Yes, being a devout Christian is the reason she had seizures. Better be atheist so you get healthy!

You, #109, are an idiot. Religion has nothing to do with epilepsy.

Nobody deserves epilepsy? Not even say Adolph Hitler, Ted Bundy, Jeffery Dahmer, Dick Cheney?

Having seizures = atheist? Come on, you need better reasons than that. A "devout" Christian would never go back on his beliefs. You don't seem like you really believed in yourself at all. The "visions" weren't real, but should that determine your religious beliefs? What sense does that make?

Wow OP. From what I can tell your mother was more concerned about this carnival than your wellbeing... Has she at least acknowledged now that your 'holy visions' were actually the sign of potentially serious illness?

The seizures were the only reason I was remotely interested in religion. My mother encouraged me, and I became very involved with the church. People talked to me, accepted me, in church, the only place I could go without being made fun of for being so spaced-out. My logical mind told me that there were things in the Bible that I didn't agree with, and even found repugnant. However, my "visions" came on with such intensity that I became convinced that something terrible would happen if I didn't identify those places in the Bible where mankind had warped God's words for their own selfish purposes. After the seizures stopped, I spent a few months trying to cling to my faith and getting more and more frustrated every time I picked up a Bible. Then I met my fiance, an atheist with implacable reasoning against Christianity. After several months of debating with him, I dismissed my foray into religion as a delusion of temporary insanity and a desperate bid to make friends, and my previous "visions" as anxiety brought on by my parents' divorce.

Proves that we're all very judgmental without the details... I apologize. Marijuana is indeed an inhibitor for epilepsy so your condition didn't worsen during that time. That's a relief, since hopefully you'll have a effective treatment soon and be able to have a seizure-free life from now on. Good luck. :)

OP Move to colorado. You can literally trip on the way into the doctor's office and be like "let me get some weed" and they'll be like, here.

123, you are missing the point. OP never claimed that seizures --> atheist. Seems like OP was an atheist but when she had her seizures she thought she was having religious visions and that experience made her become a Christian because she thought these visions were real. When she discovered that these were not real, via Marijuana, she decided to be an atheist. Drawing your conclusion didn't make sense. It would have made more sense to comment about "Marijuana = atheist" again something she didn't claim at all.

I apologize and retract my earlier statements. FYL and I'm sorry your mother wasn't logical/responsible/educated enough to get you the health care you needed.

Actually there has been studies that correlate epilepsy with fanatic religious belief. So it would make sense that if OP struggled with their faith that preventing said seizures would distance them from religious feelings. Especially since their religious belief was strongly supported by the "visions" caused from such seizures.

the fairground thing would be certainly be another FML... on the plus side, despite being epileptic, at least u know idiocy isn't genetic!

No, they won't. You have no idea what you're talking about. As someone who has their medical marijuana card, I can tell you right now that you have to do FAR more than 'trip' into a doctor's office and ask for a prescription for weed. First of all, you have to go to a specific clinic with a license to prescribe the need for a red card. You have to make an appointment, and then you have to fill out forms and forms and forms, just like at a regular doctor's office. But thats only the application. You have to state why you feel you need your card, with sufficient evidence of a chronic problem that inhibits your daily life. At this point you haven't even seen the doctor. And you could have filled out all that paperwork for nothing, because the receptionist could tell you point blank when she sees your paperwork that you've been denied. I watched it happen to 80% of the people that were in before me. If, by some miracle, your application is accepted, the real fun starts. You wait until the doctor can see you, which, like most doctor's offices, can be around an hour or more. And once you finally see the doctor? You explain your problem, why it is effecting your daily life and activities/ relationships. They will take a look at you, and if they decide your problem is debilitating enough that you need your card, THEN you may put in your application with the state for the issue of your license. Besides the work to get your card, this is something you pay around $100 every year to renew. In fact, i'm up for renewal now. I have watched many friends attempt to get their red card because it's "cool". It isn't. If you have your card, you need it. I danced for 10+ years. Besides pulling my hamstring at the age of ten, I had such severe tendonitis in my right Achilles' tendon that I had to be in a boot for 3 months. Even now it's not right. I can't walk normally, run, do yoga without pain, and dancing ever again is out of the question. So think before you make generalizations. Medical marijuana cards were brought into effect for a reason, because people actually need them. And no, I'm not a pothead. I enjoy smoking when I get off of work, after I cook dinner for myself and my long term girlfriend, after I've fed my cat and done the laundry. Why? Because it makes it less painful to stretch my tendon so I can make it through tomorrow at work on my feet for 8 hours or so. P.s. I work in a high end cafe, and I know that a small portion of my business men and women customers have their red card. It's not something you do for fun.

