My words.

Narcolepsy.
(A Poem and a Descriptive Essay lol)
Explained by ME

“When it hits me

like a seizure,

or like a calm intention of draining the life out of me...

I just want the control back.

I do know what’s becoming of me-

No, I’m not afraid of it, but I’m afraid of her.

I know my eyes have entirely changed form,

and so much of me has turned numb.

I feel nothing, but I feel so heavy.

When I catch a glimpse of my reflection,

it’s terra incognita, and I can’t look at it anymore.

I just want to sink into the ground,

so no one can see me.

Everything can seem OK

if I can just close my eyes, lean back,

and rest this bobble-head of mine.

But I’m not alone,

I can’t just sleep on an empty store shelf here in Wal-Mart.

It’s easier to just stay at home.

Change out of pajamas, into new pajamas.

Day after Day.

I know I’m not supposed to hide like this,

but there’s no fight when I’ll never be more than

this exhausted lump of chaos.

...How good it feels to just accomplish something,

I made it through an appointment, I fixed supper...

I wish I could hold on to that,

but it’s lost in the humming.



I think about the things people do in an ordinary day. Then I try to imagine myself this way, and there is literally a block. I am in reverence at everything people do, and mostly on 8 hours of sleep or less Sometimes I think, “what if I was in a situation where I needed to take charge, I was running from a murderer”, and that it would be impossible for me to say “TIME OUT” and go to sleep. I wouldn’t last long out there, I could never be a hero or even a survivor.
Just the thought of facing a normal day that people my age have- I feel like crying. It’s not because I feel bad for myself; strictly because I know I couldn’t do it and I would fall apart, and that scares me. I think about this a lot. And I’m angry. But I won’t fight against it. I’m too scared. I cannot handle my Narcolepsy when I’m in public. It’s awful. The panic attacks I have, and I know I look retarded when my face scrunches tight and my head nods. And no one would think I have Narcolepsy; that my thought process is completely fine. It’s just like if it were me on the outside, they’d think I was a burnout, or retarded in some way. My body slows right down, but things inside me are freaking out. “How do I hide this?” “Where can I sit, where can I doze off??” “What if I start crying?” You’d think the panic attacks are what’s worst, but then comes my displacement feeling.
I’m not in the right skin, and it’s not my body. Everything is unknown to me, I’m scared and I have no control, and even the awareness that it all isn’t real is slowly slipping away. I’m trying to focus on myself and keep me here, but I’m also trying to read all the people in the room, so I can sense if they are judging me. It’s all so much work, and I’m getting more tired every second. I’m going to start crying. I feel huge, the utter center of the room. Disgusting, ugly, fat, UGLY. I want to go I want to go I want to go. The eyes I’m looking out of aren’t mine. The whole room, and the whole world, looks and feels so different. Even the way I see myself when I look down. These aren’t my arms, not my legs that are moving, everything is so BIG. As I move, it happens in slow motion, and I’m filling up the entire room.
Oh, if I could just collapse and sleep at that moment, I think I’d float away in bliss. But everything is so heavy and so thick, I’m just being silently suffocated. Even when it’s all done, the after mass of it lingers on: I HATE LIFE, I’M SICK OF THIS, IT’S NOT WORTH IT TO LEAVE THE HOUSE.” I don’t like that person I become. That person needs to be put to sleep
Instead, she’s with me all the time, and she is going to win. I hate that I’m not stronger, but it’s not even like I’m overcoming myself or my own obstacle, it’s all hers, and she’s not me. She’s the black lining inside my body that I’ve felt for years and years. She’s so ugly and gross, and since I do know that the people around me have no way of knowing it’s not me- I have to act like it’s me the best I can, like everything is under control, or else then I’d really be crazy.


