Thoughts of a Narcoleptic Mind

A Wake Up Call to Our Religious Leaders

What Would They Say? Black Success Or Failure?

Who is Moshe Turner?

This letter is on behalf of the countless PWN who have had to deal with insensitive remarks from people they know and love. It makes my heart hurt whenever I hear some of the things we have to hear from the people who are supposed to love support and be there for us. I am sick of the way many PWN  are treated. I am tired of the asinine comments and the insults that are hurled at us. I say us, because I don't think there is one single person with Narcolepsy hasn't gone through the indignity of being put down in some way for something that is beyond their control. In fact, I don't think anyone with any invisible, chronic illness has not gone through it. For all of you non supportive, judgmental  people,  I think you need to be educated on a few things, since many of you seem to be the lazy ones. Yes, I used the word lazy because many of you are too lazy to take just a little  bit of time out of your day to actually learn about conditions like Narcolepsy,  Fibromyalgia,  Neu

I know I haven't been blogging in awhile,  but sometimes you have those experiences you just have to write about. This is one of those. Many if you may not be familiar with lucid dreams. They are very vivid dreams in which you actually feel like you have stepped into the dream. It is like 3D times a thousand. I think it is actually more like stepping into an alternate reality because you feel like you are actually living the dream. I just had once such dream and all I can say is, it just took so much from me that my emotions are in a jumble. I lost my mother last December. It was the first time in my 46 years that I lost someone I really loved. Some of you who know me may say what about my father, but we won't even begin to go into that. I have had lucid dreams before, but never a lucid dream inside of a lucid dream and never one that affected me so deeply. I swear it was as if my mother had never left this earth and her passing was the dream. I am not even sure where to be

I haven't bogged in quite awhile. I have never blogged about anything so personal, but this one hit me deeply. Most don't know a lot about Narcolepsy. Many don't know much about lucid dreaming, so I am sure very few know the two go hand in hand. Lucid dreams can seem like more than just dreams. I liken it to stepping into an alternate reality, existing in a different dimension, because they are so vivid. You smell the scents. You feel the breath and touches pressed against you. Most importantly, you can feel every emotion that goes along with those experiences. Many time, for people with Narcolepsy, those realistic dreams can come in the form of terrifying nightmares. Yep, being a Narcoleptic, you run the gamut of, "which is the lesser of the evils?" We are already excessively sleepy to the point that the average person would have to go 24-48 hours without sleep to experience how we feel almost every single day of our existence, regardless of how much we sleep. Wh

I love the way people keep telling me to go back to work. Yes, go get a job I can't because I stopped working by choice. Go back to work because I didn't practically torture myself to keep working for the last couple of years despite my neurologist and pcp's advisement? Go back to work in spite of the horrible attacks two to three times a day that hold your body hostage so you can do nothing but lie there and pray they end soon? Go back to work so I can give the social security administration another reason to deny the case I have been fighting three years for? Go back to work to deal with the devastating cognitive impairment, automatic behavior, not remembering what I did or said two seconds ago and hoping it wasn't something that could get me fired? Go back to work until my body starts fighting me back again to the point where I fall in the middle of crossing a street or expressway and have to force myself to make it across before that oncoming traffic starts coming?

Do you know someone with Narcolepsy / Cataplexy and don't realize it? Here are some things to look for. Narcolepsy: fragmented sleep, irresistible urges to sleep, waking up from sleep feeling unrefreshed, sleep paralysis, vivid dreams, automatic behavior,  falling asleep at inopportune times, diminished cognitive thinking skills, hallucinations, lucid dreaming, going into dream state within a matter of seconds, ie: I can nod off for a few seconds and have a complete dream that seems like I slept hours. Cataplexy: Partal to complete loss of muscle tone, slurred speech, dropping items. Cataplexy attack may be confused with epileptic seizures. If the person is fully aware of what is going on around them, while seeming to be unconscious, it is very possibly Cataplexy. Also, if the pupils look like a pin point as opposed to enlarging or dilating (as with epilepsy) it could be a Cataplexy attack. The average time to get a correct diagnosis is ten to fifteen years. Many people with Nar

I will not conform, be relegated to what is considered to be the norm to be accepted  fit into what's appropriate,  proper or popular because if you are not appropriate,  proper or popular you run a risk of being rejected I will not let my uniqueness be stripped away, let the brightness of my colors be dulled to gray because you fear the brightness of my colors will outshine and bring to light the majestic glory of the queen that God put me on this earth to be I was not meant to fit in be blended in, just so I could assimilate or adapt your more socially acceptable traits I am a copy of no one I am an original and as such I don't need your acceptance I am more than capable enough to blow my own horn I don't need validation of my beauty, my worth, my strengths I don't need magazines,  videos or fashion shows to tell me how I should wear my hair, what to think or how to choose my wardrobe because my true value, my unprecedented worth comes from deep inside myself , my

