Pre-2020 Madness
To explain my 2020 I need to explain what happened in the summer of 2019: I realized I have The Big Gay (I still need to make a post about this). The problem here is I have been married to a man. And I have no job. And I have some shitty issues so I can’t currently support myself.
I haven’t had a job in a long time and it’s not for lack of wanting one, or lack of trying. I readily admit that I gave up ages ago and fell into a cozy housespouse role. I found that it has been beneficial for my mental and physical health and I realize how insanely lucky I am and I am thunkful every single fucking day.
So this Gay Revelation was the catalyst for trying to become a Productive Member of Society. I started taking a good hard long look at my fucking issues and paying attention to how they affect my life. Sure I’ve got anxiety and depression and leaving the house on my own makes me feel panicky and like I’m actually going to puke. Those seem like totally treatable things but they seemed kind of surface level.
I don’t remember how anymore but I somehow found myself peeking into the online autism world and finding myself relating. I looked into it pretty hard and realized it probably wouldn’t be worth getting a diagnosis and I am pushing 40 so I didn’t think this needed to be pursued. Then at some point, somehow, I realized that I may have ADHD.
When this realization dawned on me it was like this click. A puzzle piece. A big ol cosmic click of a cosmic puzzle piece. I had no clue what ADHD really was before so it wasn’t something I thought I had before. I took a pile of online quizzes and stalked the online community and omgwtf. This became my mission: Getting diagnosed. And I did so early this year.
Early 2020 – Whoops I have ADHD
This revelation was so validating. So empowering. And so… depressing. There is no fucking cure, of course. There’s a ton of stigma behind ADHD and I’ve seen countless people say they have to hide it to get employed or to keep their job. I immediately got on Adderall and it absolutely changed my life.
I decided to take this opportunity to (try) to focus, yet again, on learning to program. With the help of Adderall I made more progress with Python in 6 months than I did in 10 fucking years. I found it also took the edge off my depression and anxiety and it makes me more relaxed. Things were really looking up… until I realized that I still hate programming. It’s so boring. There is no part of it that is compatible with the way I think, no part that clicks with me. There is no enjoyable part of it except seeing errors go away.
A few months ago I decided to try a different form (XR) to hopefully make my days a bit better but it did absolutely nothing for me. Now the pandemic is so bad it’s not worth risking to go pick up my IR refill. I have been thinking about shifting my job studies to something like web design. I used to love doing web design way back in the day. Was I ever good at it? Fuck no. But I enjoyed it.
But the stress from the pandemic and not having my Adderall… super not helpful. So now I’m kind of…. lost.
Which comes to something that came up just this week: a good friend of mine is trying to convince me I have narcolepsy with cataplexy.
OK HOLD ON. I don’t think I actually have it but I think she’s on to something. As we talked it was really incredibly nice having someone to relate to as far as sleep issues go. I have had my sleep issues my entire life but I never addressed them. Much like the ADHD thing I just thought I was lazy or normal whatever. But naw, this shit ain’t normal. I know something is wrong so with that…
2021 Plans: Addressing the Sleep Issues
So for 2021, when things are less… pandemic-y… I’m going to go see a sleep specialist. Who knows, maybe I do have narcolepsy. Or sleep apnea. Or both. Or something else. In any case, if I can get to the bottom of this it’s possible to improve the quality of my life and improve my chances of Building a Foundation for Success.
So here’s the shit that makes my friend (not me, not a doc, just my friend) thinks I have narcolepsy:
- Lots of daytime sleepiness.
This seems like such a “normal” thing to me so I’m used to it. It also fluctuates. The past few months I’ve been almost completely dead tired in a new kind of way almost constantly except in the evening. I think it’s related to weather changes and allergies, which I’m suffering with for the first time ever. But the last couple weeks the tiredness has been mostly because I have been getting a constant 3-5 hours of shitty sleep every night (*cough* morning). - Quick REM stage
I often start dreaming pretty quickly and I dream a lot. I can tell because I wake up so often I can get a sense for how much time has passed. I have stopped keeping a clock near where I sleep but that used to tell me how quick I am to dream. I always thought this was normal. - Takes awhile to get to sleep and has fitful sleep
Yeah, as it says on the tin. My entire life I’ve had a hard time getting to sleep. If I am overtired then it’s even harder and stressful. I also wake up a lot doing my sleep. I had a fitbit once and tried comparing my sleep pattern to my husband’s (yeah it’s not like a perfect tool for it but it was pretty interesting) and I obviously had much more fitful sleep than him. - Hallucinations
When I wake up I will often have hallucinations. Yes, I am wide awake and can move around and I know the things aren’t real though it is still disturbing and disrupting to my sleep. - Cataplexy
She seems to think I have cataplexy. If I’m standing and I laugh I bend over to support myself. If I get startled I feel like I’m going to faint. I feel like the fainting bit is a different problem but she thinks it’s cataplexy. - Naps suck
I hate napping because I don’t wake up refreshed and it takes too long to actually fall asleep. I only lay down to nap if I am so uncomfortable that the idea of sleeping offers me hope of escape from the tiredness. This whole “Just take a 20 minute nap” thing is such bullshit when you spend that 20 minutes (and more) tossing and turning and in a half sleep/dream state. It just sucks, man. But boy it does feel good to lay down. - Awake at night
A Big Curse. Even when I’m getting “good” sleep (which is still really fitful) I will be tired to some degree throughout the day and only “wake up” at night. It’s when I feel like I can start doing shit.
So yeah, there might be more but honestly I’m so tired right now it’s hard trying to be organized. But yeah, I’m going to see a sleep specialist and see what can be done.
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