I hope it gets better for you

You don't even know what it's like to have epilepsy. I'm a devoted Christian and have the same thing. So just don't open ur mouth and make a comment when u don't know what ur talking about.

I'm not trying to tell anyone what to be but I am saying this... Considering the number of religions in the world coupled with the number of times different parts of the Bible have been rewritten to suit various personal agendas over centuries (among other facts) it eludes me to think that people still cite the discrepancies in the Bible as their main reason for disregarding religion altogether, without any or with little further research into other religions. Not saying all atheists do this but many do and I find it silly that people make such weighted decisions (I feel religion is a rather weighted subject) based off of a fact that any educated person can note; the discrepancies in the Bible are hardly negligible. However, Christianity is only one of the dozens of recognized religions in the US.

Don't let them sway you, religion can be so easily explained by diseases and health issues like yours, not to mention psychedelics these 1st century people took unknowingly. As for marijuana curing you, that's amazing, it's a such a eye opener in itself and I'm glad it helps you. Marijuana is medicine, don't listen to these subjective comments, don't hesitate in your beliefs.

129, how is the marijuana not effective? You'd rather her take prescription meds that are almost certain to cause addiction? How many horror stories do you need? Marijuana is not physically addictive, you CAN get addicted just like you can get addicted to coffee and fast food, mentally, not physically. I've smoked marijuana for 6 years and I can stop today if I needed to, will I be grouchy and irritable for a few days? Yes, but I've done it, it's NOTHING compared to stopping smoking cigarets, which is by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Moral of the story? Don't believe everything you're told about marijuana

I've had epilepsy since I was 5. mine use to be petite mal, then got worse. apparently I use to be like a puppet. when my mom lifted my foot up to put my shoes on and get me in the car, my foot stayed up.

um epilepsy meds aren't addictive...

Having seizures? Better smoke weed. Awyis.

you are an idiot who just tries to convince themselves its okay to smoke pot. They aren't addictive but like any medication they come with side effects, especially the stronger one's.

@203: Weed actually increases the number of brain cells a person has. Weed isn't addictive and causes one way less problems than cigarettes. What you're inhaling with weed is natural. Also the lung cancer from weed is lower(if there is any chance) because you don't have to smoke it to get high.

Can I please be the one to let you know you're wrong? Weed does NOT increase brain cells. I have nothing against people smoking weed, I'm actually for the legalization of it simply because theres too many people doing it & not enough room in jail for all of them. but please people stop trying to make it look beneficial. I'm in school for psychology & my psych teacher spent a certain amount of time with other researchers studying the effect that marijuana has on our brain. They took men in their mid 40s who had died but smoked weed on a daily basis & found direct links to dementia. Anything that you inhale is causing some type of damage. Whether its respiratory, cancer or killing brain cells. But don't fool yourself. If it increased brain cells it would have been legal country wide by now. Cigarettes do more immediate damage and has nothing beneficial what so ever. I will never understand why thats legal and weed isn't because yes weed does have medical purposes. However, what you smoke from your dealer is not weed in its natural form. grow your own organic weed if you want to smoke it but trust me, dealers almost always have something in it. My point was: WEED DOESNT INCREASE BRAIN CELLS. (theres actually no way to. its natural to lose them, anything you inhale just increases your speed of loss.)

basically marijuana 1 religion 0 :-)

The bible has been rewritten true, but normally just modernized, if you read the original bible (it's in Greek, but it has the earliest known full version of the New Testament) it matches up with the King James Version and the new international version, almost completely, very little is lost in translation. And the catholic bible has a few extra books that basically try to explain other books. I'm not trying to convert anyone, but do not comment on a subject you don't know much about.

@211~ That is totally wrong, and there are many studies that report the exact opposite.

