EDITOR’S NOTE: “Overcoming the Odds” is a series celebrating ordinary people who fight extraordinary adversities with honesty, courage and resilience.
Amy Clifton has three beautiful children, a loving husband and a rare sleep disorder that caused her to consider suicide.
“My kids were crying and saying, ‘Mom, will you ever have enough energy to play with us again?’ “, Amy said. “I felt lost and hopeless, truly believing that I was a burden to my family and that they would be better off without me. »
At age 4, Amy struggled with insomnia, nightmares, and overwhelming daytime sleepiness. Yet it took doctors nearly three decades to adequately diagnose and treat her type 1 narcolepsy. The disease occurs because the brain is deprived of orexin, a key chemical that stabilizes sleep.
Without enough orexin, the brain remains half asleep, half awake, turning narcolepsy type 1 into a serious, life-threatening illness that can rob a person of their ability to work, drive, manage family responsibilities, and live a full, active life.
In elementary school, Amy was considered lazy. As a sleep-deprived teenager plagued by mood swings and irritability, she was dismissed as hormonal — her pediatrician prescribed birth control. The distressing hallucinations that often occur with narcolepsy have been considered childhood “sleep terrors.”
“When I was a teenager, I was sleeping and I would hear someone talking to me through the window. I would see lights going on and off under my door, shadows passing under the door and even people or creatures standing in the corner of my room,” Amy said. “I was terrified, and when I finally realized they weren’t real, I thought, ‘Am I going crazy? Why am I seeing these things that aren’t there?'”
Strong emotions could suddenly cause Amy’s muscles to give way – a condition called cataplexy and a characteristic of narcolepsy type 1. Amy has partial catalepsy, which only affects certain muscles instead of freezing the whole body.
“My grip would suddenly give out and I would drop things,” Amy said. “My body would freeze when I heard a loud noise, and when I laughed, my head would bob and my knees would buckle. I quickly learned to hold on to something when that happened to keep from falling.”
” data-fave-thumbnails=”{“big”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/screenshot-2026-10-08-at-12-43-05-pm-20261008165657932.png?c=16×9” }, “small”: { “uri”: “https://media.cnn.com/api/v1/images/stellar/prod/screenshot-2026-10-08-at-12-43-05-pm-20261008165657932.png?c=16×9″ } }” data-vr-video=”false” data-show-html=”“data-byline-html=”
By
“data-timestamp-html=”
” data-check-event-based-preview=”” data-is-vertical-video-embed=”false” data-network-id=”” data-publish-date=”2026-10-08T16:54:36.116Z” data-video-section=”health” data-canonical-url=”” data-branding-key=”” data-video-slug=”amy-clifton-cataplexy-trigger” data-first-publish-slug=”amy-clifton-cataplexy-trigger” data-video-tags=”” data-breakpoints=”{” video-resource–media-extra-large”:=”” 660}”=”” data-display-video-cover=”true” data-details=”” wp_automatic_readability=”5.8994413407821″
Amy’s laughter triggers an episode of partial cataplexy.
” data-check-event-based-preview=”” data-network-id=”” data-publish-date=”2026-10-08T16:54:36.116Z” data-video-section=”health” data-canonical-url=”” data-branding-key=”” data-video-slug=”amy-clifton-cataplexy-trigger” data-first-publish-slug=”amy-clifton-cataplexy-trigger” data-video-tags=”” data-media-metadata=”{“adKeyValuePairs”:{“spec”:”default”},”boltId”:”9240b279-ab77-533d-8cce-c3cceeb478a5″,”ing mark”: “default”, “cepFedSegs”: “wbd:16BC”, “cepParams”: “16BC=cep_sent”, “cepTopics”: {“16BC”: “cep_sent”}, “description”:
Amy’s laughter triggers an episode of partial cataplexy.
