Why I Speak Up About Living with Epilepsy - TEDTalk (Sitawa Wafula)
Sitawa Wafula is a woman who has been diagnosed with epilepsy. During her TED Talk, she opens up about how during her senior year of high school, she had her very first seizure. After this occurrence she started having seizures multiple times a day and was soon diagnosed with epilepsy. She tried to continue with life as normal, and attempted to work around her seizures. She struggled through school and keeping a job, but has overtime been able to go from having 2-3 seizures a day to only having them 2-3 times a year. Her biggest point from her talk was that people are often afraid of what they do not understand. People would see her disability which made them afraid to come in contact with her, making her feel like an outcast to society. She is doing what she was always told that she could not with epilepsy - she travels often and lives independently. She emphasized that even though people have hardships, this does not mean that they cannot live a full life. We just need to work to eliminate stigma and not exclude people for what we may not understand.
I chose to watch this TED Talk, as I had a close friend in college who had epilepsy. While he did not often have seizures, he occasionally would have them and they would impact his life greatly. They would disrupt his school and work life, and he would have to spend long periods of time in the hospital. I wanted to know more about epilepsy and hear what it is like to have it so that I could have a better understanding. Sitawa Wafula's speech was incredibly inspiring, pushing people to overcome, even when the world seems to be against you. People are not their diagnoses, they are so much more than that. But Wafula's disorder inspires her to travel around the world, giving speeches to inspire others that they are who they are in spite of what they may be going through. I cannot imagine what it would be like to have seizures multiple times a day, and I am grateful to have gotten to hear Wafula's story about her experience.
If you are interested in watching this talk, (which you totally should, it is awesome!) then here is the link:
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