14 DAY TRIAL // A young girl living in Dublin, Ireland, is unable to watch comedies or horror movies simply because laughing or experiencing strong emotions such as terror makes her collapse to the ground.
The 19-year-old, named Jodie Kelly, suffers from a rare condition known to the medical community as cataplexy. What this means is that, when she laughs or something frightens her, her muscles weaken and she falls to the ground.
The same thing happens if she gets angry. Since there is no way to completely avoid laughing or other emotions, the girl goes through such episodes of muscle weakness and ends up on the floor about a dozen times a day.
The sensation is very weird, the 19-year-old says
Jodie Kelly, now studying business management, says that, whenever she laughs, the muscles in her legs suddenly become so weak that she can no longer stand upright. Moments later, she also loses control of her head, as if she were a baby.
“I can literally feel my knees going from beneath me as soon as I start to laugh,” the 19-year-old said in an interview, as cited by DM. “My head begins to flop like a new born baby's and then before I know it I'm on the floor,” she added.
The girl says she first lost control of her body after laughing while watching “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.” Since she was sitting down in a cinema, nobody really noticed and, for a while, the girl kept the entire affair a secret.
When she finally told her parents, they took her to see a doctor and she was diagnosed with cataplexy. In time, she learned to control her emotions, especially when not at home. Even so, she still collapses several times a day.
The young girl also suffers from narcolepsy
The thing about cataplexy is that, quite often, it counts as a symptom of narcolepsy. Specifically, about 70% of the people who lose control of their body when experiencing strong emotions also suffer from this chronic neurological disorder.
Having narcolepsy herself, the 19-year-old is almost always tired and needs more sleep than healthy people. Thus, Jodie Kelly says that, to function, she has to sleep about 15 hours a day. Since she sometimes gets very vivid nightmares, this isn't as pleasant an experience as some might assume.
The girl says that, over the years, she has made considerable progress learning how to live with these medical conditions. She can now sense when she is about to collapse and trusts that she can avoid being injured when falling to the ground.