From childhood we all remember a beautiful fairy tale about a princess who slept a hundred years in her castle until the kiss of the handsome prince brought her back to life. But today we remembered her not by chance. The fact is that modern psychology and psychiatry also encounters a similar phenomenon when a person plunges into deep sleep, and it is almost impossible to bring him out of this state. It got the beautiful name Sleeping Beauty Syndrome, although such a life is not much like a fairy tale.
Modern realities
With the wild pace of life, many of us dream of sleeping at least a few extra minutes, torn between household chores and work. It would seem very nice to spend the whole day in bed. And someone in anticipation of a vacation does not want to crawl out from under the covers, except to eat. However, there are people in the world who spend their whole lives in the arms of Morpheus. Moreover, the desire to extend the time of their rest causes horror in them, but they can not do anything.
Sleeping Beauty Syndrome
This is a rare disorder that experts put on a par with schizophrenia. This ailment develops suddenly, a person can be completely healthy, and then fall into "hibernation", in the literal sense of the word. Relatives usually get completely confused, because they do not know how to help him return to normal life. Doctors make a helpless gesture, saying that all processes in the body proceed normally, and no one in the modern world knows what is the reason for such an anomaly.
History
Sleeping Beauty Syndrome was first described for the first time back in 1786. The French doctor Edme Pierre Chavaut spoke about him. During practice, he encountered an inexplicable phenomenon, when patients fell asleep for 10-14 days, then returned to normal life, but soon everything repeated. In this case, the doctor only noted the presence of a strange anomaly, and suggested that the cause may be a violation of the brain.
For a long time, medicine and psychiatry could say little about these cases. This is also due to the fact that such patients are extremely rare. For a lifetime, a practitioner may not have a single such patient. Already in 1925, Willy Kleine described in detail a series of cases when a person was diagnosed with sleeping beauty syndrome, which significantly replenished the piggy bank of world medical practice. Ten years later, Max Levin added several cases, and he also revealed a relationship with eating disorders. It is thanks to these two people that the official name of this ailment appeared. Now in official reference books he is called Sleeping Beauty Syndrome or Klein – Levin Syndrome.
How is the disease manifested?
This property is characteristic of any neurological disorder. Depending on the state of the nervous system, age, gender and other characteristics of a person, it can manifest itself in different ways. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome was no exception. What is this disease, and how it manifests itself, we will now talk in more detail. Usually, until adolescence, a child is no different from peers. He normally attends school, gets up in the mornings and has difficulty getting laid in the evening. The first signs are in the age of 13 to 19 years. Parents are, to put it mildly, shocked when their beloved child falls asleep for several weeks. Examination in the clinic leads to the diagnosis: Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. Symptoms that are found in all patients are “hibernation”, which occurs suddenly, and with which a person is unable to fight, as well as increased appetite.
Patients sleep 18 or more hours a day. They can sometimes not wake up for several days. When relatives try to wake up to feed and take to the toilet. However, this is not so easy, patients become very aggressive. But that is not all. Sleeping Beauty Syndrome is a whole complex of symptoms. Patients disrupt all cognitive and perceptual processes. They do not understand where they are and what happens to them. Patients even in periods of wakefulness are as if in a fog, speech is incoherent, everything that happens is quickly erased from memory, as if it were in a dream. Patients cannot attend school or take care of themselves.
Eating disorder
Besides the fact that a person spends a lot of time in a dream, he is very different from himself even in those moments when they try to wake him. Relatives and treating doctors note that, being kind and flexible people, during the period of “hibernation” they change beyond recognition. Awakened, they are very sensitive to noise and light, complain that everything around is not in “focus”, too blurry. They can fall asleep at the table and in the toilet, just on the floor, so that a person does not have exhaustion, you will have to feed him very quickly.
At the same time, waking up from a dream, on the contrary, they show all signs of bulimia. In 75% of cases, they have gluttony without a feeling of fullness. That is, metabolic processes suffer, then the body is completely devoid of food, then it begins to arrive without any measure.
Gender differences
In most cases, sleeping beauty syndrome, the treatment of which is currently not possible, is most often found only in men. However, there are cases in world practice when young girls also suffered from it. They all have severely disrupted the usual rhythm of life. During the period of "hibernation" they miss classes, control, important meetings, which affects everyday life quite strongly. In men, hypersexual behavior forms as compensation, and women are more prone to depressive manifestations.
The duration of the disease
This is a chronic ailment, for which there is no cure. Episodes can occur every 3-6 months. They last for 2-3 days or more. A maximum of six weeks was recorded. In between, the person looks quite healthy. In addition to the violations described above, he is no different from his peers. However, periodic loss from real life is greatly affected. Such people are lagging behind in development, cannot fully work. When the patient wakes up after an attack, he does not recognize anyone, does not understand anything. This continues until its completion. Usually, relatives over time already begin to notice the approach of an attack. The patient becomes more aggressive and begins to eat a lot, as if stocking up for a period of hibernation.
Statistics
In total, 1000 patients with this diagnosis are currently registered in the world. Of these, 70% are men. Medicine cannot help them in any way, so relatives have to keep a round-the-clock shift, quit their jobs and forget about a normal, ordinary life. It should be noted that in most cases, the symptoms gradually soften, become less pronounced. If the first attack can last more than 10 days, then the subsequent ones are usually shorter. The period of remission between them is increasing, however, bulimia may well cause weight gain.
Psychology and Psychotherapy
Both the patient and his relatives really need professional help. The syndrome of a sleeping beauty in psychology is studied very deeply, since all its manifestations need correction. Many experts agree that the cause of the disease is a disorder of the subcortical centers of the hypothalamus, which regulate hunger and thirst, sleep and sexual desire. Moreover, during an attack with a person, no therapy can be carried out. The only thing the psychotherapists and psychiatrists agree on is that lithium helps to improve the condition, at a dosage of 600-1000 mg per day. After about three weeks, the patient's condition improves so much that further work can be done.
Even today, we don’t know too much about Sleeping Beauty Syndrome. What kind of disease, doctors continue to study, and until they come to a consensus about its treatment. The choice of the correction program depends on the condition of the patient, his features and complaints. Today, there are many effective techniques, including through psychoanalysis, symbol drama or art therapy, which will help to correct sexual and eating behavior. Unfortunately, this only works with symptoms; the cause remains unknown. But you don’t have to choose. Help is needed not only for the patients themselves, but also for their loved ones. They have to learn how to respond correctly to the patient, to experience a feeling of resentment for the limitedness of their own lives, and a sense of guilt for this resentment. A competent psychologist will teach you to competently respond to attacks of aggression before hibernation and after waking up. This work is extremely important for all family members, so do not neglect professional help.