![]() I used to hallucinate, which is common as well with narcolepsy. Like you can’t possibly stay awake, no matter how hard you try. It’s more like overwhelmingly bad jet lag. It’s more of an anticipation type thing, like when I want to say something I think is really funny, or if I’m talking with a friend and we get into a loop where we keep making each other laugh over and over again. Watching a funny TV show doesn’t affect me. My main trigger is laughter, but only certain kinds. Stuff like laughter or intense anger often triggers the paralysis because your brain interprets those intense emotions as dreams. During REM, your brain paralyses your body so you can’t physically act out your dream, but if you have cataplexy, your brain paralyzes you when you’re still awake. In a normal sleep cycle, there’s a stage called REM sleep, which is when you dream. I also have cataplexy, another typical symptom of narcolepsy. instantly falling asleep, face-first into a bowl of soup or something). ![]() It’s different from how people imagine it, though (i.e. I grieved the loss of the life I imagined for myself, the things I wanted to achieve.Įxtreme daytime sleepiness was one of the first symptoms I experienced. There was a bit of a grief element to accepting it. When I was diagnosed, I was relieved all these things weren’t actually my fault, but it was also a big thing to wrap my head around. I was sleeping much longer at night than any of my friends, but I still couldn’t stay awake during the day. It felt validating to a certain extent, because for years and years I thought I just wasn’t doing life right. ![]() I had mixed feelings when I got the diagnosis. ![]() The symptoms had been escalating for a few years, but at that point I was falling asleep in class and in the middle of exams, so I started thinking, “Okay, maybe this isn’t normal.” I was diagnosed with narcolepsy when I was 17, during my final year of high school. That reader turned out to be Eleanor Wales, a 26-year-old Aussie graphic designer who agreed to speak with me about her experience living with an incurable sleep disorder. Earlier this month, I wrote a story about the recent uptick in extra-long Instagram captions, and a Man Repeller reader commented that she uses them to share her feelings and connect with other people who have narcolepsy. ![]()
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