Related to other thread but branching off on a topic mentioned. Non 24 is a sleep disorder where the part of your brain that syncs your sleep wake cycle with light, the suprachiasmatic nucleus or SCN, doesn’t do its job. Generally, this is caused by total blindness because your SCN has no light to make the judgements off of. But it is also present in sighted people for unknown reasons, the SCN just decides to do its own thing and the circadian rhythm seems to exist totally separate from light and dark.
Generally this results in a person who keeps very very different hours than the rest of the world, often first misdiagnosed as a delayed circadian rhythm but distinct in that there are no defined wake up and go to sleep times. Instead the person may find they are tired at a later, and later time every night and wake up later and later each day until the clock resets itself and the cycle begins again.
As the modern world doesn’t really accommodate such a bizarre sleep cycle, those with the disorder often experience poor quality, disrupted sleep leading them to develop symptoms almost perfectly mimicking narcolepsy, except with no cataplexy present. This serious disregulation of the circadian rhythm affects all cells in the body, so those with it are also prone to mental illness, especially depression, and even hallucinations and other symptoms mimicking psychosis, as well as physical illness and are likely to often be sick. (I have always been sickly, since I was a kid, I get sick constantly)
I think this could be the source of it all. To my deep misfortune however it’s not yet known how to correct this flaw in the SCN, and so the main treatments are pretty much exactly the same as they are for any other sleep disorder, sleep aids and stimulants. Being diagnosed with this wouldn’t change my course of treatment, or my current situation, in the slightest.
But it is satisfying to finally find something with which I feel I click so well and it’s not just one of my symptoms here or there which kind of fit the description. This is dead on me and my life experience. Maybe someday they will find a way to correct the SCN and knowing this about myself could be life changing. Who knows. That’s all for now.
summary: Non 24 is a sleep disorder that I feel I completely match all the symptoms on. Not just partially sort of like I do with the other sleep disorders I’m diagnosed with. I feel it could be the source of everything including my poor mental and physical health through life. There’s currently no specific way of treating it but maybe in the future there will be and I’ll have a cure for it all and won’t need to be on a bajillion different meds with a bajillion different diagnoses all of which I only sort of fit. This brings me a lot of hope.
