I have it and have had it since birth, it is a disability despite what some people think, I regularly work with the NSE on developing the understanding of epilepsy i.e. its triggers and warning signs to full diagnosis and AEDs. Not a lot of people understand what epilepsy is and will invariably get the wrong idea about this illness. Epilepsy is a symptom and not a disease - it is a symptom of something else connected with the brain like brain damage or wests syndrome. Most of epileptic activity occurs in the hippocampus part of the brain and often enough epilepsy can disappear as mysteriously as it arrived. Not all forms of epilepsy has to be treated by surgery intervention and it is certainly not a cause of mental illness or of being backward (sorry if that's not CP) and it doesn't mean that your life is over if you are diagnosed with this. People with Epilepsy still live full and busy lives!