leep accounts for about a quarter of our lives. But what if controlling your sleep was out of your hands? People who live with narcolepsy, a rare condition that impairs the ability to regulate a regular sleep-wake cycle, know the answer. In short, this disease can cause people to fall asleep or zone out during the most mundane activities. Narcoleptics also often suffer from restless and interrupted nighttime sleep that is accompanied by vivid dreams. And it goes without saying that this disease can also take its toll not only on one’s physical but also on mental heath. Only about three thousand people in Denmark suffer from this disease.
This is Ditte’s story. She was diagnosed at the age of 8. While others were enjoying a carefree life, she had to deal with a constant stream of obstacles. A fractured daily routine in a world that is highly structured. Friends who turned away. The uncertainty of when the disease would manifest itself. The inability to laugh because laughter would trigger seizures. However, Ditte also found strength in her struggle.
Ditte laughs, works, dates, goes to school, drives a car and enjoys life. Narcolepsy doesn’t define her, but it made her who she is today. As she puts it in a poem she wrote when she was a child, it was like becoming someone new.
Tomáš Pacovský 