Not looking for advice, as there's no advice anyone can give. I'm just venting...
For several years now I have been unable to force myself to have a consistent sleep routine. I get really annoyed with myself and it makes me very depressed and feel like a terrible failure because I really do not want to feel like a lazy person who gets up late and goes to bed late. The days I feel happiest with myself are the days when I manage to get up early in the morning. It feels like I suddenly have lots more time, and am not perceived by other people as lazy. I am not in employment any more, so you might think that's the reason, because people always think that not having a certain time to get up means that you will stay up late, but to be honest I lay awake until the small hours even back when I had jobs and was working, so not working doesn't really make much difference in terms of sleep routine.
Sometimes it's just awful insomnia, where I lie awake and think and think and think, and my mind will not shut down and stop thinking, no matter how tired I am. Sleeping pills are no good because insomnia is not, in my case, due to a lack of tiredness. I can be as exhausted as you can possibly be, but if my mind is determined to think, I can't stop it from thinking. So it's not a lack of tiredness. It's just that I have a busy mind.
Sometimes it's just lack of self-discipline, and staying awake beyond the hour I have ordered myself that I should be in bed. I can't help it that I seem to have less inclination to do things in the morning and afternoon, and suddenly get ideas for things to think about and do in the evening and night-time.
What I really want to be able to do is force myself to adhere to a routine in terms of sleep, the way I manage to routinise all other aspects of my life. There was a time a few years back where I managed to do that. I was totally obsessive about going to sleep about 9 or 10PM, and getting up about 8AM, and I actually MANAGED IT! It was great. For about six months, I managed to sleep as per that routine, and my dark circles went away and I felt so much better about myself, and so much less ashamed. I felt like I was "normal" and not "lazy" any more.
Getting up late makes me feel ashamed because my family did not know I was autistic when I was growing up so they were always yelling at me that I was "lazy" when I stayed in bed late due to having insomnia the night before. I didn't know they were wrong, and didn't know my brain was different and had problems shutting down, so I thought they must be right, and I must be lazy.
Despite now knowing that I have autism, and it isn't my fault if my brain won't shut down and consequently I'm deprived of sleep and struggle to get up the next day, I still feel shame and depression when I fail at getting up early. I feel as though "they" are judging me and scolding me (even though I do not live with my family any more).
So sometimes I tell myself that I am right to feel shame, and to feel like a failure for not managing to get myself up bright and early every day, and sometimes I tell myself I should give myself a break, and stop scolding myself, and just accept that I am different, and may never be able to subject myself to a typical NT sleep routine. I don't know which of those is right. Sometimes I just feel utter despair, because I keep making resolutions every day and telling myself: "tonight will be the night you go to sleep at 9PM, and tomorrow will be the day you get up at 8AM" but then I never do. My resolutions always fail.
Which do you think is correct? Do you all give yourselves a hard time and feel "lazy" when you rise late due to insomnia the night before, or do you give yourselves permission to have haphazard sleep routines? Do other people call you lazy?
28 Oct 2012, 8:10 am
