Like a Grape (Shidge AU) [Book 1]

The Battle of Never-Ending Sleep (45K Special)

Narcolepsy is like a never-ending battle against your brain. It feels like your brain has a completely different person inside you who is trying to control your life. That person isn’t a real person, but you know it isn’t you. There’s no way this person could be you. If it was you, you’d be able to control it. Never can someone control another person. So, you conclude, it must be someone else.

Sometimes it doesn’t matter what time it is. You could get enough sleep the night before, but you start to become randomly exhausted throughout the day. It comes when you least expect it. A heavy load of lethargy falls on top of you, overwhelming you to the point you have to lay down right where you are. It’s powerful as it pulls into this never ending slumber.

Your head feels heavy as you lose your focus on anyone or anything around you. Time becomes a blur, becoming a rapid car racing around the track, a snail slowly crawling a tree, or completely frozen like a dead clock only hanging on the wall. Your muscles start to feel sore though you’ve done almost nothing today. Your ability to support your body fades and you lay down right where you are. You know you want to get up. You want to end this cycle. You don’t want to fall asleep, but no matter how hard you try to fight this, you’re not in control here- they are. The more you fight, the more stronger they get. You try to lift your head back up, but then it is heavier than a hundred elephants as you struggles to even get it to budge. Your limbs feel as if they had been shackled to the ground. You can move it slightly, but it becomes too fruitless in your escape from the constant tiredness. Then all energy is gone as your eyelids close like a prison cell shutting out the last light you had. They won.

Once you fall asleep, it’s impossible to get back up again. You might wake up slightly, after a bit, but you fall right back into the trap just as easily. You look around slightly as reality still hasn’t set in. You think you’re free, so you fight with all your might to wake up. You tell yourself over and over again to just sit up. It seems so simple yet so hard to do this one task. If you sit up you know you could break this trap, but your efforts are seemingly fruitless. Everything is just too heavy. You look around as you know you wasted another hour of your day, and it eats away at your mind, but can never find the strength to just sit up. And as you feared, your eyes close again, pulling you back into the dark nothingness of sleep.

Over and over again, this cycle repeats. You want to be productive, you want to go out and do something, but this prison of drowsiness is inescapable. You silently plea someone will save you from this cycle, someone will wake you up and break the chains your mind keeps you trapped in, but no one's around. No one can save you from this endless torture. It has to be you.

Again, light comes in as your eyes open once more. More and more time gone, you know for sure. You know you have little time. You have just surfaced the water and you know, it you don’t act quick, they’ll pull you right back under. You scan the area. You need to do something. You move your arm, finding you have some control. You use your arm to roll right off the couch you lay on as you fall to the ground.

Finally, you’ve freed yourself. You broke the chains sleep. You take in a sharp breath from the pain in your chest. The pain of falling finally caught up to you. You slowly stand as the concept of time finally comes back. Half of the day was gone, but right now, you’re too happy to think about that. You just won a battle with the monster inside of your head. As you walk to finally start your day, you are fully aware that the war is far from over.

***
This is a descriptive essay I wrote for my English class about my experience with Narcolepsy.

-KanGian