Last comic before I go to a month-long sick leave to heal from my well-earned battle wounds! :D
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I just remembered that I once acted in a play as "The Sleepy One" prior to my IH diagnosis. I was literally selected to nod off in the play, surrounded by pillow mountain, because every morning when everyone was asked about how they were doing, I replied "tired and sleepy" without a fault.
Call waiting lines are a different beast when you have IH - it becomes a fight between you and sleepiness, drizzled with salty hope that you can actually talk and understand what the call is about when you finally get there half an hour later...
#IdiopathicHypersomnia can come with some aspects doctors don't really count in - like extremely vivid dreams, lucid dreaming, layered dreams, vivid hallucinations when going to sleep or waking up - and the feeling that you might, or might not be in a dream sometimes hours after waking up.
It was just our neighbour singing btw. Nothing supernatural, and I haven't lost my marbles yet.
Also hallucinations upon falling asleep and waking up are normal with both #IdiopathicHypersomnia and #Narcolepsy (type 1 and 2). It is not in IH criteria, but many of us have them anyway.
I have strong ones when I am extra stressed, and before my IH diagnosis I did often think I was losing my mind. Un-sleep disordered people should not have any hallucinations, or very rarely have them.
Somehow I got my comic out - so...I hope you like my sloth dreams because the theme of past 2 weeks has been: I wish I could have a human zoo-keeper who would care for my every need so I could just stop humaning for a while.
I was recently hit with some heavy platitudes that were meant to be "nice and uplifting" but ended up minimizing my struggle as someone whose life has been on survival mode for decades. Life with disability is not comparable to those lives that are unburdened by it, and you can't definitely say "Everyone struggles with that" when 1. they don't and 2. if they do, not ALL THE TIME, FOR LIFETIMES.
Nap of many disasters - first an "awareness attack" (sense of feeling my body in HD that would prelude sleep walking/night terror if I didn't know how to stay awake) - decided to fuck it and let it do whatever since It'd be my partner's problem - "cold attack" follows and keeps me away anyway, saved my partner from me walking around in terror - and finally MASSIVE #SleepParalysis and Layered, Realistic, #VividDreams.
BY THE WAY - if anyone else has ever had an "awareness attack" of you suddenly feeling every bit of your body in HD (including every fold of fabric on you like you suddenly realized you have spidey sense of some shit) that has lead into sleep walking and night terrors - PLEASE TELL ME.
I have never met anyone like me who has these, and doctor's can't measure them since they happen very rarely.
I slept so poorly last night (not enough sleep, lots of muscle pains etc.) that my brain feels like its full of radioactive bees that look more like gelatin blobs than bugs. They smear around my skull like tiny buzzing slugs and whisper "Oh, if you could just nap now."
This might be my last comic this year, as I am not doing super great at the moment (probably 23rd ear infection of this year) and still have way too much on my plate.
People have suggested to me many, many times that I should become someone who goes to talk to people about my experiences in life as someone with a sleep disorder and ADHD, and 10 years as a fostercare kid.
Every single one of those people missed the point where I explained to them that I have barely enough energy for life's basic functions, so doing that kind of job is not physically possible for me.
In fact, those who can do that kind of job with disabilities clearly have a lot of support and acommondations that make that kind of things possible. Be it families, assistants, drivers, some way to pay for a house cleaner, someone to get their groceries, or just the kind of disability that allows good times to happen in a way that they can go see people.
By the way - if a doctor treats you like mine did, you have right to make a complaint about them. Please do, so these fuckers get what they deserve. Which is consequences.