Narcolepsy Forum Posting

Posted by Theresa on December 11, 1999 at 21:30:06:

In Reply to: Narcolepsy, A Left Over From A Nervous BreakDown??? posted by John D. Lyle on December 11, 1999 at 17:37:25:

John,

I would be very interested to hear you expand on your thoughts further.

When I was 10, my dad had an affair and divorced my mom. Within a span of 3 years, he moved out, got remarried, and started another family with a much younger woman than himself (ironically, she
was also his secretary). My mom had a major nervous break down as a result, and she took much of her anguish out on me since I was the oldest child. We were in councelling together for quite sometime before she started to come around. She lost a lot of friends because she should've been on medication for her depression, but she refused to take any. In the mean time, my dad seemed to be going through a huge mid-life crisis. When me and my sister would go to visit him, he would act tremendously selfish, and oblivious to what my sister and I were going through. In the end, he broke my heart, and to this day I must still resume councilling every once in a while. My symptoms of Narcolepsy, however, did not surface until I was about 15.

When my boyfriend of 2 & 1/2 years cheated on me and broke up with me in my first year of university, I was absolutely devistated. It was around this time that my EDS became unbearable. No matter what I did, I couldn't keep my eyes open. Some people thought I was depressed, but even long after the breakup the symptoms persisted so I knew this was not depression. I managed to get a sleep test done, and the result was Narc. We also did some family research, and found out that my grandfather had "the sleeping sickness."

In a councilling session the other day, something called EMDS was mentioned. I forget exactly what it stands for... Eye Movement Detection something... Anyway, it's a procedure used on patients who have experienced severe emotional trauma. It's not exactly hypnosis, but it's an exercise that gets the patient to re-live the event, and then the psychologist performs a series of movements in order to get the brain to process the event. The movements are supposed to envoke REM brain waves because it is REM sleep that is supposed to help process memories from the conscious. With severe emotional trauma, the event was never processed by the brain properly, so the technique uses REM to finally get the brain to process the event. Of course, I mentioned the complications of REM and Narc., and my psycologist said he would have to do some more research over the holidays, but the fragmented patterns of REM sleep I experience from the Narc. or the excessive brain waves of REM may have had an adverse effect on how I process traumatic memories. In other words, he suggested that the reason why I am still able to remember the divorce like it was yesterday is because the screwed up REM I have as a result of the Narc., may have inhibited the proper processing of information. It sounded too good to be true, honestly, but he's going to investigate further (because he's not a Narc. expert - YET!) and I may actually start EMDR treatment next year.

I will write more info on the treatment when I get it, but I just thought of this when I read your posting. If what my psycologist says is true, then the fact remains that Narc. is NOT a psychological disorder, but perhaps Narc. can be the foundation for many types of psycological problems since the abnormal REM results in abnormal processing of conscious information.

Have you heard of this type of treatment before?
Do you think it could relate to what you were talking about in your posting? I will try to find out more info as soon as I can.

Thanks in advance for the reply.

Theresa

Follow Ups:

• Re: Abnormal REM patterns = Abnormal processing of conscious? Linda 12/21/99 (0)
• Re: Abnormal REM patterns = Abnormal processing of conscious? Donna 12/12/99 (0)

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