What Does an Ecstatic Seizure Feel Like? | Pam Zich on Epilepsy, Memory & Art

Have you ever experienced something through epilepsy that was almost impossible to explain to somebody else? What can a seizure feel like when the experience is not simply frightening, but intensely unusual, powerful or even euphoric? In this Purple Chorus conversation, Guy W. Stoker talks with artist Pam Zich about ecstatic seizures, memory, medication, family, creativity and the complicated reality of living with epilepsy. Pam describes experiencing complex partial and ecstatic seizures, including the extraordinary sensation of feeling connected to everything around her. She also talks about a remarkable 26-year period without seizures while taking Depakote, and what happened when epilepsy later returned to her life. Their conversation explores medication and its effects, pregnancy, driving, memory, emotional adjustment and the importance of being able to ask for and accept support. Art provides another language. Pam creates mixed-media and papier-mâché work that can communicate experiences which may be extremely difficult to express verbally. Among those works is Silenced, a figure whose covered mouth speaks powerfully about communication, restriction and what can remain unexpressed. This is not simply a conversation about seizures. It is about what happens around them, between them and because of them, and about the ways people find to communicate experiences for which ordinary language may not always be enough. Purple Chorus explores epilepsy through music, art, lived experience and conversation. purplechorus.com epilepsy, ecstatic seizures, ecstatic seizure, focal seizures, focal epilepsy, complex partial seizures, living with epilepsy, epilepsy lived experience, Pam Zich, Guy W Stoker, Purple Chorus, epilepsy and art, art and epilepsy, epilepsy memory, epilepsy medication, Depakote, seizure awareness, epilepsy awareness, seizure experience, epilepsy interview, neurological art