Mel R

I don't see anywhere to put an About Me on my blog! Maybe there is a place for it; I just can't find it. What a shame, since I wrote a killer one for my Medium blog. =( (And if anyone's interested, that's here: https://medium.com/@melr2025) Eh - screw it. I'll just post it here. ========================

I've been exhausted for 35 years. I sleep 11 or 12 hours most days and the fog just won't lift. I've been reporting this to my doctors since I was around 20, and FINALLY got a diagnosis...

I'm starting this journal because there's not a lot of information about Idiopathic Hypersomnia out there. The condition is considered "rare", so it's very hard to get a doctor to recognize reports of exhaustion and low-energy as an actual symptom of something. And once you do manage to get a diagnosis, you don't meet a lot of others with it. You can't find books about it, or accounts of others' experiences. You don't know what to expect from the medications. You don’t know what’s “normal” for something so abnormal.

People with this need to know they're not just lazy. They didn't just "get too little sleep", and they definitely didn't just "get too much sleep". They're not hypochondriacs. Life isn't this hard for everyone, everyone else can just suck it up better than you - no matter what all the memes on social media may make you think.

It's not normal to wake up exhausted, live every day exhausted, go to bed exhausted.

It's not normal to have to consider so very carefully how to best use your tiny allotment of energy.