BELLE HUTT: I mean there are days that I do give up and those days make me super sad, I call my mom crying.
I don’t want to do anything apart from sleep.
BELLE HUTT: Narcolepsy has changed my whole life.
BELLE HUTT: Excessive daytime sleepiness is what I think it defines as. They say that people with Narcolepsy
feel like if a normal person was not to sleep for 48 hours and then just be put in a working day. That’s how I feel
every single day. If 4 years ago, you had to put me in this position now and tell me,
‘By the way in 4 years you'll have to sleep 8 times a day, you won’t really be able to sit down to have lunch, dinner
or breakfast without falling asleep.’ I would be like, ‘There is no point in living. I don’t want to live.’
BELLE HUTT: The Narcolepsy has changed my life.
BELLE HUTT: I don’t really go out and socialise that much in the evening. I get very paranoid or I suppose
I get very panicky if friends invite me out because I want to go and I want to go and experience that sort of stuff
with them. But I am so scared that I am going to fall asleep.
BELLE HUTT: I can’t get an office job. I wanted to do interior design at university. I couldn’t even finish school.
I can’t even sit and have a meal without struggling. I have had boyfriends I am out for dinner with and I would
start doing something weird, and he really was like, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ Like, made me feel so
small. I have had boyfriends in the past actually who have broken up with me because of it.
I would say Maikel is one of a kind in the way that he deals with what I have got.
MAIKEL BREUKELMAN: I first met Annabelle when I was on a skiing holiday in 2014. We went out for some pizza
that evening with a big group and came home and then my brother Nick said,
‘Did you notice that blonde girl was just falling asleep all the time?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, she must have been so
wasted and Jesus, that’s weird.’ The day after I saw her in the upper ski bar again and I was like,
‘How drunk were you last night? Like, you just kept falling asleep.’ And then she was like,
‘Well, actually that’s not just the alcohol.
BELLE HUTT: And then when you said that you Googled it and it was like such old, bad videos and everything.
And then I just said, ‘Just get to know me and trust me it’s not like that.’
MAIKEL BREUKELMAN: The one time we were in Paris and people were just staring like you
were some circus act. BELLE HUTT: Yeah!
MAIKEL BREUKELMAN: That was one moment where I was really close to stepping in.
MAIKEL BREUKELMAN: So when Belle is drifting into an episode, I can kind of, notice that straight away because
one moment we are talking about something and she is quite lively and then the other moment she is just kind of,
gone and she would be talking about a complete new subject and doesn’t really know what she’s saying.
MAIKEL BREUKELMAN: We used to watch films together and sometimes a series but it’s not really fun because
she is just asleep most of the time. So now I never watch a series with her anymore. So if she doesn’t have
this sleep, she will stay, she will keep fighting and fighting and fighting but she won’t snap out of it.
So it’s good for her to, yeah, to be safe and have a sleep. I think she is always quite sharp when she wakes up.
It’s like, she just wakes up and, ‘How long was I gone for?’ is always the first question.
BELLE HUTT: I needed just that little and just 10 minutes and just back, back now.
BELLE HUTT: So I am just packing my stuff now. I am actually going back to the UK.
I am really excited. I am going to see my mom.
BELLE HUTT: I discovered I had Narcolepsy when I was 17. I said to my mom like,
‘I sleep really well at night and I am still falling asleep in the day. Can I go to the doctor?’
BELLE HUTT: I remember we were like, ‘What is Narcolepsy? I remember you saying, ‘Is there a cure?’
And the doctor was like, ‘It will only, actually, just get worse.’
At school, there were a few people in lessons that would tap each other, they would be like, they would film me,
my friends have drawn on my face like countless times. Actually, the teachers were the worst because the
amount of times they've been like, ‘Belle, what were you doing last night? Belle, maybe don’t go out so late.’
Actually, a teacher threw a pen at me once and they were like, ‘Don’t fall asleep in my class. Am I that boring?’
So that’s actually why I left school.
DEBRA HUTT: My biggest concern was leaving you alone.
Are you going to fall asleep in a dangerous situation?
BELLE HUTT: Yeah, because I fell asleep that one time when you were in France and I had that really bad
hallucination and I called you, crying my eyes out.
DEBRA HUTT: The biggest scare is the hallucinations; thinking that there is somebody stood outside her
bedroom, there is somebody coming in her bedroom, there is somebody holding her down. And when you are
not there, it’s very scary because is there somebody actually in the house? Is there somebody going into her
bedroom? Because she really does believe that there is somebody there. Everyone worries about their children.
It’s quite a natural thing, less so now because Maikel is an absolute huge support.
BELLE HUTT: When I am in the gym and I am doing running or high-intensity stuff, that’s when I feel most
amazing, and I thought, ‘I want to be a personal trainer.’
BELLE HUTT: After I have always done exercise class, I literally feel, it might sound a little bit cliche but I just feel
on top of the world. And I think that’s because I know the extreme other end. I understand like, some people are
like, ‘Yeah, you feel good after exercise.’ But I am like, ‘You don’t understand how great I feel.’ After I have done
a class and instead of driving straight home, I normally just come in here and I take a quick nap and these are
really convenient. I don’t actually know what they are used for exercise-wise but I use them as a pillow.
And then I grab one of these blankets. I suppose they knew I was coming when they built the gym. This may
be only like, 10 or 15 minutes but everyone here completely understands and knows and they are like,
‘Belle is in the Yoga room sleeping.’ And it’s completely normal.
BELLE HUTT: I don’t think I could have got to where I am today without my mom and Maikel.
I think those two are the two that really stand out.
BELLE HUTT: I will do everything I can to overcome every aspect that hits me of Narcolepsy because I have
got it but it doesn’t have me.