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Elle Wales is a graphic designer, known as Falling Asleep Elle (on the internet), creator of narcolepsy memes and a person with narcolepsy.

In this episode, Elle shares her diagnosis journey with Claire and how she navigated her university education while figuring out how to best manage symptoms. In the midst of all these transitions, Elle’s imagination, creative talents, passion for advocacy and honesty influenced her to first create a narcolepsy guidebook for her honours project, which you can access on falling-asleep.com. Elle also discusses the transition from school to maintain full-time work.

Elle has continued her creative advocacy endeavors by creating #NarcolepsyMemes. #NarcolepsyMemes are shareable images or gifs that usually speak about the reality of living with narcolepsy in a humorous but not belittling way. Through Instagram and #NarcolepsyMemes, Elle educates, advocates, and simply shares the day to day life of a PWN. She also has been honest and open about her mental health and how it does/does not relate to her narcolepsy.

It was such a pleasure to hear Elle’s story and work. You can follow Elle at @falling_asleep_elle on Instagram and @fallingasleepnarcolepsy on Facebook. You can learn more about narcolepsy on falling-asleep.com. Elle’s from Australia, so she recommends the Narcolepsy Support Australia Facebook Group. She also recommends the Rising Voices of Narcolepsy Program facilitated by Project Sleep.

You can follow us at @narcolepsy_360 on Instagram, @wakeupnarcolepsy on Instagram and Facebook and @wakenarcolepsy on Twitter. Let us know your thoughts about this episode by using the hashtag #narcolepsy360 and please rate and review us on iTunes.