Wanted: people with a functioning body clock

[baratron]

Okay, I have a question. How do you know it's time to get up?

Don't say "because my alarm goes off". Let's assume it isn't a work day, and you can get up at whatever time you like. How do you know when that is?

Also, if you have morning meds to take before food, how do you make sure they get taken at the same time each day?

I actually have no idea. Between the chronic fatigue and the delayed sleep phase syndrome, I usually get up either because I have to be somewhere, or because I'm hungry.

I could have got up today at 11, but I was still tired. I fell back to sleep and slept until 2, and was still tired then, but thought it might be because of low blood sugar. So I ate half a protein bar, and then thought "shit, I should have taken my thyroxine first". Now I'm sitting around exhausted and brain-dead, waiting until it's been long enough after eating that I can take the thyroxine, and then until it's long enough after taking the thyroxine that I can have my hot chocolate and vitamin pills and something decidedly more meal-like than the protein bar.

I have an alarm that goes off at 4pm for one med, but lately that hasn't been much use as it's a "take with food" med and I haven't been awake.

Apparently, based on brain biopsies, people with "severe depression" are not synchronised to the usual solar day in terms of gene activity. NEWSFLASH! I wonder if there are any studies that I can enrol in before I'm dead?

Comments

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

Do you ever wake up because you just can't SLEEP any more, even if you're exhausted? That happens to me sometimes when I'm depressed. THAT sucks.

[baratron.livejournal.com]

Oh yes. But that's not a positive thing at all for me.

To expand: I usually have initial insomnia (i.e. trouble getting to sleep). Well, I say "usually", but this is a permanent thing for me. It's how my bedtimes get so ridiculously late. It's also why naps do not happen unless I am EXTREMELY ill, since it takes me a minimum of an hour to fall asleep after I get into bed. However, once I've been asleep, I can wake up and go to the loo or take pills, and fall back to sleep relatively easily.

Sometimes I also have middle-of-the-night insomnia (i.e. waking up and being unable to get back to sleep), and that's rare, very strange, and quite frightening. That's what I associate with waking up because I can't sleep any longer.

I don't know what it's like to wake up because I don't NEED to sleep any longer. I wake up feeling refreshed maybe once a month? And sometimes I wake up feeling good, thinking that I'm awake for the day and don't need to sleep any longer, and 20 minutes later I'm so tired and dizzy that I can't walk and have to go back to bed for my own safety.

I think these experiences of mine are why it's so hard for "normal" people (i.e. people without sleep pattern disturbance, depression, and chronic fatigue) to empathise with me.

[xiphias.livejournal.com]

And sometimes I wake up feeling good, thinking that I'm awake for the day and don't need to sleep any longer, and 20 minutes later I'm so tired and dizzy that I can't walk and have to go back to bed for my own safety.

Oh, I HATE that one. For me, though, I was lucky in that it was a medication side effect, so I was able to reduce the dose and it went away. But I can definitely empathize with how much that one sucks.

I've also had a much milder version of it, where I CAN actually go out and do things, but I have to pull over to the side of the road while driving and take a fifteen minute nap every couple hours. That's nowhere near as bad as your thing, though.