Being always tired..

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Being aspie, I thought, was also being very tired. Since I was young, atleast 8-9 years old, I've been tired. My parents asked how I was that day, and I always said: "tired."
I slept more or less normal though. 9-10 hours I guess. At 13 years old I got to choose when to go to bed. I was up late one evening, until midnight.. I can say as much as I went to bed at 21 the following night, and was never up later then that again. It was just not a good idea. =/ I was dead tired that morning.. (I went up at 7 each morning, so slept 10 hours, and had to. Otherwise I was useless.)

Nowadays I normally need around 9-10 hours still. If I get up before that, I'm a zombie. Really.. I can barely walk, talk or do anything. My arms are heavy as rocks and I cant even think normal. So I usually have to go back to bed.. and sleep a few more hours. After that I'm more or less workable. This does get worse days after doing social stuff. This, I understand, is normal for being Aspie.

But is having to sleep around 12 hours really normal even for aspies? Being more tired after social acitivies, yes sure. But always tired?
I'm never fully awake. I cant remember waking up by my self, feeling rested. EVER! That makes me rather depressed. I want to be awake. I've tried drinking coffee, tea, energydrinks, taking coffeinpills, guaranapills etc. It works for a while..

Talked to my doctor that knows abit about autism, and he didnt recognize this behavior at all. For him that didnt sound like asperger. He urged me to check up my other values. Like the gland etc. And yes, I do have a small underproduction, for wich I take medicine. According to the tests its fine atm, but the values are still increasing. Wich is weird. The normal level should be around 0.7, mine has never been there. It's always around 1.2 and steadily going upwards. But still within, what they consider, normal values.
Will take that up with my doc on monday though. To see if we can increase the medicine, if that's the fault?

But I wanted to check if more people with autism have the same as me. Being so deadly tired, all the time, needing atleast 10-12 hours of sleep to function?

Oh.. and my fiance tried to wake me up when he is awake. Impossible! If it's still too early for me, I dont respond. I growl, hit his hands away, get angry etc. Ofc, I barely remember it when I finally wake up.. =/

Sorry if this is hard to read. Today was one of those days.. Was social yesterday. Went to bed at midnight, and went up at 10.. but was dead tired and had to go back to bed for 2 hours. Still not fully ok. Had an energydrink, but I feel totay wrecked.. But I had no choice. I couldnt sit up. I needed help to get to the bed, since I was so tired in my body..

Are you overweight? Since losing about 20 pounds, I've been able to get by on 6 to 7 hours of sleep per night. Before then, I needed at least 9 hours.

Drink plenty of water.


I have the same problem of feeling tired all the time, make sure that your body is hydrated.. I also have a problem of not recognising when I am thirsty and I have to make myself drink.. I sometimes forget to drink.

Yeah, Im overweight. Wich I'm working on. Though its a bit hard, when you're always tired, and then try to be motivated to move. I'm going swimming twice per week though. Aand ofc, thinking of what Im eating.

Hm, I thiiink I drink enough. But maybe not. Water is good anyway, so not really any big loss of drinking more.

There are several possibilities that you should have checked out by a doctor. Among them are Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, and Sleep Apnea. Since you are over weight, Sleep Apnea may be the problem. I am also over weight, tired all the time, no matter how much I seem to sleep, and I do have Sleep Apnea. I was tested for it twice at a sleep study place. I have a CPAP machine to help with that, but I rarely use it, as it is in the bedroom, and I usually sleep in the living room recliner. It is easier on my back, than the bed is. I don't have anywhere by the chair to park the CPAP machine. Also, I wake up after a few hours of using the mask, because it gets loose, and then the pressure drops, so it doesn't work unless I readjust the mask.

In Sleep Apnea, the back of your throat tends to collapse, or your tongue slides too far back, while sleeping, shutting off proper air flow. You tend to snore more and you have many micro wake-ups during the sleeping period, to enable you to start breathing again.

I don't dare go on long drives, as I might fall asleep behind the wheel, and cause an accident. Fortunately, I can handle short drives to run errands. The condition can lead to other health problems, and heart attacks or strokes due to the lack of oxygen while sleeping.