“,”firstPublishSlug”:”amy-clifton-cataplexy-trigger”,”headline”:”Cataplexy of Amy Clifton trigger”,”id”:”mecb07a59297d04491e1eb9a460dc35a2ce73b212b”,”isAdSensitive”:true,”mediumId”:”mecb07a59297d04491e1eb9a460dc35a2ce73b212b”,”sectionName”:”health”, “source”: “CNN”, “stellarId”: “L19jb21wb25lbnRzL3ZpZGVvLXJlc291cmNlL2luc3RhbmNlcy9jbXV6cnZ4MjkwMDAwM2I2cHZvdXcxZHY4”, “trt”: “24.124”, “videoTags”: (), “videoUrl”: “”}” class = “video resource”
Amy’s laughter at a surprised dog triggers an episode of partial cataplexy.
Yet doctors were unable to identify the true cause of his symptoms. Even when the consequences led to suicidal thoughts and hospitalization at age 29, specialists misdiagnosed his hallucinations and drowsiness as bipolar 2 disorder.
“The medication they gave me for my bipolar disorder made me feel like a zombie,” Amy said. “Then I thought, ‘These medications aren’t making me feel better, I’m feeling worse. I’m not the mother I want to be. I’m not the woman I want to be.'”
No matter where she turned for help, there was no answer. Amy sank into despair.
“She lost the will to live life,” said Amy’s husband, Peter Clifton. “I had to remind him, ‘Remember to keep fighting, remember to keep going.'”
Amy and Peter began dating at a Christian liberal arts college in Michigan, when she was a freshman and he was a freshman. As their relationship developed, he knew that she took frequent naps and had occasional nightmares, but he did not realize the depth of her struggles. That changed on their honeymoon in the U.S. Virgin Islands.
“It was our first night together,” Peter said. “There’s nothing in the room. I smile at her as she falls asleep. Suddenly she sits up and hits me in the face. I mean, she really hit me.”
Amy’s perspective was different. “There was a man in the corner of the room, which always terrifies me. I tried to scream for help, but I couldn’t. I was paralyzed, another sign of narcolepsy. When I was able to move and saw Peter leaning over me, I was so panicked that I punched him in the nose. I felt horrible about it!”
For years, their wedding night mishap sparked laughter at parties, although neither Amy nor Peter could explain why these visions occurred. Today, they know that “hypnagogic hallucinations” are a key sign of narcolepsy type 1. Amy has an episode almost every night.
“It’s rare that this doesn’t happen,” Peter said. “Early in our marriage, I would get up in my boxers and walk through the rooms, expecting to jump on someone. Then I would stand for a while – my heart was racing, my blood pressure was rising.
“Today I can turn on the light and listen, and we both realize there’s nothing to worry about and we pretty much go back to sleep,” he said. “I’m no longer ‘SEAL Team Six’ running around the house cleaning every room.”
Yet interrupted sleep leads to sleep deprivation, which studies have linked to chronic illness, depression, anxiety, and an increased risk of suicidal thoughts. And as every parent knows, sleep deficits only get worse when children arrive.
New challenges: children and Covid-19
Peter and Amy welcomed their first child, a daughter, three years after their marriage. Sleep was fleeting, both for the new parents and for the little girl.
“Since she was a baby, my daughter has struggled to stay asleep for more than a few hours, waking up at night like me. Fragmented sleep is a big part of narcolepsy,” Amy said. “Now she is 9 years old and suffers from classic episodes of partial cataplexy.”
Twins, a boy and a girl, arrived two years later. What little rest Amy had was taken away from her. Then the pandemic came and the world went silent.
“We had just moved to a new city. Amy was stuck at home while I worked. with only his parents to help us – we didn’t yet have a supportive community of friends,” Peter said. “Then, just when the twins were old enough for us to feel in control and could start meeting new people, lockdown hit.
Amy’s exhaustion deepened. Sleeping while two babies and a toddler napped wasn’t enough. For people with narcolepsy, each day brings profound weariness of 48 to 72 hours of sleep deprivation — a toll few people understand, experts say.
“There is this stereotypical representation of narcolepsy as almost being a…
Gn Health
