this is very angry, but i really just want to yell somewhere outside of just the narcolepsy tags bc yknow I'm physically disabled!!! it sucks!!!!
another issue with narcolepsy!!! is that the media and mainstream depictions of it are so fucking insultingly simple and do NOTHING to represent the devastation it can cause and how physically disabling it is.
Sleep is something fundamental to health. if your sleep is disordered and impaired and you aren't getting enough good restorative sleep, you are going to suffer long term health impacts and horrible quality of life. you have to be a fucking ambassador with an encyclopedic knowledge of how it's not the funny "fall asleep when emotional disorder" (that's called cataplexy and it isn't falling asleep, it's muscle weakness and a loss of muscle control. it's also only in type 1 narcolepsy) or the "falls asleep anywhere and you're refreshed :) disorder" (for many people, it's not being "refreshed", it's just Not Being As Tired and it doesn't last very long) or the simple "it means you're sleepy all the time"
it's often severe sleep cycle disturbances during both night AND day and feeling tired all. the. time. because your brain can't properly regulate sleep cycles so you can't get enough deep sleep. ever.
imagine never getting enough sleep fucking ever. It doesn't matter how MUCH you sleep, because your brain can't moderate your sleep cycles properly and you can't go into the stages of sleep that your brain and body need. imagine the impact that would have on your brain and body. imagine your own brain literally not physically fucking working right. imagine the full body, unrelenting fatigue.
it's a severe neurological and neuroimmune (at least N1 usually is neuroautoimmune) disorder and it's actually severely underdiagnosed because not enough people have access to the specific kind of sleep studies they (insurance companies tbh) require to diagnosis it
when are people going to realize we are fucking suffering and stop overwhelmingly handwaving or treating narcolepsy like a punchline or funny quirk?
everyone who thinks it's cute or quirky actively contributes to how horribly we are treated and how little we are taken seriously unless we sit there with essays that spoonfeed how critical proper sleep cycling is to longterm health and quality of life.
even then, why should anyone care about us physically? all that matters is that we're considered productive under capitalism. doesn't matter what severe health issues you continue to stack up
stimulants and wakefulness promoting agents are the first line treatment and they do fucking NOTHING to tackle the sleep cycle issues at night. in fact, they often make insomnia even worse. nobody gives a shit about narcoleptics' physical health as long as they're capable of being productive and "awake" and it's utterly repulsive.
(This all also applies a lot to idiopathic hypersonmnia, too, which shares a lot of overlap w narcolepsy type 2)
also ppl w [insert mental illness or neurodevelopmental disorder here] who want to compare it to a neurological sleep disorder: don't you even fucking Start. you know full well I'm talking about different things.