Yes, I have a sleep disorder and on top of that I am a beyond heavy sleeper. The sleep disorder I have is basically a shifted circadian rhythm, as in my evenings are later and my mornings are later. Melatonin does not knock me out, I can't sleep before 2 am, and it's so difficult to wake up before 11. There is no cure. There are barely ways to mitigate it. There is essentially zero accommodation or support because it is a very invisible disability.
What this means for me is that I have lived and will live my entire life sleep deprived and late. I remember at like 7 or 8 years old I had a cheap mp3 player that got radio, and a nook/ereader thingy and I had to be in bed at 8 pm. From the ages of like 7-13 my nightly schedule was 8pm to midnight: reading and listening to music, midnight-2am was when I would listen to NPR (lib household and I was a child so I hadn't gone left yet don't judge too hard), 2am-3am was reading time until I would fall asleep, until 6am where I was woken up to go to school.
I have moved out and it's been such a struggle to wake up. When I say beyond heavy sleeper I mean it. Nothing wakes me up, in high school my parents would wake me up before work, I would get up and talk to them in the morning and they would think I'd be awake but I would not have reached consciousness at all. I would have full conversations and walk around my room with them without waking up. I've tried everything. I have a garage light pointed at me on a timer to wake me up. I have several extra loud alarms. I've tried those vibrating under your pillow alarm clocks. I've tried the screaming meanie 120 db alarm clock, it was the only thing semi reliable, though I would still sleep through it after about a month, and I can't use it now that I'm in a dorm. I have no idea where to go from this point to make myself wake up. I just don't wake up for anything and it's making my classes hell. I'm so scared about getting a job after college and getting fired for being late. Honestly my plan is to work remote and live a few time zones over from my job, or if I don't make it through college work swing shift.
I fucking hate this. So much. My parents (before they and I found out I had a sleep disorder) would call me lazy and say I needed to just go to bed earlier and that I needed to just have more self discipline. Their friends would tease them for waking me up when I was in high school and that they needed to prepare me for the real world. I literally do not wake up after having a 30 minute conversation with people. I only know these conversations happened because they mention them later. It's kind of terrifying to me to know that people can talk to me without my knowledge or consciousness. I love when people give me tips to get up like "Oh have caffeine next to your bed for the second you wake up" or "put your alarm across the room" like I don't wake up, there is no consciousness happening that's not gonna work
That second point you made about people who wake up early calling you lazy is so true. The best and most successful schedule I ever had was also my busiest but it was on my schedule. I did dual enrollment at the local community college and my classes were 11am-3pm. I also did sports from 3-6 and worked from 6:30-1 or 2am. Then I'd go work out for an hour or two Then I'd go home and do homework until 4 or 5 am, which gave me plentiful sleep to wake up at 10:30, that 5 or 6 hours on my natural sleep cycle was more than enough. Then I'd have people who wake up at 6 or 7 have the audacity to tell me I'm fucking lazy for waking up that late when they spend 8-10 hours a day asleep, because somehow the position of the sun when I wake up determines how much effort I put in my day. I was lazy even though I was working from the time I got up for the next 18-19 hours, which I could do easily because I was actually getting rest
Damn, I don't have any disorder or anything, but you just discribed my childhood exactly; reading til 2/3am every night because the only other option was just sitting around for hours until it was the Correct Sleep Time™. I remember actually recording how long I slept every week night for a semester (basically just writing down the last time I remembered seeing on the clock the next morning) when I was about 15 because no one believed that that was how I got by. I legit kept a chart. It ended up averaging out to about 4 hours a night, no idea how it never impacted school or health or anything - or maybe it did, who knows.
Sympathies, comrade, I hope you can find something that accommodates you in life. :ancom-heart:
oh yeah, I made one of those charts to. It's called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder and just based on personally talking to people online I think it might be one of the most undiagnosed disorders out there. Do you have ADHD by any chance? Just out of curiousity bc it's often comorbid, it's actually how I found out I have ADHD
Well fuck. My university kind of had to, legally, give some of us learning disorder screenings if we were showing symptoms of stuff - mine came up 90+% chance of dyslexia, so thats what i went of and got diagnosed with. it also showed a ~70% chance of ADHD, but official ADHD tests are way more expensive, so they decided it was "probably" unlikely for someone to have both and so that they wouldn't pay for both tests :agony-deep:
So thats a very solid maybe on having ADHD, if only for-profit mental healthcare hadn't intervened. Thanks for the link though, nice to know there's a term for it at least.
