Sleep When You're Dead

I have an undiagnosed sleep disorder.

Well, I am officially an MD now, so I guess, *technically*, my sleep disorder is diagnosed.

Let's just start at the beginning:

I was born. I had undiagnosed ADHD and childhood depression that turned into undiagnosed ADHD and depression throughout adolescence and into adulthood. In fact, none of it was diagnosed until my final year if college!

As a child, I'd often awake to find myself asleep on the floor of the hallway in our house, in someone else's bed or on the sofa and have no recollection of having ever moved myself to this location during the night.

I have bruxism like a motherfucking boss. My dad said that he used to be able to hear my teeth grinding while being in a completely different room of the house when i was a small child.

I have jimmy legs when I sleep. When I used to go to sleepovers with childhood friends, I'd often awake to find myself on a completely different side of the living room than everyone else. This is because my friends were forced to drag my sleeping body across the room in order to attain peaceful sleep themselves since I was constantly kicking them in my sleep.

I have frequent bouts of sleep paralysis. It is, hands down, one of the most disturbing things I've ever experienced.

Convinced yet? Because so far none of my personal doctors have felt that I need a sleep study.

I know I don't get enough sleep but it is through no fault of my own. I am that doctor that is chasing my patients down with a copy of instructions for Sleep Hygiene and I have literally had screaming matches with my mother about why I cannot have a television in my bedroom. My friends know I must get my 8-10 hours of sleep every single night or there will be hell to pay. Despite this, I am still not a well rested person. I still feel the need to nap (though I am often not in a position where it is socially acceptable to nap... like when talking with patients) and I cannot remember what life was like before the mental fogginess.

When I have voiced these concerns to my personal doctors, they were always like, "It's because you're in medical school!" But this goes so far back into my childhood that I'm pretty sure medical school has nothing to do with it.

During my Neurology clerkship in medical school I was forced to shadow doctors running a Sleep Clinic. This was absolutely one of the worst experiences of my medical school career. Imagine being a chronically underfed person who then has to attend a series of cooking classes but you are NEVER allowed to eat the food. This is what that felt like. I'm having to listen to these doctors talk to patients about sleep and it was just making me so sleepy but I was not allowed to nap! I hated that clinic and I hated those doctors. Oh, I bet they're all just so well rested and smug about it.

I can't even read about Sleep Medicine without having to lay down for a while and attempt to nap. In fact, "nap" is my favorite word. I'm pretty sure if I had a child, I'd name him/her "Nap".