My struggles with sleep continue. It’s not just sleep; it’s me having trouble going to bed at a decent time. Right now, it’s five in the mornning. I should be in bed, but I’m not. I got four hours of sleep last night–which was better than I expected because I thought I’d go to bed at seven as I have been doing, and I had to get up at nine-thirty. Well, not had, but it was ideal. So you would think that I’d had tumbled into bed two or three hours ago, but nope. I did nap on and off for about two hours around one in the morning, but that was very fitful. Or rather, it was sleep for fifteen minutes; be awake for ten minutes, etc. I probably got about an hour’s worth of sleep overall, but chopped up.
I got one night of nine hours, which felt luxurious. I was hoping it would be a springboard to better sleep, but no. It was not. In fact, I got worse sleep after that. And, last night, around three in the morning, I realized it was Tuesday night and not Monday night. That’s why I had to wake up at nine-thirty. I have a standing appointment every Wednesday that should be in the early afternoon, but it can actually happen any time from early morning to late afternoon. Which means getting up way earlier than I normally do.
I keep thinking that I’ll change my habits without actually doing anything to change them. I know that’s part of my neurodivergence, but I don’t want to start using that as an excuse not to work on my issues. It’s interesting. In the Discord I’m in, there has been discussion about how more people are claiming to be autistic than before. The general tone to the discussion wast that too many people were claiming to be autistic because it’s trendy.
And, I just sighed internally. This is the same thing people always say about ‘trends’–meaning more awareness of an issue. Back when people were more aware of gluten as a thing, suddenly, so many people were supposedly going gluten-free (without really knowing what it meant). Then other people started griping on people jumping on the gluten-free train, especially servers (complaining about it). And people who were gluten-free for legit reasons were griping about it because it made them look bad/made servers not take them seriously.
The former, well, that’s just not somethin I give a shit about. It’s always been something a minority is cognizant of, but I simply don’t care. It’s not my responsibility to be the representative of all _____ (fill in the blank with anything). There have always been people in the minority who strive to be perfect so the majority can’t take any issue with them. First-gen Asians, especially, had that mind set. BLending in and getting along. That’s why we were the invisible minority for so long.
Ahem. My friend, A, suggests that I give myself a curfew for getting off the computer. She is right, and it’s a good suggestion, but my god. I am so resistant to doing that. I don’t even quite know why. I have always had a hard time going to bed, but I am unsure as to why the strong resistance to setting a curfew.
let’s see if I can tease it out.
I have a hunch it stems from when I was a miserable child who hated life (ever since I was seven) and did not want to be alive for many reasons*. After my mother put me to bed, I would put a t-shirt or towel in the crack of my door and read for hours. It was so blissful. And I figured out why.
I had a shitty home life when I was a kid. My father was absent, mostly, and when he was home, he made no bones about how much he resented my brother and me. It was clear that he had no interest in being a father and that he only did it because it was socially expected from him (in Taiwanese culture). My mother, on the other hand, wanted children, but she didn’t like them (or us) very much. She had/has very rigid ideas how kids of different genders should be. Which was ironic because she didn’t follow it herself. But that’s sexism for you. Huzzah.
She put me on my first diet when I was seven, and she made me feel I was utterly worrthless as a person. My only value was in being her emotional support person. I’ve written about this many times before, so I will stop there with that line of thought.
My mother went to bed before I did by the time I was nine or ten. My father was rarely home before midnight, and he wouldn’t think to check in on me after he got home. So for a few blissful hours, I had the whole house to myself. Darkness, peace, and quiet. No one to nag me, telling me I’m too loud, too fat, too sensitive, too much everything. It was just me in these fictional worlds in which the stories swept me away. I read really fast, so I could read a few books a night. This was before novels bloomed to four-to-five hundred words a crack.
It was heaven on earth, to be honest. The one time when I wasn’t constantly being criticized or made to feel like a piece of complete and utter shit. I was at utter peace, reading my books and not having to worry about being scrutinized. I felt so free, and it was the best time of my life.
To be clear, I have always been a night owl; that just cemented that the night was my favorite time of the, ah, day.
I feel completely at peace when I’m sitting at the computer, typing away in the wee hours of the morning. My sweet spot in three to four in the morning, but I would like to get to bed by three. Why? I dunno. I think it’s more because I deem that to be the very outer limits of what is normal, and anything other than that (if you’re not working the night shift) is flat-out deviant.
I don’t know why I have such strong feelings about it wehn I can usually just shrug off being a weirdo.
More tomorrow.
*Not going to get into it because that’s not the point of this post. I know it’s hasn’t stopped me in the past, but I really do want to see if I can figure out why I’m so resistant to setting myself a curfew. Let’s just leave it at that I hated being alive.