Whether or not marijuana increases the growth of brain cells or doesn't is irrelevant. The only reason it's not legalized is because the Government is greedy. It's been proven in many cases to cure several types of cancer. Just look up all the success stories on YouTube! Why cure something like cancer completely, with no side effects? They would lose tons of money. No one would have to renew their prescription and get sicker and sicker. Where's the money in that?

It does many things but it doesn't cure cancer of any type

You can't say it doesn't till you actually LOOK IT UP. I only know because my gram was very sick and we all thought she had some type of cancer. Thankfully she did not. But because of that I found all the success stories on YouTube. Seriously people. You're on FML. You probably have some time on your hands. YouTube / Google it and see that I'm not lying or misinformed.

Hiya, just thought I'd mention this, my partner had 3 major seizures during our early dating days and was put on Tegretol, an anti seizure med. Over the next 10 months, he found it was causing the seizures in his sleep (he had no memory of them, I was the one that ended up helping him during these seizures (whilst pregnant too!)), and that once he decided to wean himself off them (against Drs. orders I might add) he found there was a bit of an addiction and dependency to the meds Caused by the meds. He also found that once he came off the meds entirely that ALL of his seizures stopped. Just something to think about. P.s. We're from NZ so stuff is a wee bit different here.

You never know if you were given that condition by God so that you could be different and see things others couldn't. So just don't dismiss it as nothing, because you don't know everything.

Why would god give somebody a debilitating disorder? Doesn't that kind of make him an asshole?

Even if he was in asshole, I wouldn't wanna mess with a guy who could kill me on the spot or give me seizures.

Seriously you say your were a devote Christian but you had one experience without visions and lost all faith this is why people don't like all the false Christians who say they know God but are fake of a hypocrite. I don't the op but from what I read pretty fake of a Christian

I'm curious... What exactly makes somebody a devout Christian? Assuming devout is the word you meant to type. Because it sounds like you're implying that being open minded and looking at things from a different perspective somehow makes you "fake". Perhaps I'm just reading it wrong, but that's the impression I got from it. The thing is, you should look at everything with scrutiny, especially religion. If you blindly follow anything, especially something that you get all your morals from, then that is not a good thing. Now, don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with being religious. But I just don't quite understand the act of calling everybody a "fake" when they don't blindly follow something. It's as if you're encouraging people to be followers with closed eyes and closed ears.

OP, I wouldn't claim that your time as a Christian was due to a "delusion of temporary insanity". It's not that nice, and not really fair. Maybe you don't believe you needed to be a Christian and that you became one because of these seizures. That's what I gather from this. But I am a Christian and I am not insane. It's fine that you are an atheist and that you are better now. I'm happy for you. But all I ask is that you don't call Christians insane for being Christians, and if you did not mean that, I apologize. I simply took your response to mean that. There are some of us Christians that are quite accepting and tolerating. Sadly, there are many who are not, and that is sad. But I'm happy to say I am accepting of all people, whether it be gender, sexuality, race, lifestyle, or any other factor.

That's all well and good but Colorado is recreational now, you don't need a card there. Anyone, of age, can go to a shop and procure their goods. Many of us with cards didn't go through the process you did. It depends on your state, your area and your doctor. Some doctors are very open about giving out cards others are wholly against them, with the rest somewhere in between. In California, any claimed pain or sleeplessness is all you need and a staff doctor at a shop will fill your card on the spot. So your experience is different from many. Mostly though, you don't need a doctor in Colorado, so it's moot anyway.

Marajauna makes you atheist too?! Truly it must be the greatest substance ever consumed by man! 420 PRAISE IT!

Neither did they, apparently xD

OP was 15 and their mother had her head in the sand. She sounds a lot like some mothers (ones that believe because they've given birth they know EVERYTHING), in that she would rather try to find a reason to NOT get her child examined when it was pretty clear that she should have.

You don't have to be religious but I will never understand why most atheists get so offended from religion that doesn't effect them in any way. Maybe its because religion gives someone moral boundaries to live by? Maybe you've passed off religion to try and justify your own life style. Religion would interfere with how you like to live. Thats why theres religious freedom. so everyone can believe what they please and stop arguing about who's right.