I mean, really?

It's enough to have to deal with Narcolepsy. It's quite another to deal with the social stigma of being the person that "can't be there in the morning".

You know what? I'm tired. I'm literally tired. I'm tired all the time. Most of the time I can barely maintain consciousness.  I'm beyond tired, I'm exhausted every second of every minute of every day. And then, as if that wasn't enough, when I go home at night, it's nearly impossible for me to fall asleep, because it's not enough for my brain to try to put me to sleep during the day, my brain thinks it needs to keep me alert at night.

So, therefore, I keep funny hours. I've spent a large part of my life feeling a certain high level of insecurity about that fact, maybe I'll never stop feeling insecure about it.

But one thing I've learned from my diagnosis of Narcolepsy is that it's acceptable to say "Hey World, Fuck You and your arbitrary concept of a normal schedule!" Maybe I'm broken, but I'm not going to apologize for it any longer. In fact, I'm going to bring my considerable will toward argumentative outspokenness to the forefront of this issue.

So, you know what? I'm tired. I'm surly. I can't be there at 8am, because I have a neurological disorder that precludes me from being awake at any time of the day, but particularly at early morning hours. My neuro-chemistry keeps me from functioning at a normal level at any time, but particularly in the morning. If you have a problem with that, spend seventy-two (72) hours without sleep, and then call me. The average narcoleptic operates on a level of sleep that would cause a "normal person" to become psychotic. By this metric, I find "normal people" to be lacking in will.

All of this angst, all of this anger, it comes from years of defending my normal biological predilections to people with an arbitrary concept of when a person should be "awake and aware". I'm not lazy. I'm not stupid. I'm not complacent. I'm just not neurologically comparable to a "normal" human. I'm a narcoleptic. I've nearly gained a Ph.D in Biochemistry. Imagine what I may have accomplished without my neurological deficit. Maybe I'll become nothing substantial, but maybe I will. In other words, to my detractors, Fuck You.

(For the record, lots of people have to 'handle stuff', and I am firmly on the side of all of those individuals. Lot's of people deal with biological issues far more grave than narcolepsy. Multiple Sclerosis and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis come to mind. If you have the opportunity to do anything at all to assist a person coping with MS or ALS, I urge you to do everything in your power to help such individuals, dealing with possibly the worst afflictions imaginable. I find myself extremely inconvenienced by my neurological condition, but the hell that persons with MS or ALS go through makes my plight irrelevant. Maybe the real lesson is that humans really need to get to a point were we will do anything whatsoever for each other.)