Bed Time

It's 9:45pm, and I know I should be heading to bed. This is a nightly argument with myself. I have narcolepsy. Well, the current official diagnosis is ideopathic hypersomnolence. I take an anti-depressant, which suppresses REM sleep (in addition to its other effects). The nature of one's REM sleep is one of the ways narcolepsy is detected and diagnosed, so for insurance purposes it can't be called "narcolepsy" if you're taking something that effects it. Last time I fully went off meds it took a month and a half so that I didn't have to feel incredibly sick.

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9:06pm and I just took a pizza out of the oven... the previous half of the post actually ended in sleep, ironically. To pick up where I left off, I need to get a certain amount of sleep each night for the meds that treat the narcolepsy to actually work and help me be awake. Granted, I have not actually figured out what that amount is, but so far it seems that I need to be in bed, lights out, pillow to head, by 10pm if I have to work the next morning. I turn down requests to hang out to make this happen, but the truth is it rarely does. Half the time I'm not even doing anything important, urgent, or productive-- I'm playing mahjong, or doing a crossword puzzle, or repeatedly checking Facebook. I'll sit there, doing whatever I'm doing, and think "I should really go to bed. Mmm, maybe after one more game..."

It's the same story in the morning. I hit "snooze" so many times I lose count-- but seriously, I've snoozed my alarm for an hour... on multiple occasions. I'll consciously sit up, contemplate the time and if I'm waking up for this alarm, decide no, and snooze it again. I'm not actually sure what makes me decide whether I get up or not. When I ultimately get up, it's because I have absolutely run out of time--if I don't get up right then, I'll be late, or more than late. Some of it is feeling sleepy still, regardless of what time I go to bed. Sometimes I'm have super weird dreams that will continue and resolve themselves if I snooze enough times. Other times... I just really don't understand the struggle. I recall having a series of thoughts, ending in a decision about waking up, but in the morning I can't remember what the deciding factor is. The feeling is that there was something wrong about the minutes-- "no, it needs to be 6:20... no, 6:30, 6:35... maybe 6:38... It could just be me making rationalizations for going back to sleep. Even so, it really feels like I'm missing an explanation there, especially with the amount of anxiety I can feel about both going to bed and waking up.

My current thinking is that I'm really just not a morning person. I seem to be more functional starting a little later in the morning, and that continues thru until later at night. If I didn't need to wake up so early (for me), I could stay up later, until when I felt ready for sleep, and still have my meds work in the morning. This hypothesis could be totally off base. I already have an idea of what else could be adding to the situation, but that's for after I've thought it out a bit more.

On "Serotonin Rebound"

(written June 6/11-- I procrastinated on the first post so much that I alread have a second!)

I've been back on my meds for a day and a half. The rebound feelings/side effects are gone, but I don't feel back to normal. I feel... scattered, sensual, and shadowy. I have motivation to do things, some things, but it's not a perky, upbeat motivation. I want to draw or create... something. I want to clean (a little). I want to watch something "dark," something I can empathize with and feel deep to my core.

I feel sexual, but I'm not sure I would act on it if given the opportunity. I'm somehow nervous to be alone right now, but not for a specific reason. It's not a situation where I'd call up a friend and say "I want to cut right now. I need to say it out loud so I don't do it." However, before I started taking Cymbalta, this would be when I'd start calling/texting everyone I could, searching for some way to not be alone. If I had potential plans but didn't hear from the person, I would obsessively call the him or her. I would call every hour... every 30 minutes.... every 15-- however long I could manage to make myself wait between calls. (I do apologize to those who were on the receiving end of this!) Usually nothing came of the calling. I'd wait, compulsively playing crossword puzzles, JT's Blocks, solitaire, minesweeper, anything to keep me waiting a minute longer.

Phone call. I have friends. I have friends who understand and have been here. What timing ^_^

Oh hey, a beginning!

I remember my mom sitting on the edge of the futon that served as my bed in that little alcove of a room. As she spoke I lay there, thinking about what to say next in the conversation, debating whether to say anything at all. I let her walk away…

“Mom, I think I’m depressed”

And she rushed back with that look, “Oh, honey”

We talked, kind of. We talked, but I didn’t feel understood. I didn’t feel like now it was going to get better. I felt, still, that it would be a bad idea to go down to the kitchen, with the chef’s knife in the dish drying rack. I hadn’t been a particularly impulsive kid up until then, but the urges of impulse had begun. “what if I just starting talking, right now?” “what would happen if I walked out of the class in the middle of the lesson?’ “what if I just picked up this knife and . . .” I called it my fear of one moment of irrationality, but I felt it all the time, living fearful of many successive moments of having, and taking, the opportunity to… end it, re-roll the dice, cause the pain, loosen control.

I didn’t indulge in any of those one-moments, not yet. What I did do that day, looking back, was start to learn the principle of “nothing changes until something changes.” While it seemed that my mom had quickly forgotten that conversation, something still changed. I changed. I decided—something members of my family are certainly not known for—that the darkness was worth fighting, that it was time to leave the solitude of my head, that it was time to say something.

 

 This may seem like an odd way to start off a blog. I mean—I don’t know you like that, I haven’t properly introduced myself, and already I’m talking about my adolescent suicidal tendencies.

The fact of the matter is that I’m not secretive or shy about my past, especially not about what I have mentally struggled through to get where I am, alive, today. I may talk about it too much and too willingly, depending on your perspective. I’ve gotten to the place where I don’t actually care about that. I’m not sharing for attention, sympathy, or even to be besties with anyone. I share for understanding, for connection, but more importantly for that small chance that someone will read/hear/overhear and feel themselves understood. Along the way I found sometimes all I needed was one anecdote, just one example of someone feeling the way I did and making it through to keep me going a little longer. And that sometimes when you’re breaking down, “a little longer” is all you need.

I’ve felt compelled to write through this process/journey/life with (a couple) mental health disorders, along with a sleep disorder that affects me like a mental health one. I’ve finally stopped procrastinating on it….