Got Fired.

[u/Dismal-Load-5317]

I recently got a second job working part time at a small business that’s managed by someone I know. I loved it! I let them know I have Type 1 Narcolepsy and may struggle getting in on time because of hypersomnia and miss some shifts or be late to them. They were really understanding but this week I missed a shift, was an hour late, and today ran late as well. Overall a bad week for me. Today they talked to me and said that they know my absences and tardiness are not my fault and there’s no hard feelings, but they had to let me go. They said they’re not hiring anyone new for the position and that I’m on probation and to contact them in the fall. Just basically said it wasn’t a good fit for me right now kind of thing. I am also worried that by fall and I contact them back they won’t hire me again despite saying it’s just a probation period…..I’m really distraught over this, I thought I could do it. I also feel like they didn’t like me?

I’ve been prescribed Lumryze, but I’m terrified to take it because of side effects. I’m also a 20 year old online college student and don’t want any more of my life and “normal” experiences taken away from me. This condition has turned me into an unreliable, irresponsible, stupid, and unpleasant person. The brain fog is so intense there’s just static most days, I used to be brilliant.

Should I try and contact them in the fall or are they for sure just done with me? Is it time to give Lumryze a try? Have I destroyed a friendship and other new relationships because I got fired?

Thank you for reading my unorganized rant.

[u/That_Plantain7435]

Narcolepsy has taken so much from me as well. Sending love. Be kind to yourself.

[u/LunaBananaGoats]

You won’t know until you try contacting them. It sounds like they were as pleasant about the situation as they could be.

I can’t decide what medication is right for you, but you can’t spend the rest of your life missing work or being late to it. You’ve gotta treat your condition. You have an advantage in having this diagnosis young. I know it doesn’t feel like an advantage right now, but information is power.

[u/Admirable-Potato3741]

Lumryz worked so well for me for 2 months. Then it didn’t. It’s worth a shot trying it. Please be kind to yourself. Everyone makes mistakes. Each day is a new day.

[u/carm_aud]

Hey I feel the same some days - irresponsible and unreliable. I know what it’s like to be worried about a job. Try the medication for a while, and then let your doctor know if it has worked for you. It’s worth it. At this point - in my mind - there’s nothing to lose & taking the chance can help you begin the journey to figuring out what works best for managing narcolepsy. I used to be scared of side effects too. I stopped reading them and listened to my body. I see a yearly doctor for checkups on my vitals and through my narcolepsy care I even get EKGs to make sure the stimulants I take aren’t impacting my heart directly. There are ways to manage your body and monitor it as you explore medications. You’re so young (I’m in the same age range) and if I’m gonna be honest it’s the best time for us to tackle narcolepsy head on to have as normal of a life as we possibly can - given the limitations.

I’d try to make steps towards progress. In whatever way you decide to go forward whether you take my advice or not. And document that. Then when you call again, be ready to explain that you’ve been working on these faults and are ready to come back with eagerness and with a new approach towards managing the symptoms. I’m sure they’d appreciate the honesty even if they don’t take you back.

Overall, you will get this. Don’t let these bad days, phases, challenges get the better of you (wayyy easier said than done I know). You know who you are regardless of the condition so remind yourself that you are a good person who can try their best to figure out what’s next.

[u/Why-DoI-Exist]

I got fired for not being present enough mentally (Micro sleeps and dissociation). I really loved my job and I miss it. I'm on disability now but I know how you feel. ❤️

[u/BruceCambell → u/Why-DoI-Exist]

How are you "undiagnosed" and yet on disability? Or did you get it for something else? It's incredibly hard to get on disability even WITH a true diagnosis.

[u/Why-DoI-Exist → u/BruceCambell]

I'm diagnosed with a slew of disorders, so I got on disability because they all together make it nearly impossible to work, I am currently diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue and Excessive Daytime Sleepiness as well as others that I do not wish to disclose. I'm also in the process of trying to get it diagnosed. I also had a lawyer.

[u/WasabiPeas2]

My daughter is on Lumeryz and after just two months she’s so much better. Side effects were very minimal for her.

[u/857_01225]

Oxybates gave me back my life, stimulants get me through it. Both incidentally also mostly stopped me from drinking at all, or timing it carefully and keeping it under control, which also isn’t a bad thing.

It’s scary, but when I look back on my own twenties and early thirties, the jobs I lost, the life I didn’t get to enjoy…. Yeah, the meds are worth the risk when approached correctly.

Also… “hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have…. But I have it.” The song itself is kind of an exemplar of how genuinely bipolar the artist is, but…

I had to hear it in those terms before it really clicked that yes, there is life to look forward to, and there will be successes, no, not all of my failures are direct results of my conscious choices etc.

Hope with wild abandon is dangerous af for us. But then again, in my life I’ve been through Ritalin, high dose sudafed in an uninsured pinch (don’t try that shit these days, they’ll think you’re making street drugs), provigil, nuvigil, and sunosi as they’ve become available. We’ve made crazy progress, patent trolling be damned, so there’s cause for hope.

The oxybates will help you to get useful sleep, the stimulants take up the slack during the day.

Yeah, there will be setbacks. Embarassing ones sometimes. But (as an American) the meds are the reason I’m able to work, function, have health insurance, and get to a doctor visit in the first place.

Without em… I’d have been dead of self-medication many years ago, just trying to keep my sanity. It’s not that the jobs I lost were good ones - I was young, they were throwaway jobs mostly - but the terror of waking up hours late knowing there’s an hour commute ahead just to get canned on the spot, _yet again_…

Yeah, that was bad. From where I sit, some of the problem is conditioning related, where we fail to wake up for important things, get conditioned into additional fear of the same, which does no good for sleep quality, which etc.

