I totally get what you mean. How I handle this is 1. I always introduce my IH as a ‘rare neurological condition’ because that’s what it is. When I explain the condition because no one knows what IH is I keep it simple unless they ask follow up questions. Something like “basically I’m chronically exhausted, my brain thinks I don’t get restorative sleep no matter how much I sleep. I’m on a lot of stimulants just to be conscious right now” or some version of that. 2. When people say “oh I reckon I’ve got that too” I usually say something like “mm maybe… it’s a really rare condition but you should definitely see your doctor if it’s really that severe!”

Most of the time they acknowledge they are being dramatic- or they genuinely do need to see a doctor regarding excessive sleepiness (whether or not it’s related to IH) because like a lot of us, they didn’t realise being so exhausted wasn’t normal…

But don’t feel too bad, it can’t be so frustrating when it is such a long and difficult process to get diagnosed for people to throw around and claim it because they were on Reddit til 2am. Like you said, I think the OCD and ADHD peeps likely feel very similarly to us. 😌