Enlightenment

I'm having good/bad days this week...bad because my students are preparing for finals, so this is the week I didn't get a weekend and am in the middle of a stretch of working ~12 hr. days (Sat.-Thurs.)...good because I'm getting through it, it's almost over, summer is coming and I have lots to look forward to.

I just finished listening to Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, by Barbara Kingsolver and her family. Good book, I'd recommend it if you want to get hungry every time you read a chapter.

So, on to enlightenments. Throughout my life I have had a difficult relationship with sleep. Ever since I can remember, I have had an extremely difficult time falling asleep before about 2 or 3 am. Those of you who knew me in college may remember my "night owl" tendencies; you may not realize that this is was not always a choice or necessarily a preference. And, while it is not an uncommon lifestyle for a college student, it is much more difficult for, say, a six-year old. As a baby I slept very little (as I don't remember babyhood, I'm trusting my mom on this one); I stopped napping before I was a year old. I do remember from a very young age fighting bedtime wars with my parents (every single night...I was nothing if not persistent). By the time I was about 9 or 10 it didn't matter what time I was sent to bed or what time I had to wake up, I always spent a few (or many) hours lying awake (or secretly reading under my covers) trying to fall asleep until sometime between midnight and 2 am when I would finally drift off. By this time, waking early had become extremely difficult for me, but no matter how exhausted I was, falling asleep at a "reasonable" hour was impossible. Fast forward to high school the pattern was solidified: I was incapable of sleep before 2 am. One year I decided to take AP Biology at the only time my school offered it--"0" period--6:15 am. I slept through almost every single class.

By the time I finished college, I had started having some "health problems"-- a combination of constant exhaustion and generalized pain. I knew that the 8-5 routine didn't work for me, but I kept giving it one more try. People (my mother) kept telling me that I'd get used to it, but I didn't. I hadn't during the 17 years I'd spent in school, and I still wasn't adjusting. I could go to bed early, I just couldn't sleep earlier. I tried taking melatonin for a while to help me "get on schedule", and it did help me fall asleep earlier about a third of the time, but for the most part I was just getting worn out. After about a year of working and progressively getting worse, to the point where I was sleeping 12-15 hrs. a day, waking up exhausted, going to work (in the evenings) and coming home to fall asleep again, I finally decided to move back in with my parents and try to figure out what was wrong with me. This was probably the first and only period of my life during which I could fall asleep anytime and anywhere. After a few months of getting the run-around from doctors (my GP diagnosed me with depression, prescribed an anti-depressant, and sent me to a psychiatrist the psychiatrist said I didn't sound depressed, did a full range of tests and sent me to a rheumatologist for a "fibromyalgia" diagnosis... i.e. "we don't know what's wrong with you, so we'll give you anti-depressants and hope you go away" ...who did just that), I finally quit seeing doctors (and taking pills designed for conditions I didn't have).

I eventually learned that with periodic massage and adequate rest, I can function. Adequate rest varies from week to week and with the seasons. I typically need a lot of down time on the weekends, but as far as actual sleep I think I'm back to normal for me--about 7-9 hrs. per night between 2 or 3 am and 10-noon. I'm not sure when I stopped needing excessive amounts of sleep, but I think it's been about 2 yrs. now.

Wow, that was a long preface. All that's to say I've always known I have problems with sleep. I've called it insomnia, but it really isn't quite because I sleep well when I get to sleep, and I can fall asleep at almost the same time each night if I want to. Now, I may have found a name for it and maybe can separate it out from the pain thing (which I have not found a good way to control). Delayed sleep phase. Could it be? I can't even express how wonderful it would be to have a name to call this issue I've dealt with for most of my life. I'm not sure why naming things is so important if you can't change them, but it seems to be for me. Ok, now it's time for me to go augment my sleep deficit. Sure not gonna get enough tonight.