My families and friends who know me well and understand my Epilepsy are great supporting me and understand when I forget,

Bear with me. In my family, there is a history of what's called "Sensinoneural Hearing Loss", or "nerve-deafness", and it worsens with age. I can remember, as a kid, just how frustrated I'd get with my parents and grandparents, having to constantly repeat myself, sometimes two or three times... or more, until I'd find myself just yelling at them by default. Then I'd catch hell for disrespect. It wasn't meant as disrespect, it was the result of my inability to see through or deal with the cause of my anger, which was my own extreme frustration. It wasn't their fault, but I was a kid, without much insight into just how frustrated they must have been for living with the hearing loss. I was ignorant, young and stupid, and couldn't see their side of it, because it wasn't happening to ME.

I'm 67 now, and the same hearing loss has been creeping up on me too. Friends, family, and even my wife lose patience with me, just like I did with my parents and grandparents. I'm finding that my issues with epilepsy, memory, fatigue, etc., are bringing on the same reactions I had with my parents and grandparents... extreme frustration. People, adults, have to deal with me, with my hearing loss, with my epilepsy, both being unseen conditions. They don't know what it's like to live with what we live with, because it's not happening to THEM.

I've been on both sides of it, but adults should be willing, capable, and courteous enough to try to understand what I, as a kid, wasn't capable of understanding. It's called "empathy", a trait that's sorely lacking in our world. I can tolerate someone who truly doesn't know what we deal with daily, and I will talk about it, and try to educate them. They usually earnestly want to know. Those who choose to remain willfully ignorant I can't really do much about. I tend to fade out of that circle fairly quickly. Otherwise, I'm headed for that extreme frustration. I have to accept it and move on; I have bigger fish to fry. YES, I'm tired of it, but I try not to stress about it. I deal with it on a person-by-person basis. I've found it to be a really good filter with discovering who really supports me, but I find it discouraging because I see no end to it. It's hard for them to understand, but it's part of our epilepsy picture.

I'm thankful to have found a place where people actually DO understand.

My friends and family try hard to be patient with me but will often say are we going on 50 dates today.
My memory is my biggest problem right now. It’s very hard

Tired of it more than I know how to express. I often it's awful convenient how sometimes you remember sometimes you don't. Like I or anyone with this would fake it 🤪 I've just decided I can't control how to deal with this in others. I am dealing with enough how I feel...
Prayers and understanding Cheryl.

I am fortunate not to have memory issues but I'm with you in thinking friends and family should be more understanding and supportive about everything that goes along with your epilepsy. God Bless you

Robert