You Might Have Narcolepsy If

By Anna French
September 2, 2008

I will never forget how bad I felt that November day in 2003 when I left the neurologist's office with a pamphlet on sleep hygiene, and blister pack of Provigil samples. I was in shock. I had naroclempsy...narclespy...something I couldn't even spell. I couldn't believe I had a "chronic lifelong neurological disorder"! How could this be? Something was wrong with me and I might have to take pills for the rest of my life! Everything I thought was "normal" was not normal!!

About two months later, as I needed an informative topic for a college class project, I decided to look up narcolepsy. In my internet searching, I came across the website Talk About Sleep, and soon found myself immersed in the narcolepsy message board. As I read post after post, I laughed and cried as I realized that I could have written so many of those posts myself. Finally I had found a place where I could feel at home and share the ups and downs of living with narcolepsy with others like myself.

A few months later, after reading so many posts by others describing the same issues I had: memory problems, hallucinations, confusion about reality and time, I decided to write up a humorous list of what I thought should be criteria for diagnosing narcolepsy. I wanted to help my friends and family understand how narcolepsy affected my daily life, and I figured humor was the best way to approach the subject.

I posted it on Talk About Sleep and since then it has grown into a very large thread with great additions from other people with narcolepsy. Now, whenever I feel like no one in my world understands what I'm going through, I find myself going back and reading through page after page of funny posts. It cheers me up every time. If you have narcolepsy, or love someone with narcolepsy, then these lines are for you. Here is my original post. Enjoy!

YOU MIGHT HAVE NARCOLEPSY IF...

you can use a book to amuse yourself for hours without even opening it.

your TV only has commercials.

the first place you check for missing items is the fridge.

you stop mid-sentence twice a day to say "Oops! Forgot to take my meds!"

you require an interpreter to talk to people who speak your native language.

your college professor mistakenly counted you absent once because that day your eyes were actually open and he didn't recognize you.

you often awaken with strange imprints on your forehead from things such as a computer keyboards.

2 + 2 = 22 makes sense to you.

you remember 100% of what you studied in the textbook (yes, the first three paragraphs on page one) and forgot to go to class to take the final exam (you could swear you had that class on Thursday, not Wednesday).

your right hand really doesn't know what your left is doing (and neither does the rest of you).

one of your regular weekend chores is searching your house for randomly misplaced items.

you answer the phone with "I um yeah um hello? Did I call you or did you call me?"

your co-workers take turns for tapping you.

your side of a conversation consists mostly
of "And then...wait, I think I had a point... what was I gonna say ?"

when in bed, you see a spider on your wall, you envy his ability to keep moving, but realize he is probably really a figment of your imagination.

people tell you to sit down before they give you the good news.

you have a clock on every wall in your house and all of them are purposely set ahead to different times so you'll always think " It's time to go! "

you've never seen a whole feature film, but appreciate the longer ones because you actually wake up before it's over and you can see the end.

you're over the age of 12 and you still make someone check under the bed for monsters before you go to sleep at night.

your pharmacist is first on your speed dial.

as a child, you thought Sleeping Beauty was a true story.

you use your driver's license to regularly check the spelling of your name before signing a check or formal document.

you have a 10 hour or more delay on memory retrieval.

you have memorized or carry in your wallet a list of "Why I'm Late for Work" excuses for 250 days of the year plus one for leap year.

you have to put lunch on your "to do" list.

you've trained your dog to turn on the coffee maker, pull the covers off you in the morning when your alarm goes off, and prod you into the shower.

you have more than 3 sticky notes on your bathroom mirror daily and one of them says "Don't forget to read your sticky notes".

you tell the other people in your office that snoring is part of a new form of yoga you are practicing that relaxes and frees the creative centers of your brain.

you've forgotten your own birthday.

you feel like you're trapped inside an invisible time machine that thrusts you forward in time in random two hour spurts.

"yawn" is a four-letter word in your house.

"NIGHT is to DAY as SLEEP is to ____" sounds like an unsolvable riddle.

you function better when you are under the influence of amphetamines.

your weight loss is linked to memory loss.

you can fake people out that you're bilingual by reciting the names of your medications.

you can remember to call your doctor, but you can't remember why.

Santa Claus hits your house around noon on Christmas because that's when you're most likely to be unconscious.