By seizure_girl - 15/08/2013 13:32 - United States - Pierre
seizure_girl tells us more.
Hi there. OP here. Temporal lobe epilepsy involves some pretty freakish seizures that are actually interpreted as religious visions by many. They're a very intense spiritual experience. I was fifteen years old, and spent the next three years as a devout Christian, my own logic at war with my profound sense of purpose. Then I turned 18 and discovered marijuana. Lo and behold, the "visions" disappeared, and I was an atheist again. I made the connection between the drug and the cessation of my fits when I stopped taking it and they came back. Epilepsy never occurred to me until recently, the first time I collapsed into a grand mal seizure in public. I picked myself up off the ground in confusion to meet a lot of stares, and a woman nearby informed me I'd had a seizure. The "aura" that I'd gotten just before blacking out and convulsing was the same as the onset of my previous "visions", the first real clue I'd ever gotten. And yes, my mother is an idiot. When I said that I'd had a seizure while she'd been across the fairgrounds, she accused me of being drunk and said she was disappointed in me for ruining our fun evening at the carnival.
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Holy visions? Really!?
The great Jesus and god was trying to tell him what he had c;
Its amazing how many things that are unknown to people are attributed to religion. Religion is mind control for the weak.
Please explain how it's mind control? We CHOOSE to believe. It's not like we have a giant black and white spiral in the back. Plus, 6/7 of the world is religious. Totally mind control.
Personally life is way too screwed up for me to believe in religion. If there is a form of higher being (god or otherwise depending on the religion) then they REALLY messed up. Plus most wars and conflict is started with religion. People claim to be peaceful and 'at one' with their god of choice, but if someone else believes different.... Uh oh. Yes I know not every religious person is the same. But generally that is the case.
It isn't quite mind-control. It's more brain-washing than anything.
This
@38, Personally, I am religious. That doesn't necessarily mean I believe everything I hear when I go to church. Honestly, I am probably the most liberal Catholic you'll ever meet. I believe in pro choice, I believe in equal rights for everyone to marry who they love and I am always accepting of other's beliefs, or in some cases, lack of beliefs. But I love my religion and I like to believe God is a forgiving and loving being. I don't claim to know what is right or to even know if God truly exists. However, I do have Faith and I would much rather live my life with something to believe than not having anything. The way I see it, I'm not brainwashed by any means.
Religion is a tool to control the masses from our history and no longer has a place in first world society. It was necessary to prevent masses uprising and to keep to their work in the past but for a longtime now it has just been a hindrance to our races advanent.
Well if you look into the Christain Faith, you can notice that alot of it is about bettering yourself and leading a joyful life. It's full of forgiviness and understanding of the fact that humans aren't perfect. People leave for years. Its really not brainwashing or mind control if you think about it.
Holy Shit!!
How is 56 getting thumbed up? They said that you cannot choose to "subscribe" to a belief. Since when can you not choose to believe? And then to say that majority belief= truth? Well I guess the world really was flat until the majority decided it wasn't. Must have been wild when the world morphed into a sphere.
#105, yes, but it also discriminates.
Let's stop pointing out our views on religion because sooner or later an argument may start and someone will get really offended.
It really bothers me that when the religion debate comes up, it gets blamed for all the worlds problems. Religion does not and has not started wars, people do. It is the win of the people. Everyone is a winner, no matter what someone else says. All religious people are winners, we make mistakes. But to say religion is brainwashing, is actually win telling you that to brainwash you. It saddens me to see how many people are so blind and don't want to see. I am sure it's the same sadness you may feel for me to have faith.
141- I speak only Catholic doctrine, not as Christians as a whole, but we aren't really judgmental. Just because we may not agree with homosexual relations and marriage doesn't mean homosexuals are bad. Just because sinning is bad doesn't mean God loves you any less. Also, side note, I have personally CHOSEN the Catholic life. I know it's doctrine and dogma, and study the Bible. And I do this with faith, not with evidence. Just because you can't study something scientifically mean that it isn't real. And since I'm an extreme history nut, we've known that the world is round since around 325 years before Christ was even born. Columbus is a joke, really. The Vikings discovered the Americas around 500 years before him. :)
325 years before Christ was born? Correct me if I'm wrong but I was under the impression that the events of the Old Testament spanned longer than that?
@155. They were saying we knew that in 365BC the world was round, not flat. Not saying I agree with that though.
So while everyone sits and argues over religion.. I hope OP is okay. My friend has dealt with the same thing his whole life (although they knew he had it.) I hope now that since you know, things for you will get much better. (:
140, I have honestly never seen "!=" before and assumed it to be a typo, so my apologies about that. But I still hold that you can choose to believe. If you want something bad enough you can make yourself believe it. When you read the bible, you have to decide whether or not you believe what you are reading as fact. You have to choose. Just like you can have a mountain of evidence against a religion and choose to ignore it and therefore choose to believe. If you hear a debate, you choose which one sound most logical or emotional or whatever and then you believe their argument. It's a choice even if your subconscious is making the decision or you actively decide to CHOOSE.
to be fair the poster was probably pretty young at the time and had his mother as a strong influence
I agree with #54, religion gives other hope for something better, and for others something worse in their life after death.
wow
exactly
Yeah, I think the "holy visions" are as the parents who thought their child was possessed when he was actually suffering from seizures.
Are as valid* Dunno how I didn't notice that.
Whoops! Religion strikes again!
Was working in the er one day and 3 black ladies came in with their 68 year old sister suffering from a septic infection causing her to be crazy, and literally look like the girl in the exorcist. The first thing they said was that she needed an exorcism.
I had several simple partial seizures per week (sometimes up to five or six per day), and one or two complex partial seizures a month. No one really talked to me, so no one ever figured anything was actually wrong. Everyone in school, including my teachers, thought I was just a frequently spaced-out chick who was probably a little nuts.
That's really crazy OP. I hope not much damage has been done. Did nothing ever happen to you when you saw strobe lights, etc?
im so sorry does it affect your walking? it does my bffs bro he can baraly talk and is super hard to take care of. its quite challanging. good luck
Sorry to hear OP. you can join the rest of the world knowing you don't get those atleast
Those symptoms don't sound very pleasant, why would they be holy visions? Sorry, OP. I hope you can get the help you need for this.
The only way I could see how OP would have thought these were 'holy visions' is that the first time these fits started was in a church. Considering OP's mother is likely fanatically religious, OP probably spent a lot of her childhood or adolescence in church/religious settings, so this theory could prove plausible. Still, I'm sorry that you went in diagnosed for so long, if these fits were even kind of frequent, I think OP's mom should have figured out something of a biomedical nature was also going on.
That's actually another symptom though. Delusions of grandeur - they just feel 'different'. Her brain was distorted, can't put too much blame there for her believing it. The mom on the other hand...
Yes, the ignorance of some people believing their potentially fatal medical condition is actually a series of recurring "holy visions."
I'm not sure if you were trying to be sarcastic and failed, or if you're just explaining what didn't need to be explained...
This entire family should be sterilized to quarantine their genes.
I was trying to emphasize that "ignorance" is a severe understatement, lol.
And she never got you to interpret them?
You thought you were the next Buddha.
Don't go watch the all of the lights video now I guess!
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Holy visions? Really!?
Yeah, I think the "holy visions" are as the parents who thought their child was possessed when he was actually suffering from seizures.