Sleep disorders.

Yeah, at first it sounds insignificant compared to 'no girlfriend syndrome', I'm aware of that. But it's only first impression.

Let's take a closer look. Insomnia, frequent nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep-walking and a wide range of other sleep-related nasty honeysuckle. After googling around I now have a name for what affects me lately in addition to undiagnosed or unnamed disorders that I believe I'm living with. Honestly, the most funny part about this is that I don't know if I'm on the path to psychosis or if I'm making up all these disorders to dramatize my otherwise uninspiring existence. Excessive word-wasting syndrome has to be among them, so don't think of me as a pretentious motherhacker, I just can't help it. Hold off your clever sarcastic remarks, I can ridicule me for my writing style (or more like Jack's complete lack of it) quite thoroughly myself, thank you very much. Woah, look at me trying to use big words for the sake of using 'em, squeezing in yet another shitty expression, overused like a popular schoolgirl. Oh, It says 'sleep disorders', dammit.

Circadian rhythm sleep disorders. Sounds almost harmless, right? Wrong! You think it's just a matter of fixing your sleep timing. I tried fixing, not once, not twice. Here's how I did it this time.

1. Waking up around 7 PM, as usual, feeling blissfully numb in comparison to current state.

2. 10 PM - 6 AM. Clear mind. Peak of brain activity. Initiative to do anything physically. Inspirational drive, ideas.

3. 6 AM - 10 AM. Suppressing overpowering urge to sleep with respectable amounts of caffeine.

4. 10 AM - 11 AM. A beginning phase of mental nightmare. More on that in detail.

Quiet voices talking in background, friends, family, whatever. Voices that are familiar to me. I know it's just an auditory hallucination caused by sleep deprivation, it doesn't bother me, usual honeysuckle. I can't make out what they are talking about, just catch separate generic words like 'dude' or 'stuff'. Voices enjoy their private indiscernible jokes cracking up in laughter occasionally. Sometimes they sound extremely believable, that's when I abandon my location and head out to look for their source somewhere outside. Bright daylight blinds me somewhat but I adjust easily enough, voices drown in city's humming activity and vanish completely. I turn back disappointed and satisfied at the same time. Don't forget to say 'hello' to neighbour passing by and receive friendly greetings in return, pleased with the thought that I at least seem to look normal. Visual hallucinations never fail to unnerve me though. As I'm on my way to scavenge the fridge for something edible, air around dim sunlight penetrating the curtains takes a form of a graceful tall female silhouette. It makes a few confident steps advancing towards me then dissolves. Heart's racing, cold sweat. I say something aloud just to dispel the dreadful illusion. "You startled me, Erica." I say whatever insane honeysuckle comes to mind first. I gave her a name, don't know what for, the thought amuses me and I'm smiling naturally. I fight the urge to look back as I'm looking for much needed nutrition. Then I chain smoke, abuse coffee, consume food that I don't need to cook and do push ups furiously. It is a form of suicide with an unclear timer slapped on top. Delayed-action suicide by heart attack. A way to take own life without changing your mind when you already feel that your head turns dark purple from tightened ligature. Time's speeding up, stray thoughts, I think of everything and nothing at once, hours float by with me just existing in my mind, I look at myself from third person perspective, like I'm a movie character, dream-like. My mental state amuses me, I'm secretly excited and intrigued inside. I wonder what's next. I touch my faint shadow on the wall. I strike a random chord on a guitar and listen in. I tap my head to try and put whatever cog fell off from the system back into place. I blankly stare into the internet and feel my eyes bleeding, go to check them out in the mirror, grin insanely looking at my ragged reflection, get frightened and concerned about my mental health and then laugh. That's about it, 'mental nightmare' described.

5. 10 PM. Now's the time to sleep and get back on track, to fix my life, job, sports, ambitions, social activities et cetera. Suddenly I don't want to sleep at all, my mind is clear once again, I'm in the mood to do anything and get pumped up. Still I gather my resolve and head to bed.

6. 10 PM - 5 AM. I wake up three times during the night but submit myself to sleep without much trouble.

7. 5 AM. I get up. I feel fine at first.

