Underneath my yellow skin

Category Archives: Neurodivergency

Let’s talk more about labeling (part four)

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I was talking to K today, and we were talking about gender identity. It’s something we’ve talked about quite a bit, and we’ve been on the same page about the concept for our whole lives. She once said to me that she admired the way I easily adapted to people’s genders. We talked a bit about that, and I said it was because gender was unfathomable to me (just like it’s hard to describe the color blue to a blind person), so I accepted people’s genders without a murmur.

When you drilled right down to it, why did gender matter? Not in a sociopolitical sense because it matters a great deal in that way (and as a way to show solidarity/fight the patriarchy), and, yes, I can see why it’s important to individuals as part of their identity, but as a way of gatekeeping who can call themselves what gender, I am not a big fan of it. At all.

I have  thought about this so much, it makes me tired. If I were going to be totally real–oh, here’s my post from yesterday in which I said I was going to talk about labels and dating, but then didn’t. If I were going to be totally real, I would just like to never have to think or talk about gender again. Just let me beeeeeeeeeee. There’s nothing I can or can’t do based on my gender, really, so why should I care?

This is where I get tripped up every time. I can do what I need to do regardless of my gender, so why do I need to have one? No one can explain this to me to my satisfaction, which is how I feel about a lot of things. There are times when I just have to accept that I will never truly get it. The only reason I think about it is because it’s so important in this world.

I’m saying this with zero snark–I don’t understand why the heavy emphasis on it. I know it’s me beacuse most people do care about it a lot. I would not care that other people cared so much about it if it was just for themselves. I’m very big on live and let live, but the ‘let live’ part has to go both ways.

Which it doesn’t. At all.

It’s really depressing that all the progress we’ve made is getting torn up in this presidency. I can’t even get angry because I’m just so drained and exhausted. I know that’s the whole point of this spate of terrible laws, but it’s working. And this is one reason I will never date a Republican.

See how I did that?

I had that in a dating ad thirty years ago. I said I would date any gender, race, religion, creed, but not a Republican. I wasn’t joking, even though I put it in a jovial tone. I’m even more not joking about it now. If someone is a Republican in this time and age, that’s all I need to know about them.

As I’ve said, it’s funny when people who don’t give a shit about discrimination in general (or covertly/overtly support it) want to bleat about discrimination in dating when it’s against them. People are allowed to discriminate in their dating lives, and it’s especially true when the discrimination is based on something like ‘this person doesn’t believe I should exist’. Or ‘this person is a racist sexist piece of shit’.


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Labels, labels, labels everywhere (part three)

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I want to talk more about gender identity, sexual orientation, and dating. And labels. Maybe. It’s been at the forefront of my mind for several reasons. I mentioned in the last post a few times when it was helpful to have labels (mostly with health issues), and I am not going to muse whether or not it’s helpful in dating.

I will say I don’t like the labels I’ve chosen for my sexual and gender identities. They are both the least worst of the bad, and I’m not satisfied with either. Bisexual and agender, by the way. I’ve had the former label for over thirty years, and it has never sat right with me. I like queer the best, but it now is synonymous with gay. I’m not happy about it, but it’s not a fight I’m up for fighting.

Same with genderqueer. I really like it as a descriptor for not being on the binary in the fullest sense of the term. But now it means nonbinary in the same way queer means gay.

Sigh.

I’m irritated with myself for always making life so difficult. This is part of being neurodivergent, too, though. I’ve read that people who are neurodivergent often feel the need to be really explicit and on point with their words. I can attest that this is me, and it’s annoying as fuck. Even to me when it’s me doing it.

I overexplain things and belabor the point until the other person is ready to scream. I can see the shift on their face (or hear it in their message), and yet, it takes a Herculean effort for me to shut the fuck up. The person I’m talking to doesn’t need a twenty-page backstory to every idea I want to present. When I found out this was a thing with autistic people, I felt validated.

Another thing is that everything is related in my brain. I can’t tell a story without bringing in what others would consider extraneous information and tidbits. When I talked to my autistic friend about it, she was in enthusiastic agreement that her brain worked that way, too. It’s one reason we can have comfortable conversations (in messages). We can pepper in as many non sequiturs as we want without worrying. And if one of us goes really far down a weird road, the other will bring the first person back again.

