#hypersomnia

[amymanddy]

Every once in a while i lock in and draw my favorite characters so enjoy this sweet piece!

Bonus close-up on them

[yrrtyrrtwhenihrrthrrt]

I don't think people realize that living with chronic illness / disability, even one that is considered relatively "mild," is basically a full time job in and of itself.

The amount of time you have to dedicate to scheduling appointments, coordinating with insurance, communicating with pharmacies, playing messenger between different medical professionals, making phone calls, rescheduling appointments, managing medication, attending appointments, repeating the whole thing again for follow-ups-- because in addition to whatever your condition affects, you also have to deal with all the other regular Human Body Maintenance that any able-bodied person would (the occasional illness, ear infection, dental procedure, ingrown nail, etc) and that ALSO needs to be taken care of on top of all the pencil-pushing you're already doing to try and treat and/or diagnose your condition. That takes a LOT of time, and is especially difficult if you're trying to work a Mon-Fri 9-5, because that means nearly ALL of the things you need to do to care for yourself medically must occur during your working hours.

Then there's the time that the actual condition takes from you directly, the type of which varies widely from person to person and what exactly they struggle with, but it remains a huge time commitment nonetheless. Taking forms including but not limited to: taking longer to get from one location to another due to limited mobility, time spent recovering from an activity that put you under too much strain, time spent unable to perform other tasks because you are in pain, or sleeping longer than average due to any myriad of reasons related to physical and mental disability, time spent unable to perform other tasks because you're experiencing a mental health episode or crisis, or having to closely read labels and ingredients for everything because of dietary or medication sensitivites. And that's just a handful of things I could think of off the top of my head based on the experiences of myself and people I personally know. Frankly, every disability just automatically comes with a huge deficit in the amount of time you have in a day, because you're gonna spend a massive chunk of that time,, just,, experiencing the effects of that disability.

This was written from my perspective as someone who is not widely considered disabled, who does not require caregiving and has been privileged enough to at least keep my head above water so far. But, knowing how difficult it is to me, I can only imagine how it feels for all the other members of this community.

All this to say, this disability pride month, don't forget that not everyone has the same amount of hours in a day.

[wolfchanw]

Off my usual topic, I want to talk about idiopathic hypersomnia for a minute.

I have been tired for YEARS. I sleep and sleep and sleep and I can still fall asleep at the drop of a hat. I have followed alllll the sleep hygeine advice, regular physical activity, giving up caffeine. I went to the doctor and got my iron levels up, started using a CPAP.

I was sleeping 10 hours a night, napping two hours in the afternoon, and I was still exhausted and crabby all. the. time.

I was convinced that this was something I was doing wrong. I wasn’t cut out for motherhood, I wasn’t following the advice correctly, I needed to…I don’t know, something.

I finally asked my doctor for a referral to a sleep specialist. She talked to me at length, but it at one point she looked at my CPAP data and I saw her eyes get huge. “Is this ACCURATE?!” she asked me “You sleep a LOT!”

So. With a hypersomnia diagnosis she got me started on a stimulant medication to help me stay awake during the day. This was two weeks ago and I am MIND BLOWN. I was worried that I might feel…amped up, but I just feel like myself for the first time in years.

I don’t need a nap. I can play with my kid, I can push the swing. I can walk the dog. I CAN GO OUT TO DINNER. My well of patience is so much deeper because I’m not fighting to stay awake after 2pm.

We’re still pursuing more diagnostics, including a 24 hour sleep study to see if I have a form of narcolepsy and some more blood work. But. I feel like I’ve gotten a fresh start.

So please. If you’ve got something weird going on physically or mentally and you KNOW it’s not right, keep pushing for more diagnostics, ask for referrals, get to the bottom of it!

[yonicfemcel]

you can take the girl out of the bed but you can't take the bed out of the girl

[batfambrainrotbeloved]

Tim Drake has insomnia and narcolepsy.. *I say as I have u sit u in front of a TV with a black and white moving spiral*

As someone who lowkey has hypersomnia I approve of this message- no totally not suspicious screen needed :D

[lovesick-coining]

Hypersomnia

[pt: Hypersomnia /end pt]

Hypersomnia - A chronic sleep disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness despite getting adequate or even excessive amounts of sleep.

(No spoons for ID, sorry!)

Self indulgent coining

Can you see the vision I was goin for? The yellowish colors are supposed to represent the day and the blues represent the night and sleep/sleepiness. There are more blues to show the sleepiness taking over the day. I also had an idea of using a solar eclipse symbol to represent the daytime sleepiness.

Here is the link for the eclipse symbol I used

Tags - @radiomogai @wanderingdevotee @mad-pride

If anyone would like to be tagged in this post or future coining/flag posts please let us know <3

[toesuckler]

hypersomnia is so ass. insomniacs get a cool name and rep that makes it seem dramatic and edgy and have physical effects of their weariness. i think its actually just as terrifying to be so tired and drained all the time that you can lose access to basic memories and be totally inactive for 16 hours of the day with no idea when youll wake up next. thats actually really fucking scary. if you wrote a character with hypersomnia people would specilate if they own an evil amulet draining them of their powers.