Re: Your Experience with Sleeping Patterns
Hey folks,
I am struggling with screwed up sleeping patterns eversince Winter 2011, don't ask me how it came; hell, I don't know!
I think it began when I went to bed as usual, but instead of sleeping between 6-8 hours, I woke up early in the morning between 2 and 3AM, unable to catch any more sleep. As consequens, I became terribly tired during the day and I couldn't keep myself awake anymore.
In the evening, I am usually pretty awake again, but if I went to sleep anyway, I must admit that I didn't have any problems falling asleep real soon. Still, after 3 or 4 hours, I have the same troubles I already mentioned above and, therefore, on and on goes the cycle.
The first two years I was fighting with it, nobody believed me that I had a sleeping problem. Instead, they thought I just stay awake too long in the evening and intentionally don't get enough sleep, which was, of course, not the case. The tiredness I experience is a different one than a normal tiredness. It's like a very harsh fatique you couldn't really get rid of. You desperately try to keep yourself awake, but at a certain point, you are defeated by the exhaustion. It feels like an anasthesia: From one moment to the other, you are back awake and you don't have any idea what went on in between. Normally, I only drift away for 5 up to 15 minutes, but it also happened once in a lesson that I fell asleep, and woke up three quarters of an hour later. Holy hell, you can't imagine how happy I was that nobody realised and nobody asked me anything during my nap!
I am not proud of it, and I found out that I can resist a little longer during the day when I go to sleep later in the night (at 2 or 3AM, for example). Come on, I only sleep up to four hours anyway and I have to get up at 7, so I will at least be awake on time and don't have to struggle with getting back to sleep. Screw it, it doesn't work anyway! And if it works, it is usually one hour before I have to get up and if the alarm goes, I have extreme trouble getting out of bed.
My teachers and classmates didn't take me serious, and so didn't my parents, which was quite depressing. The only one who believed me the whole time was my psychologist whom I consulted during that time. She also told me about this Melantonin, that is been automatically produced by our body when our eyes don't catch sun light or so. Since some of us are not able to catch any light, it is more likely that the production of melantonin is iregular and screwed up, causing this sleeping issue. In this case, the production of Melantonin can be steared by taking certain pills.
But that's just one explanation... As we already heard above from other folks here, the issue is similar, but based on other criteria. At least, after three years struggling with my sleeping issue, everybody finally started to take me serious because they heard of issues similar to non-24. Although this doesn't really get me further, it is a good feeling that all the people finally stand behind me and understand my trouble I have.
Back in 2015, there was a time where I had a few hearing losses. I took Betavistin to cure it, which worked just the way I wanted it to, luckily. But, as always, there was a stupid side-effect involved: It speeded up my blood pressure very quickly, and made me tired even quicker. Friends and classmates told me that I was very quiet during that time, and it was difficult having conversations with me, because I either reacted slower or It took multiple attempts to make me react on something.
I also had to take Prednisone once, due to an infection I had, so I know the side-effects as well (this unhealthy look, for instance). Plus, whereas I have had no appetite during the infection, I had to make sure that I always had something to eat with me or nearby, otherwise I would have turned into a zombie, getting angry pretty quickly. I could also more likely motivate myself to do things, and I didn't fall asleep at school, which surprised my teachers for a little while.
When I was finally done with taking prednisone, the unhealthy look went, and so came my sleeping problems again after a while.
In short: it's a hell of a circle we are all in!
A couple of months ago, I read in a blind-related newspaper about some faculties in Germany that began specialising in things like non-24, and they have extra blind-dedicated methods. I consulted the faculty in Münster and argued with my parents until my mother finally insisted. So we went there last week, and they gave me an actimeter, which looks like a watch that you can wear around your wrist. I have to wear it for two weeks, so that they can work with the results to diagnose what is wrong with me, eventually medicating it properly.
At the moment, my sleeping pattern is pretty well. I get tired in the evening, sleep 6-8 hours and stay awake the whole day. But that's just one of the phases where everything is going well, so I am already expecting the next horror phase of non-24, or however we wanna call it.
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