I am so glad Miranda is getting to share her story because I believe this is something that really gets "misdiagnosed" alot. It is so important that kids don't get categorized as wanting to be this way. Through my youngest memories, I slept alot; it was nothing for me to sleep two days through -- even when I would go to my grandmother's house where I loved to go. I was always "tired". One time I rolled out of bed and landed on an adjacent wooden rocking chair and tore up my face. I was told that my sister got my parents and they dr'ed me up in the bathroom and I never woke up. I got up the next day and didn't know what had happened to me and was very scared. I hated my childhood and my father who was very mentally controlling, but didn't realize it. I was sick alot with things like sore throats, tonsilitus, flu type illnesses. I had 3 reoccuring nightmares that haunted me. I wonder if this is part of the reason I developed my sleep pattern.
I hated school K - 2, but then started helping other kids with math in the 3rd, and started liking school. I was designated a mentally gifted minor in the third grade and transferred to another school in the 5th which had gifted classes and then I started hating school again and started getting C's and below. I tested out of school in the 10th grade through a proficiency exam and after the 11th started attending the city college where I chose to take remedial classes and start all over. Still to this day I don't feel like I learn correctly. I started working everyday after school and weekends when I was twelve years old and outworked many of the adults because I was so much of a thinker and quiet to go about my job I guess.
When I was in my late teens, I worked for a (world wide) corporation and at my two year review they gave me an alarm clock and wanted to put me on disability because of always being late to work. I had the second to the top work performance in the nation and that is the reason they wanted to keep me on but between strep throat for six months and being late they had to do something. I finally just quit the job because of the stress. I covered my late-ness at my next two jobs by getting jobs that I had to do part of my work before arriving at the office. Nobody every knew I was late. My next job's boss realized I put in extra hours every evening and even started adjusting his schedule to arrive later and later so again it worked out. During my next job I would just stay awake basically all week and Friday night when I would get off, I'd fall asleep and stay there til Monday morning when my room mate would wake me up.
I had good health insurance during all these years but all the doctors just kept saying there was nothing wrong except having strep all the time. When I got my tonsils out, (finally recommended by a specialist) they kept waking me up in the hospital because I was falling away. I just knew it hurt like hell to be awake! Back to the tiredness issue, I endured test after test including the old fashioned glucose tolerance torture on two occasions. Finally, a small town female doctor said she thought I was sleeping too deep but that's as far as it went. I had room-mates throughout these years and they constantly were checking me to see if I was alive! They knew I didn't do drugs or alcohol so they couldn't figure out why I was so sleepy.
When I turned 21, I purchased my first townhouse. Wow, my own place. One of the first things I did was get a puppy. It was a spur of the moment. I was visiting friends that had a six week old litter of husky-cross pups and I took one home. The puppy had separation anxiety like most do and every few hours it would start crying. That woke me up instantly! As soon as I would hear the puppy, I would snap out of my sleep and go to comfort the puppy. Of course that was the worst thing I could have done for the puppy but it solved my deep sleep issue because I never made it into that deep state of sleep. The puppy eventually started sleeping longer and longer and so did I until I realized that getting exactly six hours of sleep left me feeling totally rested and raring to go! Now still to this day, many times I get more sleep than I should and I pay for it being tired.
Much of the time coma is the better word for my sleep. I can know what is going on around me but am totally "asleep" -- it's like my mind and body are two different entities. I believe this is what it's like when people say they have an out-of-body experience like at an accident scene or dying in the hospital only to be revived. Many years ago I read of an experiment where they put these people in an underground cave to live. They took all measure of time away from these people and fixed the environment where they could not calculate the days by any means. If I remember correctly, these people started having something like 30+ hour cycles of sleep to wake but didn't realize it.
So to Miranda I say "Ask your Mom for a puppy!!" To Miranda's Mom I say "Say YES!" and you'll be glad you did. And who knows, I grew up to be a rancher and now I have lots of critters to keep me awake!
Have you ever felt like you’re running in place and going nowhere? What if you could learn some critical keys to increase your intelligence? Dr. Phil, along with Dr. Frank Lawlis, chairman of the Dr. Phil Advisory Board and author of The IQ Answer, gives you practical techniques to maximize your full potential. His first guest, Elizabeth, says she’s tried everything to wake up her daughter, Miranda, in the morning -- massaging her feet, splashing water on her face, even blasting rap music! Miranda says she can sleep up to 17 hours straight, and has lost five jobs because of her tardiness. Find out what happens when she gets a wake-up call -- Dr. Phil style! Then, Faith says her 17-year-old daughter, Myia, panics before taking tests. She gets headaches, stomachaches, and often comes home crying. Can Dr. Lawlis help the teen get over her fears? Plus, find out why Dr. Phil needs Dr. Lawlis’ IQ Answer, and learn important information every parent needs to know about retraining your child’s brain. Talk about the show here.