I tend to have a lot of car dreams. Also, plane, and boat dreams, because my brain incorporates my snoring into my dreams, as motorized transport. Unfortunately, the dream car is usually going to fast, and in my dreams I am usually trying to slow it down, or stop it. Ugh! I've really got to find a way to bring the CPAP machine into the living room, so I can use it from the recliner.

Not getting enough sleep due to my Sleep Apnea makes me very grumpy, groggy, and tired all the time. This sounds just like you. So do have yourself checked out.

whatever the cause, you may never find it so i'd recommend trying lots of little things known to help.
having saifd that though the fact that you have odd levels of whatever it is that you take meds for would definitely be something to keep looking at. Is it your thyroid?

quality of sleep is important so trying to assess that might be useful. Maybe you could rig something to record how many times you wake up at night or are disturbed?

i was going to mention sharing a bed. on average people who share a bed do not get as good sleep as they would otherwise but because you have had this since you were young then that is probably only a small factor. i personally find i sleep terribly when sharing a bed. i just put two mattresses next to each other. not exactly intimate but at least i can sleep!

I need more than average sleep too. But I'm just self-diagnosed very mild aspie. I'm normal weight and I know I don't have iron deficency at least. Or anything that would affect other areas of life noticeably. 9 hours for me please - to function properly. I can do a day with less but my brain might not solve problems as well then. It's not so much physical, sometimes I really miss a vigorous activity then. It can become a physical pain feeling too but I still think it's more a brain issue. I want to take a nap on most days, but when I get home then sitting in front of computer usually makes me postpone that until it's too late and I regeret. That's exactly what I'm doing right now (it's evening in Europe)
I sometimes think how much I'm missing from life - few hours from every day and some real evenings with my boyfriend - he usually only has time very late and I often say no to seeing him when it's not friday or saturday. But on the other hand I'm more productive when I listen to my body and get at least few hours a day to feel fine. I would rather invest my energy to become a superhuman in some other area than to get few not-really-productive hours to my disposal.

I believe 'unusual' sleeping patterns are related to Aspergers...so needing an extreme amount of sleep could be relevant to AS, or could be something medical.

I'm on the opposite end from you...I can't get to sleep until 4/5/6AM, then wake up around 10:30-11 usually. I do usually need to take a nap sometime during the day, though.

It's very interesting to hear your view on this, and hear if I'm alone with it.

Conan: Yeah, exactly, its my thyroid. The doctors has always said my values are ok now with the medication, and I believed them. But when I talked to my other doctor, (psykodoc, or what its called?) we looked at the numbers and saw it wasnt really perfect. Yet it is still ok. It is, what they call, green numbers, but its still more then it should be, and its increasing. Very slowly, but still increasing.

questor: Before I got my diagnosis I actually checked sleep apnea. I snore, horribly much. (And I make weird sounds.. that wakes me up and my fiance.) Though the results where not sleep apnea.. but I do tend to stop breathing a little bit, but not enough that it would be valid to put in a CPAP.
What was interesting though, is my sleep pattern.. Its not very good. I wake up ALL the time during the night. I go down in steps as you should, down to deep sleep. Then I go from deep up to awake (looks like a spike in the pattern.) Its not more then a minute or two, and I never remember it. From that it goes down again in steps, perfectly normal and then spike up again..
I have very little REM-sleep aswell. About 2-3 small short periods during the night. Wich I think is odd, since I think I dream all the time.. Then again, I guess I just remember them well..

Where I am now, its 19 o'clock, and Im finally starting to wake up a bit.

I was tired all the time all my teenage years and early adulthood.

It was due to depression and anxiety though. Social cues and daylight emptied my energy, and the inability to relax up because I didn't have any private space played a role too.

I'm tired a lot. I'd say I sleep an average amount (at least 6-8 hours a night) but I still get tired fast after I'm up for a while.

I get up too early and by suppertime I'm exhausted.

I'm a 10 hr a night girl.

At the moment I have chronic fatigue which I believe is due to my nervous system being chronically hyper aroused for pretty much my whole life. I operate with this level of anxiety to keep up my social persona and now, something's gotta give
Without my wired energy & social facade I function at quite a low level & now my body is forcing me to function at that level (probably my natural level) by just not having the energy.

Best, Zel.

I sleep around 12 hours a night too but I blame that on my antipsychotic meds.
I never used to sleep that much before I started taking them.

I sleep 6 hours a Day/night.