Sleep

All my life I’ve had a love-hate relationship with sleep. Always feast or famine, never balance. I could elaborate, but right now I need to get this out.

I overslept this morning. This is a minor disaster for me.

I went to bed at 22:15 and slept through my alarm, woke up at 11:45, called work to explain that my doctor’s appointment was running long (the appointment that I had just slept through) and rushed in 45 minutes late. I stayed an extra hour to try and quiet my self-flagellation. It’s almost 18:00 and I’m still feeling that disorientation I get whenever this happens. It occurs to me that:

• I have this overdeveloped sense of responsibility
• My sense of self-worth is strongly linked to my work ethic, and all the baggage that comes in that particular package
• I’ve been this way, be it nature or nurture or both, since far too early on in life
• The pressure of trying to live up to this ideal was a major factor in my alcoholism and continues to be a factor in mental health problems today
• Not showing up on time for planned commitments is practically the dictionary definition of irresponsibility
• I was not sleep deprived or otherwise compromised in any way to suggest that I might have needed more rest today
• I never heard the alarm blaring in my ear for however long it goes before it finally shuts itself off, nor did I feel Eli walking up and down my body to make me get up and feed them, nor did I hear any of them vomiting all the way from the foot of my bed right on down the hallway and into the kitchen. (Sadly, this has become a pretty regular thing) 

I’m honestly not really sure why I woke up exactly when I did, to my knowledge I didn’t have any control whatsoever over any of it. And that’s the problem, right there. It doesn’t matter what I do or don’t do, it doesn’t matter how hard I try, I have no control over it. And it’s impossible to explain this to people. Or at least it feels like it is. So I lie because I’m ashamed to look irresponsible and I can sell my lie far better than the shameful truth.

I’m trying to make peace with it by writing this because I have to accept the truth of this for myself if I ever want to be able to expect another person to understand. That way, if they don’t understand, (which is a distinct possibility), I can still be at peace knowing I did my best. Is that crazy?   

 

Right foot, left foot

I feel like this mantra has become my only remaining survival tool.

I was so optimistic at Memorial Day and now this weekend is Independence Day and I feel like I’ve been asleep for a month.

Anteayer was a sleep day – a 100% unrestrained rest, never even opened the curtains, didn’t even try to force myself up – down kind of day.

Yesterday was a mediocre day. I got a slow start and canceled a morning appointment. This is not something I like to do, but it has become an occasional gamble I take when I need to prioritize more basic things. I slowly started getting productive but by late afternoon I was feeling sickish and had to wind it down.

Today I tried twice, with alarms, to get up at a reasonable hour. I even watched TV and drank a full cup of coffee. I did manage to drag myself off the couch before noon and I was able to wash some dishes and get a few groceries at Aldi before I had to nap a few hours more – non-negotiable. I slept right through the alarm, which has become a pretty regular occurrence for me. Goodbye June.

Tomorrow I’m scheduled to work 8:00-15:00. Right now I don’t feel like I will be able to do it, but it wouldn’t be the first time I felt this way and still managed to right-foot-left-foot my way through it. But I’ll tell ya, tonight my heart is open wide to my higher power because I need help really bad. I don’t know how much longer I can keep trudging around in circles.

On another note, I donated blood with the Red Cross a week ago and today they notified me that my blood type is A+ (I grrinned at how symbolic that is for me) and that I also tested positive for COVID antibodies. I’m not ashamed to admit it feels damn good to be right about having had that virus, given that I can’t explain most of the other bizarre symptoms I experience all the time these days.