FEELS: The College Diaries

Chapter Seven - Naps in the afternoon

Staying awake on buses lately was becoming a difficult task, even more so when was now by myself.

Ever since I started college I always had Penny and her friend, Rebecca, who both stayed behind an extra year instead of going straight to university. Penny stayed on to do a Foundation art, which was similar to doing art if she had gone to university. Whilst Rebecca repeated her last year so she could improve her grades, which were better than I could do any day. But she wanted to go to university and study to be a vet. But due to the popular demand and people applying, she wasn't unable to get a place. Also again, she hadn't claimed a place due to her brains and long list of experience.

So, now they were both gone, they left college to pursue better things, Penny is going university in a few months, whilst Robyn is having a gap year and will try to attempt to get into university next year.

Due to my daytime sleepiness I can't last on a bus longer than 15 minutes, so I usually get 10 bus from my college then get off in near where my old high school was, the one which I moved from, then get the 89 bus from bus terminal there. The 89 bus does travel from my college but it usually takes up to half an hour, also it took longer to come. While the 10 bus came every 12 minutes, also it split up the journey for me, so I didn't feel nearly as tired.

However, lately this hasn't been as effective anymore. I've been following my usual plan, getting the 10 bus then getting off to get the 89. But when I finally on my way home on the 89, after 10 minutes, my head begins to feel heavy and it becomes impossible to keep my eyes open. I open my eyes sometimes thinking 'Oh I'm not at the village yet', then next moment I open my eyes and the bus is speeding towards the roundabouts, which are only a few stops away from where I have to get off.

Sometimes my eyes snap open as it hits me like a ton of bricks to wake up, but other times I still can't shake off the tiredness.

Luckily, which actually quite a surprise but I have never missed my bus stop due to my tiredness. I got a feeling it may happen one day, I'll probably wake up to find myself in the other side of town.

When I have someone with me, I'm fine I can stay awake because I'm interacting and keeping my brain alert. But when I'm alone, it's almost impossible.

On the bright side, I haven't had a spell of tiredness for a while during classes, which is brilliant for someone who only a few months ago couldn't pay attention properly in class or concentrate in a quiet or dark room without shutting down.

I felt more of a growing need to have a nap, almost every day there would come a time in the day where I can't stay awake, many times I'd be staring at my laptop and find my eyes closing countlessly. Whenever I felt like this I would try to have a sugary drink or move about, but sometimes I just had to hide away and have a nap, since without it I found it hard to function. Similar to how a car needs petrol to drive or how a phone needed charging, I needed my sleep to feel sane, well as sane as a girl with Narcolepsy can feel.

In the past, I use to get frustrated with myself for giving into naps during the day, since I felt like a part of me had given into Narcolepsy itself.

It's sort of like I'm battling this invisible presence or conscience or force which is Narcolepsy. The only way I can describe it like is how bullies want to pick on you and see you be scared of them, so by getting upset with what those bullies are doing, they've won and achieved their objective, which was to make you feel miserable. So me giving into sleep, which Narcolepsy probes me to do repeatedly, it's as if it's won because that's what its entitled goal was from the start.

After I awoken from one of my naps in the middle of the afternoon, not long after I came home from college, my mum entered my room.

"Did you have a nap?"

"Yeah." I said looking and feeling groggy.

I was perched on the end of my bed near my desk, as I opened my curtains slightly as the sun peaked through.

I didn't know how to explain my sleeping spells to my mum, since this had become fairly new for the both of us, but she had slowly grown to understand in the last few months after my diagnosis.

"It's as if I'm little again, like the way I had naps in the afternoon."

"Yeah it's as if you've gone backwards." She smiled in disbelief.

In the last three years I had gone from an energetic carefree girl to a tired forgetful person, who had become deprived from wakefulness and as irritable as a child without shut eye.