Depression and Epilepsy

Depression and epilepsy may be separate or together.
Researchers peer about for a link.

Post-ictal: a phase to follow a seizure ~ an altered state of consciousness lasting a few minutes or much longer ~ for me, up to a day and into the next.

Besides confusion:

Incredibly sad and wildly erratic emotions

Exhibited outwardly?

Definitely occurring inwardly.

The following poem was written many years from my last seizure.

Consistent with my feelings following seizures, I wonder ~  

Do I share such feelings with others?

Reality Check

I have crept up to the edge.

Many years of comfortable struggle,

world looking ordered and right,

listening to words

harmonious, pleasing to the ear.

Looking past facades,

I see willing individuals racing from micro-systems of homes

Entering society’s churning, frightening macro systems.

Hearing past the Musak

Words and actions out of sync

Awareness of this reality frightens me

Constrictions

Regulations

Responsibilities!!

Rose–coloured glasses slip and fall off.

Images ~ blurry, yet very real,

I feel

paralyzed 

afraid to move

right or left

forward or back

Still afraid of other’s reactions to and around me.

I want to express myself differently than the ‘system’ will allow me.

How do I do that and feel safe?

How do I do that and be effective in and believe in 

my own life?

How do I do that and be effective in and believe in

the lives of others?

I stand still slowly, looking in all directions,

try to move slowly.

Cautiously estimating my next action.

My patience with the slowness of ‘the process’ wearing thin.

Seeing that I am here

all else is out there, over there

untouched by me until

I feel courageous enough to 

touch

decide

act

move forward

No longer living at the base of a storm where all is chaos and destruction

Now in the Eye where all is calm

movement no longer dependent on the chaos of others.

New time to think before acting

Movement in sync with a Higher System.

Susan Ward

Nov.2006

"The soul would have no rainbow 

had the eyes no tears." 

 ~ John Vance Cheney