Epilepsy is one of the top misunderstood brain diseases in India. For women, the non-medical aspects of the disease can be more overwhelming than the medical side. Still, a lot of them continue to receive the treatment that lowers their confidence, relationships, and opportunities despite the better awareness of the disease. Grasping the hurdle would come to be the next stair to breakthrough the stigma.

Stigma Impact in Common Life

In most cases, female stigma related to epilepsy goes back to the period before one understands the diagnosis thoroughly. Misunderstandings are very much a part of the concept of epilepsy, chiefly where people explain this disease due to their superstitions and in such cases where seizures come from the supernatural. Consequently, women diagnose themselves in silence not telling even their closest ones thereby they also get support and reassurance from no one. Keeping secrets can exhaust them mentally and may feel alone even in a familiar environment.

Women with epilepsy in work environments are not at ease with opening up about their condition as they are scared of discrimination or of being called ‘unreliable.’ This situation, where you have to constantly pretend that you are not affected by your seizures or the side effects of the drug you take, brings on a double burden that of handling a chronic disease plus societal pressure.

Stigma at the Table: Marriage, and Family

The subject of marriage perhaps, among others, is the most difficult area where the stigma of the females with epilepsy is strongest. The anxiety of the families on how such a disclosure will affect a proposal is quoted to be the root of the problem by many people. Few girls are hence, compelled to conceal their epileptic condition from their families and close friends, and this, as you can guess, leads to dramatic emotional turmoil. Among popular false ideas of the illness that are inherited, unhealable, and psychologically-related make great influence on female’s judgments regarding their marriage and motherhood.

Also, in wedlock, a woman may be subjected or pushed into making decisions or understandings. Certain husbands as well as in-laws could see the seizures as behavioural trickery or might guess parenting in a less safe environment. These deterrent concepts not only lower the women’s confidence but also cause problems in the relationships and make their support lack.

The Inconvenient Emotional Side and Mental Health

Identifying with epilepsy means perpetual confronting with the condition’s variable nature—still not fully grasping when an attack may happen. When the arising doubt goes hand in hand with society’s unfavourable opinion, pertain mainly to female gender, it can entail thus outrageous levels of anxiety, stress, and even depression. To be despised or misunderstood are worries that hinder asking for medical aid or emotional support in a timely manner.

Furthermore, it puts the mental cap of medication side effects, lifestyle changes, and even scheduled check-ups. Without a secure one, even minor incidents may seem like a total overwhelm.

Breaking the Stigma Walls, Raising the Awareness

Educating oneself among the best ways to counter stigma goes for epilepsy as well. The disease is a neurological trouble, not a behavioural flaw or a defect of one’s character. Having a good diagnosis and following the doctor’s orders, majority of the women can be leading a life that’s fulfilling, free, and independent, like any other normal woman. An old wives’ tale that it is ‘laboratory-controlled,’ ‘not to be cured,’ or ‘to lack in vitality and spirit’ should turn into the true concepts and sympathy with time.

Relations, work masters, and societies shall be more than willing to learn how a fit looks like, response properly, and assist those living with the medical condition in question respectfully without judging or overprotecting them.

Awareness is the Key to the Power of Women

An important feature that can help eradicate the stigma from epilepsy is to give such ladies the boldness to let people know their experiences. Services for support, therapy and undertaking the campaigns will surely help the women to feel less isolated and more powerful. Raising open dialogues, supplying accurate info from a medical point of view and advocating for the right to exist in workplaces and families will indirectly contribute to this problem’s solution.

Any woman with epilepsy should be given respect, understanding and freedom to live her life as she wants without society putting up barriers against her. Through awareness and the spirit of giving, we can play a part in making the medical condition what it is nothing more, nothing less; to be thus not a barrier to a woman’s capabilities or her place in the ‌world.

(The writer is a lead consultant - Neurology, Aster CMI Hospital, Bangalore)