Or not. Sometimes, I join her on the side path to nowhere (and vice-versa), which can lead to some wild journeys. And once in a great while, I don’t know where she’s going. I can usually figure it out, but if I can’t, I just ask questions until I get the gist of what she was trying to say.

Knowing that this is a thing for neurodivergent people is such a relief to me. It doesn’t mean that I just let myself ramble all I want whenever I want, but it does mean that I can be a bit kinder to myself when I can’t seem to stop utter nonsense from coming out of my mouth.


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When labels are actually useful, part two

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This is part two about when labels are actually helpful and necessary. Here is my post from yesterday in which I was musing about the times when a label actually helped rather than hurt (or just annoyed me). In general, it’s in the medical field when I find useful. If there’s something wrong  with my body or my brain, it’s a relief to know what that is. It’s easier to treat something if you actually know what that something is (and you don’t think it’s all in the patient’s mind).

It’s also helpful when it’s something like autism that marks me as different (though not ‘defective’ as health issues might). I cannot tell you the relief I felt when I realized that much of what I thought was wrong with my brain was in fact something medical (as autism is). It didn’t mean that I wouldn’t have to deal with it (because of course I would still have to do that), but it meant that it was something that was just different–not necessarily wrong.

I think if there’s one thing I could convey to other people who are different for various reasons that have nothing to do with good and bad as defined by Christians, you are glorious the way you are. That’s not to say that you won’t have to mask at times or that you’ll never have to smooth your edges to get along with society, but it is saying that much of that is arbitrary and there may never be a legit reason for it.

One thing I think people who are neurodivergent often have to do is  calculate how much of the weirdness they want to let out and at wwhat cost. This is especially true at work, which, by the way. I have a gripe (because of course I do).

There’s been a movement to bring your whole/authentic self to work. It was supposed to mean that people who were minorities and (including neurodivergent) should be able to be more themselves at work. Meaning that they should not have to heavily mask all the time. Or, as a very basic example, black women should be able to wear hairstyles that are a part of their culture without getting punished for it.

It was not nor has it ever been a way to say that everyone should let it all hang out at work. I am so frustrated that this is what people now think it means. “No one wants to see someone’s ugly side at work!” Well, no, but that’s never what it meant in the first place. It was supposed to be a way for minorities to feel less burdened at work for being so different than the norm.

I know that’s how these things work on the internet, though. The least-generous interpretation of a term (read, the one that the majority fixates on) is the one that eventually wins out and becomes the definition of that term.

Sigh.

Anyway.

I realize it’s still difficult for me to really let my guard down with people because I have had negative reactions to the real me more often than not. I’m not just a little different–I’m a lot different.


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When labels are actually useful

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I’ve made it pretty well known that I do not like labels for the most part. I find them restrictive, reductive, and sometimes, misleading. However, there is one time when I find labels useful. That’s when it comes to health, physical and mental. Let me explain.

When I was in my twenties, I had what I thought was really bad carpal tunnel syndrome in my right wrist. It was logical to think that was what it was because I typed a lot (and I mean excessively), and I didn’t always pracice good typing posture (and by that, I mean I never use good typing posture. I let my wrists collapse more often than I should. I did have a wrist rest, but I relied on it too much).

I had a soft cast for months, but it did not help. Nothing else helped, etiher. None of the exercises that the doctors recommended did one bit of good. After my GP could not find what was wrong with me, she sent me to a specialist. I don’t remember what kind of specialist, but I do remember what happened.  He listened to my tale of woe without saying anything. Without a word, he grabbed my thumb and yanked it backwards; I jumped about ten feet into the air.

“You don’t have carpal tunnel,” he announced as he wrote something down. “You have ______.” I don’t remember the name of it beacuse it was long, and I had never heard of it before. I don’t remember what he did for it, either, but whatever it was did the trick. I no longer had pain in my wrist, and I still don’t to this day.

Another time was when whichever doctor/therapist told me I had depression. or did I realize it on my own? Either way, being able to have a name for what I was feeling was such a relief. It wasn’t just all in my head! I mean, it was, but it was an actual thing–not me just making shit up.