Dunno whether this job will come back around for you or not, but that’s not the important part. Treatment and getting a degree will solve a world of problems for you.

The degree is a free pass to HR types who will sort of assume you are capable of learning, and capable of showing up; they know as well as anyone else that the rest can be faked or learned on the fly.

Treating the illness means you end up with less frequent episodes, more reasonable requests for accommodation, and generally helps the symptoms from being a dealbreaker for jobs - or any other kind of human relationship, for that matter.

[u/Sleepy_kat96]

I stayed away from Xyrem for a really long time due to side effects I read about on this sub. When I finally started it a few months ago, I was so scared. But I have had almost no side effects. I’m like, a little more anxious than I was before. That’s it. Overall it’s been totally worth it. Obviously not everyone has that experience, but judging by what my doctor says, I think mild effects are more common than severe ones.

If you’re worried, it can be helpful to start out on Xyrem at first, because you have more control over your dose and can titrate up as slowly as you need to. Once you find the dose that works, you can switch to Lumryz.

[u/frogeyedape]

Them firing you after you let them know you had a medical condition [that they might reasonably understand could be accommodated by flexible scheduling] could well be disability discrimination. If you've got the energy, finding a lawyer that will do a free consult could be beneficial.

Have you taken other oxybates before, or would Lumryz be your first? I started w/Xyrem and the standard titrating up schedule was way too fast for me, I'd be dizzy during the day when the dose increased too quickly. It was a lot better staying at a lower dose for a while and very slowly titrating up to the normal max dose (4.5 x2, 9g total per night)--which I did w/my dr's supervision, and was possible b/c I measured each dose. B/c of that experience, I think I would have had a really hard time titrating up from nothing with Lumryz b/c the doses are premeasured (difficult to modify in exact quantities unless you've got a really good scale maybe) and the increases between doses levels are pretty big relative to what I did w/Xyrem. YMMV, but if you're worried about side effects, talk with your doctor, explore your options. You can even check if you're eligible for a narcolepsy drug trial--they're recruiting for one for a new one that acts on orexin right now, but it's placebo controlled so if you need immediate treatment there's no guarantee you wouldn't start on the placebo & it might not be a good fit

[u/willsketch → u/frogeyedape]

But also don’t hang your hopes on the disability discrimination claim to go anywhere. I had an employer dead to rights on audio admitting that they fired me for my disability and knew about it in advance and I still lost my EEOC case and this was 5 years ago. It was already a system designed to fail and heavily favored employers and I’m sure that’s only worse with all of the defunding and firings happening at the federal level. I’m not saying don’t file, I’m saying set your expectations appropriately.

[u/kortobo → u/frogeyedape]

You need to be able to actually do the job. There is no discrimination if you plainly are unable to carry out what you have been hired for.

[u/Odd_Invite_1038]

I’ve lost many jobs over the years by not ever disclosing my diagnoses. I’m no stranger to the feeling you’re currently feeling.

If I were in your position I would absolutely work with my sleep specialist and get started on lumryz to see if it’ll help you (it’s helped me and made a day/night difference in my life).

Keep your head up, jobs will come and go. You continuing to push forward is only going to help you in the long run. You’re young and resilient.

[u/cyndiann]

This is why I ended up doing gig work. I can work when I want to or in this case when I am actually awake. Sounds like you need to experiment with different medications to find the right one. My problem is that Adderall seems to be the right one for me as far as brain fog goes but I need my dose adjusted higher and I don't know if my doctor will do that. I was doing great for the longest time. Or maybe I need to add something else along with it. Nobody seems to want to help me try different options. It was hard enough finding someone to prescribe it at all. The pulmonologist refused to write it for me at all even after I explained the loss of quality of life I would have without it. So I fired him. Then a letter came from his office saying he had to let me go, as if this was his idea. I hate having this! He claimed I don't have it at all and when I wrote a long email to him about that and him making claims in my visit reviews saying I had depression when I don't I had to call him out. I have been looking for an herbal solution to this to stop the madness but haven't found it yet.

[u/whoisdatmaskedman]

I've been fired three times for micro sleeping at work. They don't care why it happened and no matter what I'm lazy.

[u/Innocuous_Ruin]

Try the lumryz. I waited years to get on Xyrem because of the possibilities but after taking it, I realized that I had way over thought things. Its tough to lose a job over something you can't control, but it will happen. I would recommend that in the future you formally assign accommodations so that you have it on paper and can bring it up. Its tough that way and will make your field smaller, but in order to protect yourself in the workforce, it may be necessary.

[u/jfireflyp]

I’m so sorry to hear this. pwn4pwn.org has just ai workshop for jobs seekers as apart of their jobs project. Maybe worth looking into - https://www.pwn4pwn.org/jobs/

Good luck with everything! I was on xyrem for 13 years before switching to Lumryz 2 years ago. Works well for me!

[u/That_Plantain7435]

Are you unreliable or are you sick? Are you irresponsible or do you just have a medical condition? Are you stupid or does your brain not experience restorative sleep at night? Are you unpleasant or are you suffering from an invisible chronic illness that is making employment feel impossible?

You need to prioritize changing the narrative you have about yourself. You need to speak to yourself kindly. This was something I had to work on in therapy and it’s helped immensely. Having narcolepsy is difficult enough, don’t be your own bully.

[u/kortobo]

What side effects? You lost your job but would not try one of the main tools available to treat your condition?

[u/sleepydabmom]

Try the sodium oxybate. I don’t recommend Lumryz for your first try. I’ve found Xyrem much easier to tolerate and you have way more freedom on dosing. Take these few months to get adjusted to the meds and then you’ll be able to work in the fall!