Matthew_T
Never consider yourself to be better than someone you have never met.
Again I am speaking from personal experience. Born with & brought up with epilepsy & everything that goes with it. Held back a year from starting school, late start due to education department saying that I wasn't fit to be taught in a "normal school". Often accused of day dreaming whilst at school. These were actually abscence seizures(stand & stare). It took a while for new teachers to realise what was happenning. Worse were the ones where control was lost, I'd often end up having to sit the day out in what was being worn at the time. Plus the snide comments that went along with them.
These tended to scare the sh.t out of some people, pupils, teachers & parents. Pupils sometimes litrally.
Birth mark on one arm that came across the upper back & down the upper half of the the other didn't help. Most didn't know what it was. I said it was scarlet fever, which they probably knew even less about.
Medication taken for it also singled me out at school, as this meant a trip to the headmaster to get it.
Secondary school is where the bullies tried to show their hands & by the end of the first year you'd have been mad to pick a fight with me. Stronger than most of the others & as I always said if I have a fit you're mates are going to have problems getting the arm(s) open. This later proved true. Classed as one that would never work, there was no interview with with a careers advisor like everyone else.
Work wasn't to easy get as I had to be twice as able as the next person to stand a chance of getting the same job. Again medication would play a big part, part of it having to be kept under lock & key in the workplace. Sought & taken when needed. Not too many places willing to do this.
That aside, I don't think I've done that bad. There are still pre-conceived ideas on what can & cannot be done by me. The only thing it has stopped me from doing has been driving. Its forced me to stand up for myself & I'm willing to fight my corner if need be.
The medication taken over the years means that if I go to a dentist, a general anaesthetic cannot be used. So it has to be local, with me paying extra for the doctor to be there. Similar reasons for operations. I've fitted under a general whilst on the operating table forcing what should have been a routine appendix removal into a major operation, involving two teams. My lasting memory of that operation is one of a junior doctor telling me he was "just putting his knee on my throat to stop me throwing up" & wondering why. Only saw him after the operation.
When you leave hospital struggling to breath because it hurts that much. You have managed to bite your throat, literally thrown your gut up to do so. Your whole body is sore, your head hurts in so many places you don' t feel some of them. Your tounge & the inside of your mouth are swollen due to the fact you've chewed them, making eating impossible, breathing hard. Walking awkward. And yet you feel you're one of the lucky ones, because you can leave, you'll have an idea of what it feels like.
Maybe its yourself that has "drawn the short straw" with regards natural selection. There is no way of knowing that, no more than me knowing if its what caused me to be born with epilepsy. There are no records of it in the family, its not something that happenned at birth, during pregnancy(as far as I or the many specialists seen over the the years know).
What you describe above are what everyone has to go through in life. Yet you sit there,typing into a computer that you consider yourself to be a 'higher species' with a higher intelligence. Get off your pedistal and smell what you are shovelling.