friends and relatives could comprehend what I was saying even though cat would come out, when talking about a dog.
My older brother, (deceased), was able to tell me, when I was about to have a seizure. He also explained my seizures to customers in our recycling business. Yes, some would not come back. Others were very open about it and problems they experienced.
Decent individuals exist, but do not expect it, from politicians, some religious organizations, TV shows, movies, dramas on stage or in books, video games, writings like the National Enquirer, etc. Being the 4th of 6 children to the 10th of 14, with 7 sons, 2 daughters, and 25 grandchildren, my family has been of solid support in life. Unfortunately, my wife, Sandi's (deceased) family, provided comprehension of what some present about their families and some people wish to believe all the dishonesty presented opposed to fact.
If you've made it this far through my rambling, I thank you and may God be with you and yours.
TV and movies are about the dramatic effect so all seizures are the grand mal seizures on there. Like the writers for tv and movies, the media, for the most part, do not do the research necessary to understand epilepsy any more than any other simple medical conditions or ones that happen to a professional athlete. Media loves whatever will sell newspapers and attract viewers to their news shows. It is also why a positive story (unless it is a championship won by a team from the state) does not appear in the first 18 minutes of a typical news program. People are attracted to violence, tragedy, etc. so the media delivers.
@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member, yes, in many ways religious organizations are wound up in their history of rites and ceremonies. Even the Religious Society of Friends, who worship together in silence, shunned Ezra Cornell, a founder of Cornell University, for marriage to a non-Quaker.
Even today's Quaker Universalist Fellowship, who welcomes all world views, even atheists, runs into problems with some individuals, who refuse to follow the base for accepting alternate views, like Ezra Cornell's marriage over 150 years ago.
Some religious groups may never be willing to accept us, even as time changes believed reality. However, some support others, not even members of their own congregation.
Sandi, Matthew, (our son) and I, for one year, lived in a small borough in PA. We occasionally visited a nearby church by the post office. The basis for her death, an AVM in her brain, had impaired use of her left side of the body. So, her handicap was more visible than my left arm and seizures. Upon her death, the congregation was very supportive, but we lived in a nearby township.
While unemployed, their Rev and Mrs McDormand asked me to do work needed (not the Church) in their house and garage with a contribution to us for the work done. (I definitely had seizures, while doing the work.)
This took place before one of their daughters, Frances M. McDormand, won an Academy Award for performance in "Fargo" movie.
Many different people, congregations, and organizations exist in this world. What you've experienced is very different from mine in many different churches and religious seminaries and universities.
Please enjoy life to the best of your ability.
@A MyEpilepsyTeam Member I did a study to prove how religious organizations don’t accommodate to the most common disabilities. And I even asked them how much knowledge they had on the subject. The results were horrible at best. My friends made read them the answers because they thought the responses I got were so bad that they were funny. And they were funny. The worst/funniest answer I got was for epilepsy were a guy literally said that that’s bright lights. And nothing else. And honestly I’ve never seen a religious organization actually accommodate, but I have seen a lot of discrimination. They say your lazy and rude and tell you they don’t want you to live. They say your welcome but their actions speak differently and actions speak louder than words. I have since (a few years ago) become an atheist and I feel better mentally and physically but the fear that I’m going to get yelled and screamed at or kicked for seizing is still there every time I have a seizure. I look around hoping no one saw me only to realize I’m the only one in there. I guess after having to put up with that for 2 decades it still hasn’t worn off.