But then I realize something is not right. I am a useless lump of flesh. My limbs are heavy and weak. I feel extremely sleepy throughout the whole day. Sunlight is touching my skin making me tired. Nausea and apathy, headache, like a moderately terrible hangover, my favourite colour is gray. I lazily browse through social, relationships, low-self esteem and generic threads. Inclined to post a reply mechanically for the sake of 22th post but then retract in disdain. Try to play a video game, get heavily bored looking at 'new game' option.

I decide to post something readable, click 'new thread'. Type honeysuckle, save as draft. Repeat until done, again and again by small coherent looking bits of text. Feel the need to post it no matter what, for no defined reason. Just finished. I am now drained of all thoughts and emotions, must try sleeping at night again, maybe it's just the effect of my body clock readjusting.

What do you think? I'm after some sort of advice, anything that might help me cure sleep-related disorder, visiting a doctor is not an option for me unfortunately. You may share your sleep-related troubles as well if you're not having the fresia disturbed out of you (Ha!).


8. (just because I dislike odd numbers) Around 1 AM. Posted.

Well, it's certainly interesting. Why do you suppress the urge to sleep from 6 to 10 a.m., is it necessary that you stick to a "normal" schedule? At least try to nap when you're feeling sleepy, it should help prevent the hallucinations. If you're staying awake for days at a time, try to break it up with a drug that'll help you sleep for awhile.

My experience with sleep disorders: I have a non-24 hour sleep cycle and "manic" periods where I barely sleep. I've experienced auditory hallucinations from sleep paralysis and sleep deprivation, but visual hallucinations are rare for me. I've not seen a doctor about it and I don't try to correct my natural rhythm (or lack thereof) anymore unless it's important. I've tried OTC sleeping pills with mixed results, I experienced more vivid sleep paralysis and restless-limb syndrome and felt groggy the next day. I haven't tried 'script sleeping pills yet, but for what it's worth I've found that cannabis relaxes me and muddles my dreams so I can't remember them (this is a positive effect, my dreams are always unpleasant) so that helps a little.

Well, I'm about to give up on trying to fix my sleeping rhythm. I think two days have passed already and it's not getting noticeably better. I still suffer from extreme apathy and weakened, hangover-like existence when I'm up during daylight. I'll keep trying for at least a week more, if I fail then I'm nocturnal person beyond saving and will just figure out how to make a living at nights somehow.

JamaisVu said:

Why do you suppress the urge to sleep from 6 to 10 a.m., is it necessary that you stick to a "normal" schedule?

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Yeah, 'normal' schedule is necessary as I'm getting low on currency and I have no one to support me financially, in fact it is me who is expected to help my family with money. So I'd want to get a decent job and decent-paying jobs tend to be daytime. Working as night shift guard is not good enough and depressingly boring, pushing E for rich kids in need can be profitable but unsafe, illegal and morally wrong (I have enough guilt to deal with). So I'd need a stable source of income in coming days without any chance of trouble, like Russian SWAT sweeping through nightclubs to cuff my ass or worse, that's why I'm trying to 'fix' myself.

JamaisVu said:

At least try to nap when you're feeling sleepy, it should help prevent the hallucinations.

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Any attempt to snooze in daytime would most likely result in a deep slumber till night and a waste of my straining efforts that were dedicated to 'fixing' so far. I'd not risk it by taking a nap.

Thanks for your reply, JV, I appreciate it. I'll keep trying, maybe as you've said a considerable cannabis dose taken at the right time would make my sleep at nights to be more steady, refreshing and easier to achieve.

As you said, you need to give it more time and patience. It's not something that can be fixed easily. You need a good motivation to not give up.
I think there are simple steps to help one fix their sleep. It work for some but not for others. It wont harm to give it a try tho. after knwoing what's the cause of your lack of sleep, you can try to find a way to feel relaxed. (avoiding disturbing thoughts). you can also use food which help relaxing and sleeping like cherries, nuts and seeds, bananas, honey, and eggs, and milk, and bread with cheese. Try not to drink coffee(or anything which may make you stay awake) 6 hours before your bedtime.