Every morning I wake up worried that it won’t be my face I see in the mirror. If it is, I swallow hard and tell myself I just need to make it through the day and maybe she’ll be gone tomorrow. I try so hard to hold on to myself, to not let her take complete control, but so often I seriously find myself doing erratic, unpredictable things. Completely different things. I call this my “manic attacks”. But I’m never aware of these until I’m back to my regular self, so sometimes I end up really messing things up. It can be so drastic that I have wasted a shitload of money on something I believed at the time was going to be my number one interest...then wake up a few days later, and I have no interest in whatever it was, and it’s gone out of my life. But it meant so much to me yesterday, and now I have no recognition of feeling that way. All I have is the anger that I ended up taking so much time or money on something wasted.
Because I do get lost in this other person. Sometimes it’s like I can keep in contact with myself while the other person is dominating, but other times I’m completely unaware that I’m having a manic attack, and it’s not real. I 100% believe that all I’m feeling at that time is real. There is no other me, this is me. That stupid girl really took me over. Then there are other times I can talk to myself and remind myself it’s not me, just make it through, don’t do anything stupid...I’m still in here And it’s hard, it’s depressing, but it’s a little better. So many changes, I might all of a sudden decide I have no feelings for Matt, what the heck am I doing with him? And if I don’t know I’m not being myself, I’d break up with him, no biggie to me. ‘Course then when that feelings’ gone, I’m desperate to get back what I think really is me, and it’s so confusing. Sometimes I have to ask myself which one is right. Because sometimes it is a little harder to distinguish the differences. IT SUCKS.



One of the most important things to remember is that I don’t recognize the face I see in the mirror. It’s not always the same face that I know isn’t mine, but mostly it’s the same. To me, ugh, it’s so ugly. I brush and brush my hair, put on as much make up as I can, but I can’t get back to looking like myself. My eyes are slanted all gross, and my lips are so stupid and fat they take up my whole face, and my nose is so big you just can’t see past it, and that is not my hair up there. But it’s not just as simple as me not liking my features, because THEY ARE NOT MY FEATURES. I’ll say to my mom, “ I can’t leave the house looking like this.” and she says “You look the same as you do everyday, Dorf.” Which of course makes me more upset because I wonder if I really do look like this and the RIGHT person is the WRONG person in the end??? But I won’t go in public these days, everything is just displaced. I’m not seeing things right out of my eyes, and everything is like what happens when I have my panic attacks. It’s not that I’m not comfortable with myself...it’s that it’s not me, I’m completely unfamiliar with the body I’m in, and it’s horrible.
There’s no way I can explain this to someone on just any day it happens. So silently inside, I’m struggling, while everyone else thinks I’m just lazy or not trying to get up and just make the energy. It’s frustrating, it makes me mad, but what can I do? Just try not to let what everyone else thinks make me feel worse than I already do. At least I’m so aware of my problems, and at least I manage them on my own. It’s just been so long like this, I’m used to it. In high school, I missed a lot of days just because I couldn’t go as the person I didn’t recognize. Man, on days that I did end up going...it was HELL. Can you imagine? ?

I take a lot of prozac and wellbutrin for this stuff. It’s really helped A LOT, because without the prozac, I am 100% the person I hate, all the time, and I know it, but I’m completely stuck, and I’m angry and I attack people, and I can’t control my emotions, and I’m friggin crazy. That’s how I got pregnant, for one. But a lot of other mistakes I’ve made are from this.
....hm, that sounds like I’m trying to blame my problems and bad decisions on something other than just myself, but I swear to you, that was not my thinking. IT WAS NOT ME. You’ll never understand it, no matter what I say, and now I feel like this was so pointless, and I don’t blame you for not understanding I guess.
I'd like to think you have opened your mind and took all this in while not forgetting who I really am. That this has to be the way it is, because you know me and trust me. I will be so thankful for that I worry all the time about not being a good enough friend. ...not being a good mother. I do love Gabrien whether or not I’m myself or the crazy girl, it’s just harder to function and entertain him, but I do it because I love him and he’s here whether or not I’m the right person, he’s my son I don’t forget that.
This was more about my depression issues than my Narcolepsy. I’m exhausted all the time, my life is constantly in confusion, what happened, what did I dream, what do I feel that is real? Now maybe you’ll see why I don’t do anymore than what is in my home, because this is hard enough, on top of having Narcolepsy. ON TOP OF HAVING NARCOLEPSY.