Narcolepsy

[livingwith]

I am a 24 year old who has been suffering from narcolepsy for 13 years. I was considered a bright child in elementary school, taking advanced classes and earning nearly perfect grades without effort. On the last day of 7th grade, I fell asleep in geography class. I remember it very clearly. It was bizarre and completely unexpected….. and it continued to happen.
Through the next 2-3 years of high school, I became more & more tired. My grades started falling. My social life failed misera...Read the full article

[sleepy beauty]

I am really sorry you didn"t get the support you needed when all this started. My story started much like yours. When I was 11 I started falling asleep all the time. I also was an exception student who always made honor roll, in all AP classes, and into extra activities like Student Gov't, soccer, tennis, ect... Well, my parents started getting very worried about me because I was falling asleep in all my classes every single day. They took me to numerous specialists and was tested on for 2 years. I was called lazy, crazy, i was faking it for attention, you name it and I was probably called it. One doctor even told my parents that I was probably raped and this was how my body and mind was dealing with it. They knew this was BS, and they were very determined to find what was wrong with me, reguardless of the cost. It was my Pediatrician who thought he knew what I had. He had a collegue with Narcolepsy and I had all the symtoms, so he sent me to a Neurologist. Now this was 23 years ago and there wasn't much known about Narcolepsy then. My doctor had never even had a patient with Narcolepsy before. So, he sent me off to the Children's Hospital in Miami, FL(at that time there were only 3 accredited sleep centers in the US). Sure enough I was diagnosed with a severe case of Narcolepsy and Cataplexy. He put me on meds right away, and I have had a relatively active life. I graduated from high school with honors, community college with honors, and graduated from Florida State University with honors(in only 4 years).I'm not going to say it was easy, because I did have to work for it. And I'm not going to say I have a normal life, to be honest withyou, I don"t even know what normal is supposed to feel like anymore. I've had Narcolepsy for more than half of my life. And will have it for the rest of my life. I have come to terms with this, and I am OK with it now. I have been a manager for the same company for 12 years now, and in a wonderful relationship with my spouse for 11 years. I have decided to not have any children because I don't think I could handle it. No big deal, because I'm not really a big "kid person" anyway.I have it very well under control and only a handful of my closest friends even know I have Narcolepsy, and I like it like that. I hope your story at least ends like mine and you get the help you need in order to live a "normal" life with Narcolepsy. Best luck in the future.