There are indeed, beautiful epilepsies as I once heard someone say. There are epilepsies that cause transcendent moments of religious ecstasy, which is hwy so many religious leaders and historical figures were epileptic. Epileptics are naturally drawn to religion, thus my viewing of The Passion of the Christ three times and still finding it interesting on the third viewing. Off of my medication, I am capable of writing an article a day and a good one at that. I am capable of greater output, smarter thoughts, I think. There is something sharper about me off of my medication, something more interesting and intense about me, though good friends have told me for as much as this may be true, I am also more difficult, moody, mercurial, and depressive, among other things. In short, I am a huge pain in the ass and grossly inappropriate at times because that is in part who I am, but that said, I am also capable of great things that I would otherwise be incapable of. Van Gogh believed he could not paint without his seizures. That the two were intricately entwined. Likewise, other epileptics and others with considerable illness have felt the same way. John Nash would never have won the Nobel Prize if he had stayed compliant for his schizophrenia, and though a different disease of different origin, the same rules apply. Ask yourself whether or not Kurt Cobain would have done all he did if he had been complaint with his meds for bipolar disease? I doubt it, and to read some of what he wrote, so did he, for not only did the drugs make him sick, they made it virtually impossible for him to work. The author Kay Redfield Jamison has written similar things. If we add up the greatness in the world and then add medication to it, if we soothe and quell it, ask yourself, would we have the greatness in the first place? Would it have that thing that makes it what it is? I doubt it, though I will not argue here for noncompliance for this very thing almost killed me, and then what greatnesses are we capable of then, when we're dead and buried in our graves and walking the earth like hungry ghosts - ? Nada, rien. So Take your medicine, kiddiewinks.

I have to remember that for all of the positives I try to see in my condition, which is a good attitude, I must be realistic about the negatives. I must see that I hurt those I love the most when I am off of this medication, not because of some awful social stigma that says I'm "mad" or "stupid" or "insane." If anything, epilepsy has along association with higher intelligence and greater artistic output as noted. What I cannot do is allow some outdated and prejudicial notions that others have about epilepsy made a difference in whether or not I take my medication. The ignorance of others should never lead to my own harm or even demise, and we'd all do well to remember this, for in the end, it's what we think that counts the most.