Thoughts of a Narcoleptic Mind

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,  Fibrom...

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 ,...