This is a good question! Thanks for asking!

Typically people with narcolepsy don’t actually black out.

Narcolepsy is categorized as “Chronic daytime sleepiness” l

The way I describe it is that I always feel like I’ve been awake for 2 days straight without sleep. No matter how much sleep or rest I get.

Sometimes I have what’s called a Sleep Attack, where I get even more exhausted for a period of time. I’ll just be going about my business and suddenly I feel like I’ve been awake 5 busy days with no rest. I don’t black out, but I need to stop and rest or close my eyes.

I can fight through sleep attacks if I need to, but it’s hard and it’s not good for me and it feels like shit. When I fight through sleep attacks I get worse at functioning and sometimes start doing automatic behavior (finishing tasks on autopilot without really processing what’s happening). I’ve also found that I have trouble forming memories during sleep attacks, and when I’m fight through them. It’s not really worth fighting off a sleep attack because I can usually just take a small nap and be relatively fine after.

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