Growing up, Silindile Mkhwena says healers preyed on her familys scant knowledge of her epilepsy. More than a decade later, she says she is still paying for societys ignorance.
Silindile Mkhwena has been living with epilepsy for more than a decade and says more awareness is needed to combat stigma (File photo)
Now 23 years old, Mkhwena developed epilepsy at about the age of 13. She says her family wasted years and money visiting healers and sangomas who promised to cure her of the condition.
Prior to six years ago when I started treatment, my family wasted time and money taking me to different sangomas, but still no one seemed to cure me as they all promised to do, she tells OurHealth. Because (healers) knew how desperate my family was, (they preyed on) my familys feelings and emotions to make money but not to help.
While the number of people in South Africa living with epilepsy remains uncertain, a 2009 study found that about one in every 143 people surveyed reported having the neurological condition
Epilepsy is a neurological condition that causes recurring seizures. Although epilepsy can start at any age, it most often begins during childhood. While it is not possible to always identify the causes of epilepsy, the condition can be associated with strokes, sever head injuries or tumours.
Growing up, Mkhwena adds that children teased her relentlessly due to her seizures. A lack of general awareness about the condition meant that stigma has followed her from childhood into adulthood, she adds.
Kids called me bad names such as mafa avuke, meaning die, and wake up and these names are still stuck with me even today, she remembers as tears well up in her eyes. People always advise me not to have a child because they say my child will for sure born with epilepsy.
Although genetics can play a part in epilepsy, there is no guarantee that children born to people living with epilepsy will inherit the condition.
Mkhwena says she recently began working at a Nelspruit supermarket. She says her new colleagues have not dealt well with her seizures at work.
Read the rest here:
Stigma haunts those living with epilepsy