People get upset when I say that they can't possibly understand what it is like to live with a chronic illness unless you share that illness. They don't always understand that reading about and researching it isn't the same as living it. People don't understand that Narcolepsy and Cataplexy are a part of me and and they dictate, not me, a lot of my responses. I can see how it might be hard to understand that I am not brushing off or ignoring situations because I don't respond the way I should. I get that it is hard to comprehend that my seemingly lack if emotion is a necessity for me to make it through. It is as automatic to me as breathing and it us NOT going to change. Narcolepsy is an awful illness but coupled with Cataplexy, it can be almost unbearable if you don't make some unnatural adjustments. I can't show you what it feels like. If you don't have it, all I can do is try to give you a glimpse. Imagine if every time someone at work frustrated yo

In the midst of the storm when it seems the rains will never end When you feel your prayers are going unanswered That you will never triumph because you are constantly battling an unbeatable opponent compelling you to sink into the dark oblivion Remember to take a look around you because even after every storm something beautiful will grow With each rain comes a purification, a washing away, a cleansing that takes place It is a wonderous part of Nature's rebirthing Each drop of water it brings posseses in itself intrinsic value to keep nature's rivers aflow Just as every storm must have an ending each trial will  cease as well As each battle approaches its conclusion  that inner strength you forgot you had will begin to ascend again rising in you like  unconquerable warrior who knows no defeat who has triumphed through the very depths of hell Every storm has it's purpose Every trial serves for and ultimate design There is no such thing as hopeless Each battle just mak

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May 5, 2015 I looked out my patio window after reading the thousandth time Obama is the Antichrist and dragging our country to hell. So far everything still seems intact. I didn't see any soul sucking demons or blood thirsty zombies in the streets. I didn't see me city turned into what looks like a Mad Max themed landscape. There don't seem to be militia lined from street to street.Obama has been in office since 2008. I think it is safe to say he is not the Antichrist.

This is my opinion, which is probably going to be very unpopular. Oh well. I just saw video on R Kelly and his concert that didn't happen. I will try not to be biased because I dislike the man with everything in me. People can say what they want, a talented pedophile is still a pedophile. I digress though. I understand people are rightfully upset, by my question is, why is anyone paying $150 and up to watch him perform in what amounts to a big backyard with some lawn chairs? The venue should have been a giveaway there. It wasn't like the promoters needed to charge 150, 300, or 500 for the lighting, and whatever else goes into putting on a spectacular concert from the all mighty Kels.

This is the response of The Real to criticism they received on a skit regarding Narcolepsy. One couple was to do a Narcoleptic Moonwalk during a dance off. Essentially they are saying, lighten up; find the humor in the disease that you can't be cured from, that has caused many to lose their jobs, their savings, their homes, their spouses and children. Find humor in not being able to do simple things like crossing the street and finding you feel you are going to collapse and hoping you don't do it before you make it across. I belie in being able to find humor and laughing at myself or friends laughing with me. I don't believe in using someone's illness as a prop or gag. Hmm, would someone with ALS be told the same thing.

I don't think people realize how devastating Narcolepsy is for some. There are so many people who have lost jobs, homes, marriages and even their children because of Narcolepsy. Although it is a struggle for me, I am still blessed because there are those who have lost so much more. I can't get them back all that they have lost. Believe me, I would if I could. What I can do is work to shed more light on this disease to help make things better for those who come after me. If I can do that through my writing,  for even just one person, I consider myself successful.

I usually describe a Cataplexy attack as feeling like a puppet being held up by nothing but string. Your limbs become like jello or like brittle, dying leaves. It is much deeper than that though. There is this vulnerability that you feel as well. I feel it sometimes anyway. There is this feeling of being exposed, as If you have been stripped of something. I am not sure I would say it is your power topic have been stripped of, even If that is essentially the case. It is an ugly feeling that you can never adequately put into words. Noone who hasn't gone through it will never truly understand it. I will be honest, I have broken down in tears over a Cat attack, usually If was a bad one and while working. There are quite a few Narcolepsy sufferers who feel they have to hide their Narcolepsy like some kind of leprosy. That shouldn't be. We can't let this disease strip us of anymore than it already has. Someone told me they couldn't believe I have Narcolepsy and have had becau

Sinking emotional quicksand pulling me in Fighting too many battles at once and they all seem impossible to win The grief past and present an ever present shroud that is so dark It is a suffocating presence that weighs heavily on my heart So long to the lingering essence of my emotional enemies coming to steal what fight I have left inside My battles I have given to my Father to heal so many scars I have fought to hide My time for healing My time to rise I will raise up deep from the ashes like a beautiful majestic phoenix flying free through the endless skies