For Years, Doctors Told Me My Constant Exhaustion and Night Terrors Were Normal

Eventually, I just…kind of stopped sleeping. Most days, I felt like a zombie with little control over my emotions. I hoped that a higher dose of anxiety medication would make everything better. It didn’t.

And then the sleep attacks started: That sudden, all-consuming exhaustion I felt at the Emmy-planning meeting became a regular occurrence. It started happening two to three times per week, forcing me to take a nap wherever I could—once in a dark mailroom and sometimes on the concrete floor between rows of seats in the Academy theater. So when I got yet another message from my doctor that everything was fine, I was apoplectic.

I concede that I didn’t live the “healthiest” lifestyle. I worked too much. I didn’t get enough exercise. Perhaps I ate too much cheese. But I couldn’t for the life of me believe that my habits caused… tiny child ghosts. That night, fueled by Ben & Jerry’s and red wine, I spiraled down a Google rabbit hole. I ugly-cried my way to the ends of the internet as I desperately searched for symptoms of a sleep disorder, mainly zeroing in on sleep apnea, since that was really the only one I’d heard of.

Two days later, I returned to my doctor, prepared to lay out an Annalise Keating-level defense that something else was happening to my body. She stopped me—mid-opening remarks—and told me we were beyond our collective knowledge on sleep. Finally, with her concession, I was referred to a sleep specialist.

Three months later, with the appropriate testing, I was diagnosed with narcolepsy. Something I had never considered. The only familiarity I had with the disorder was from Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, in which the main character’s “date” falls asleep in her bowl of soup. The sleep specialist explained that narcolepsy doesn’t always look like the silly depictions we see on TV or in the movies. It often looks like my symptoms: excessive daytime sleepiness, fragmented sleep, hallucinations.

The diagnosis was a relief—and marked a new journey. With narcolepsy you don’t get better; you get better at having narcolepsy. Four years later, I’m feeling pretty good. With some trial and error, my sleep specialist and I have found the right medication that curbs most of my symptoms—I take a daytime stimulant as well as a nighttime medication that helps me get deep sleep and stay asleep. (A silver lining of my diagnosis: It turns out that my anxiety issues stemmed from untreated narcolepsy, and have dissipated since I found the right treatment plan).

I still get tired, but a daily 20-minute nap helps me feel more refreshed in the afternoon. Stress makes sleep attacks more likely, so I try to meditate every day. I’ve also gotten good at listening to my body: If fatigue starts to creep in, I won’t drive; if I’m struggling in the afternoons, I’ll try to schedule important meetings before lunch. I also noticed that sweets and simple carbohydrates make me sleepier during the day, so I typically save those for the evening. I still have bad days, but I have tools to get through them when they happen.