Snowden (who really does, apparently, have epilepsy) helps an epileptic.

[Jamastiene]

125. All of the conditions you mentioned just now are treatable.

Why some people are equating the OP with mental illness and saying that it is an insult to say someone has mental illness, I don't understand.

I support more research too, especially to find treatments that are more finely targeted to the areas of the brain that affect people with various medical conditions without such horrendous side effects that often come with treatments. I hope to see a future where there are better alternatives than removing part of someone's brain or taking a medicine that is hit or miss as far as whether it will work on a particular person or not.

In my case, it took years to find an antidepressant that actually would do any good for my depression. Now that my doctor has found the one that works best for me, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It has helped me live a normal life, treated with the symptoms of my depression. I know many who do not understand that you have to keep trying until they find the right antidepressant (or other medication) that works. It is literally hit or miss because we do not understand any more about the brain than we do. I'd like to see more research to make that less of a burden on people who are already suffering.

I suffered for years because I thought none of the antidepressants m would ever work. There were long spans in between my treatment attempts because I became disillusioned with the whole process and gave up over and over again. The brain chemicals are there in a lot of cases, but they are not working as well as they should. It causes a seemingly endless cycle of doubt and confusion until you find the right medication that will treat it effectively. Research would make it easier to match the right medications to the right people without the trial and error approach that is pure torture for people with mental illness.

I still don't see why two medical conditions are being compared up-thread and one of the medical conditions is considered an "insult" to have. Both are treatable and both are equally valid medical conditions. Seeing comments like that just adds more stigma to people with mental illness. People who are suffering enough already do not need that. I wouldn't wish untreated depression on my worst enemy. Even treated depression is no walk in the park. What people often do not realize is that when they say things like that, they are adding to the stigma and making people who still need help less likely to try to go get that help. They don't want to be seen as "off" or hear that what they are suffering from is considered an insult. Maybe they do not know that many of us with mental illness suffer from physical symptoms as well. In my case, the physical symptoms were way worse than the mental symptoms. I'm guessing the Cymbalta commercials did not sink in for people who do not know about depression, sadly.