Do you see me?

Prose for the compassionate judgmental types:

When you look at me what do you see?  Do you see a bitch?  Do you see a faker?  A complainer?  A whiner?  An attention seeker?  Someone making something out of nothing?  Do you know what it is to be me?  How scared I am?  How alone?  What I feel?  How I hurt?  How exhausted I am EVERY FUCKING DAY with no explanation, no relief?  Do you think I WANT to feel this way?  I WANT TO BE NORMAL!  I want to be perfect!  I want to be like YOU!  You, who sits in your ivory tower watching, judging and whispering about how fucked up I am.  Can't I join you?  Won't you let me join YOUR club and quit this one?

dedicated to all the people who have "invisible" illnesses

Some privacy please

Well not sure about the whole Provigil thing.  I just don't know if it's helping.  I mean it might for an hour or two but when it wears off it takes every bit of energy I have with it.  I mean it sucks the life right out of me!  I just don't know if it's worth it!  I think I might rather drink 5 Zipp Fizz and get too much potassium and take my chances with the heart repercussions.

Yesterday I fell asleep in the bathroom stall and was jolted awake to the bathroom door being ripped open.  I gave myself whip lash as I flew into an upright position.  I honestly do not remember how it happened but there I was head between my legs like a drunk girl at a Frat party, out for the count, dreaming.  Cant't remember what the dream was now, guess I was so shocked and full of adrenaline from the "whoosh"of the door and the fresh air circulation that lifted my hair off the nape of my neck, but it's early afternoon and I feel myself headed in that same direction this afternoon.

This morning was harder than usual, it was cold and I was hurting so always makes it hard to get up!  Finally dragged myself up and out and on my way. I waited to take my meds figuring the later I took them the longer they would last and I really need them to work while I am working.  Well upon reflection, this may not have been the best idea.  I used to joke to people that I slept in the car on the way to and from work, and it's half true. I mean of course I am not snoring but you do get into a rhythm, and by rhythm one might say auto-behavior.  Well you can follow all of the other cars for quite some time pretty well if you pay attention every once in a while.  You can't tell me PWN are the only people who do this!! I am positive that others do it as well! Either that or there has to be a lot more undiagnosed cases than we could ever imagine, but I digress. While following along I guess I wasn't paying attention in just the right places and wound up taking the wrong exit!  This wasn't the first time.  I have lived in this town 6 years and it is quite spread out and easy for me to get lost in.  Luckily this time I realized it quickly enough and made the adjustments to make a U-turn and get back to the high-way and back on track.  I promptly cracked open a water, prepared a zipp fizz and took my meds.

By 11 am took the 2nd half of my pill and now it's almost 2 and it's COMPLETELY warn off!  I am afraid I am gonna fall asleep again today!  I don't know how I am going to make it through this week!  I am going to have to stay on this dose for a full month and it's going to be so hard! I think I was better off before the Provigil/Modafinil!

Can I do this?

So up until now I have kept a manual/written sort of journal.  Okay, it's only been a couple of months and I'll admit I don't do it everyday, but sometimes I do have more than one entry per day. Well going back reading that and even reading my first entry here I realized my thoughts don't relate to paper the way they quite do in my brain.  Maybe it's because I have so many and they overwhelm and flood my brain and trying to convey them is just impossible.  Maybe it's because I think NO ONE can possibly understand so what exactly is the point??? For whatever reason, at this time I feel that I MUST do this or attempt to or I will slip over the ledge and go completely insane.  At any rate I will try to keep pushing forward and continue to do so. I have decided the best way is just to keep doing both with hopes that somehow there will be some organization to all of it in the end.

I started my meds yesterday, generic form of Provigil, Modafinil it's called. It seems to be pretty uneventful so far.  I will have to admit I was terrified, thinking I would be all "cracked out" on it, but since the alternative was falling asleep at my desk I gave it a shot and much to my amazement I was a bit alert.  The problem was it was very short lived.  I wonder if everyone has this same issue or if maybe it will build up in my system and start working wonders.  We will see.  I am currently on day two and it was even shorter today but hoping that eventually it will build up and I will have better days.  Of course that is my life anyway, some good some not so good and some down right awful.  Well here's hoping tomorrow is GREAT!

Hello, my name is_______

Hello my name is ___________, and I'm a Narcoleptic.  Doesn't it just seem like I should be standing up in front of some 12-step program somewhere?  Not that I am making fun of those but just saying/typing those words feels as though it comes with some kind of label, stereotype and you can just imagine what the person hearing/reading them is envisioning.  Now I have never seen Deuce Bigelow, I will have to admit, but I keep hearing people relate to it and someone falling asleep in their soup.  I imagine it was probably quite hilarious. Having said that, when my PCP(primary care physician) alluded to me being narcoleptic due to my complaining of being exhausted at work and falling asleep in my car on the drive home, I thought surely at least one if not both of us was crazy!  I had heard of it, but like I imagine they portray it in the fore-mentioned movie, I only knew of the cartoon-like symptoms that the media, TV and well cartoons had provided me.  I never thought for a second this could be me! I mean I had a hard time staying awake but I am a mother of 3 and had started that at such a young age and had done it by myself for so long.  I did try to pursue higher education as I come from a long line of ambitious over-achievers but I could never make the classes because between work and taking care of kids I was just too tired.  Something had to give and well the kids weren't going anywhere and we all had to eat, so classes just were not high priority.  Looking back teachers would always say, and I hated hearing this, maybe because I knew it to be true maybe because I was just as rebellious as the next kid, "You have so much potential, but you are just lazy."  I guess why that stings so much now is that I am 41 years old, my youngest is 16 and I still struggle EVERYDAY, what if someone, somewhere took the time to say, "You have so much potential, but you are just TIRED or EXHAUSTED?"  Where would I be today?  Would it matter?  Does that make me bitter?

I am newly diagnosed, I am starting this blog to organize my thoughts as I have previously only done this on paper, for about 2 months now since I first started on this journey and was told I needed to work on my sleep habits.  I kind of got in the habit of journaling and thought that this would be the best way to document MY journey.  I have read some of the others, sometimes I nap at work during my lunch break but sometimes it's too hot.  I hope to meet more people like me since there doesn't seem to be ANY where I am and sometimes I feel like I am going insane and no one understands!

Looking forward to meeting YOU!

Sleepy Siren