https://www.facebook.com/PurpleDayforEpilepsy/posts/10155872238883505?__tn__=K-R

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PURPLE DAY for EPILEPSY

31 August at 03:43 

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Hi everyone,

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I want to make this post so we can all acknowledge the movie After Party, and the effects it can and is having on people.

I recently watched the trailer for this movie, and was so upset by what I seen.

During the trailer alone, it shows a young rapper having a seizure. but instead of showing the proper steps of what to do, in the movie it showed his friends and the audience video taping the seizure and laughing at him, after that event, the video went 'viral' throughout the movie and people started filming themselves doing 'the seizure boy dance' as well as calling the rapper 'seizure boy' and mocking him.

This makes me so sad and so worried.
After years on years of everyone's powerful efforts and hard work to help raise epilepsy awareness and education for us to feel safe and comfortable talking about epilepsy, a movie like this can cause doubt with some people, and that sets all our hard work back steps. 
It can make some of us feel unsure and afraid to talk about our epilepsy, and sadly it can even have some people think it is ok to make fun of epilepsy and people who have it, when its nowhere near okay to do that, what happens in the movie to the rapper is bullying, it is horrible, it is so wrong and it is not ok.

Epilepsy is not a joke, seizures are not a joke. I and many others around the world live with epilepsy everyday, we live with the shadow of not knowing when or where our next seizure will be and we live with knowing that sometimes people die from their epilepsy, it is called SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy) Sometimes we lose friends, jobs and opportunities because of the stigma with epilepsy.
Doesn't sound too funny does it.

Many times over the years we have all witnessed the media portray seizures and epilepsy in the wrong and negative way. With education and awareness we CAN.... NO we WILL change this and help change the way society sees epilepsy so that when an actor, director, producer, host and so on sees something like this in the script, something so wrong, so misleading and so hurtful they will be aware, they will be educated and they will stand up for everyone effected by epilepsy and say no, that's not cool, no that's not right and make a change.

This is another time when we all have to come together, to take a stand, and encourage people to continue to speak out, and that we don't need to be afraid to speak about our Epilepsy and how it effects us. We need to come together and keep sharing our stories so that those who are afraid, those who feel alone, will know that they are not alone and that we are all in this together.

Keep sharing, keep telling your stories, keep saying no to the stigma and keep up the great work everyone, I am so proud of all of you.

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Love,
Cassidy Megan 💜🙂
Founder of Purple Day