Yes, I have a sleep disorder and on top of that I am a beyond heavy sleeper. The sleep disorder I have is basically a shifted circadian rhythm, as in my evenings are later and my mornings are later. Melatonin does not knock me out, I can't sleep before 2 am, and it's so difficult to wake up before 11. There is no cure. There are barely ways to mitigate it. There is essentially zero accommodation or support because it is a very invisible disability.
What this means for me is that I have lived and will live my entire life sleep deprived and late. I remember at like 7 or 8 years old I had a cheap mp3 player that got radio, and a nook/ereader thingy and I had to be in bed at 8 pm. From the ages of like 7-13 my nightly schedule was 8pm to midnight: reading and listening to music, midnight-2am was when I would listen to NPR (lib household and I was a child so I hadn't gone left yet don't judge too hard), 2am-3am was reading time until I would fall asleep, until 6am where I was woken up to go to school.
I have moved out and it's been such a struggle to wake up. When I say beyond heavy sleeper I mean it. Nothing wakes me up, in high school my parents would wake me up before work, I would get up and talk to them in the morning and they would think I'd be awake but I would not have reached consciousness at all. I would have full conversations and walk around my room with them without waking up. I've tried everything. I have a garage light pointed at me on a timer to wake me up. I have several extra loud alarms. I've tried those vibrating under your pillow alarm clocks. I've tried the screaming meanie 120 db alarm clock, it was the only thing semi reliable, though I would still sleep through it after about a month, and I can't use it now that I'm in a dorm. I have no idea where to go from this point to make myself wake up. I just don't wake up for anything and it's making my classes hell. I'm so scared about getting a job after college and getting fired for being late. Honestly my plan is to work remote and live a few time zones over from my job, or if I don't make it through college work swing shift.
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I fucking hate this. So much. My parents (before they and I found out I had a sleep disorder) would call me lazy and say I needed to just go to bed earlier and that I needed to just have more self discipline. Their friends would tease them for waking me up when I was in high school and that they needed to prepare me for the real world. I literally do not wake up after having a 30 minute conversation with people. I only know these conversations happened because they mention them later. It's kind of terrifying to me to know that people can talk to me without my knowledge or consciousness. I love when people give me tips to get up like "Oh have caffeine next to your bed for the second you wake up" or "put your alarm across the room" like I don't wake up, there is no consciousness happening that's not gonna work
That second point you made about people who wake up early calling you lazy is so true. The best and most successful schedule I ever had was also my busiest but it was on my schedule. I did dual enrollment at the local community college and my classes were 11am-3pm. I also did sports from 3-6 and worked from 6:30-1 or 2am. Then I'd go work out for an hour or two Then I'd go home and do homework until 4 or 5 am, which gave me plentiful sleep to wake up at 10:30, that 5 or 6 hours on my natural sleep cycle was more than enough. Then I'd have people who wake up at 6 or 7 have the audacity to tell me I'm fucking lazy for waking up that late when they spend 8-10 hours a day asleep, because somehow the position of the sun when I wake up determines how much effort I put in my day. I was lazy even though I was working from the time I got up for the next 18-19 hours, which I could do easily because I was actually getting rest
Damn, I don't have any disorder or anything, but you just discribed my childhood exactly; reading til 2/3am every night because the only other option was just sitting around for hours until it was the Correct Sleep Time™. I remember actually recording how long I slept every week night for a semester (basically just writing down the last time I remembered seeing on the clock the next morning) when I was about 15 because no one believed that that was how I got by. I legit kept a chart. It ended up averaging out to about 4 hours a night, no idea how it never impacted school or health or anything - or maybe it did, who knows.
Sympathies, comrade, I hope you can find something that accommodates you in life. :ancom-heart:
oh yeah, I made one of those charts to. It's called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder and just based on personally talking to people online I think it might be one of the most undiagnosed disorders out there. Do you have ADHD by any chance? Just out of curiousity bc it's often comorbid, it's actually how I found out I have ADHD
Well fuck. My university kind of had to, legally, give some of us learning disorder screenings if we were showing symptoms of stuff - mine came up 90+% chance of dyslexia, so thats what i went of and got diagnosed with. it also showed a ~70% chance of ADHD, but official ADHD tests are way more expensive, so they decided it was "probably" unlikely for someone to have both and so that they wouldn't pay for both tests :agony-deep:
So thats a very solid maybe on having ADHD, if only for-profit mental healthcare hadn't intervened. Thanks for the link though, nice to know there's a term for it at least.
I have dealt with similar symptoms but usually not as bad - and they come and go. At the peak I was also impossible to even rouse.
If you could get a remote job in a later time zone, that would be the fucking dream.
Fr, though I kinda wish things rotated the other way bc I don't want to live on the east coast lol