Same with a friend gently suggesting that maybe I had autism. Suddenly, so many things made sense. Like me being too sensitive, me having sensory issues, me not being able to look people in the eyes. For me, putting a name to a bunch of disparate issues and being able to realize they were actually A Thing and, again, not just something I made up in my head was invaluable.

K and I had an argument about mental health. Not about the fact that it matters or the fact that we both have issues with our own mental health. It was about how far should we as a society go when it comes to mental health issues. She was uncomfortable with how much medication was happening these days.

She said that when we were kids, we just dealt with our issues because we had to. I pointed out in a less-than-calm manner that some of us didn’t deal with it well–and, indeed, that somepeople did not deal with it at all (meaning, we have lost so many people to mental health issues). I also said that if I had known more about my issues when I was a kid and how to deal with them, I would be in a better place now.

We got heated. Voices were raised. It’s the closest we’ve gotten to a fight in our thirty years of friendship. Once we calmed down, we found the common ground as we always do.

Her concern was that people with mental health issues still had to get through each day and go about their lives. If they focused too much on the mental health issues themselves, they might get stuck. I saw her point. There’s a thin line between focusing on your issues in order to work on them and obsessing over them.

On the other hand, if you don’t know what the problem is, you can’t deal with it. I lost decades because I didn’t know I was neurodivergent. I mean, I had a hunch, but all the outside signs ponited to it not being true. Because I was heavily emotionally punished if I dared think my own feelings and emotions mattered, and I was castigated for being too sensitive, I don’t act autistic–whatever that means.

In addition, the stereotypical view of an autistic person is based on male traits, and I never thought that there might be any other portrayal of autism. Once I was told to look traits of autistic women and other nonmale people, things started falling into place.

Just as I changed my bother’s life by casually mentioning his autism (assuming that he already knew about it), a friend of mine did the same for me. My brother immediately accpted what I said to him, looked it up, and told me a few months later that it made total sense. He has the classic (and stereotypical) traits of autism–and I’ve known it for several decades.

Me, on the other hand, I have none of the stereotypical traits–at least on the surface. I am told I’m too empathic, if anything; too sensitive; too emotional; and just too much in general.

All of that is a cover and learned behavior, though. Well, not the too sensitive thing. That’s just me, but that’s actually a symptom of autism–hypersensitivity, I mean. I just read that 90% of children with autism experience sensory hypersensitivity. Most of the research on autism has been done on kids, which is unfortunate. And on men. But that’s not unusual in, well, anything.

Once my friend brought up the possibility that I might be autistic, so many things made sense. So. Many. Damn. Things. And once things slid into place, I became so goddamn angry at society for not giving me a fucking clue that I might be autistic. The problem is that I’ve been masking so hard and for so long, it’s nearly impossible for me to unmask. It’s one reason I prefer being alone. That’s the only time I can just be me.

Well, one of the only times. When I’m with my closest friends, I can let down the mask somewhat. But that’s it. Otherwise, it’s on 100% of the time. And part of that is, apparently, people tell me shit about their lives that I would prefer not to know. I have one of those faces that say, “Tell me everything about you, starting with when you were five years old.”

Even when I tried to cut people off, it didn’t seem to matter. Now, I just roll with it since I don’t go out much any more.

More tomorrow.

My daily report for shits and giggles

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I’m back with the daily weather report. Why? Because it’s still occupying my mind, and I’m going to keep going on with it until I’m bored with it. Here is my post from yesterday in which I did just that and a whole lot more. It’s 62F now, which seems to be pretty normal for this time of year. I ran to the pharmacy and for the first time this season, I wore shorts. Long shorts, yes, but shorts, nonetheless. It was such a nice day out, and it’s finally spring? I think? I am not an outdoor person at all, but it felt nice to have the sun on my face. And 62F is right at the top of my comfort zone.

This is another thing I know and accept about myself–I hate the heat. I have hated it since I was little. It doesn’t make sense because I’m hypothyroid, which usually means quick to feel the cold. However, I was hyperthyroid before that, which maybe is where my hatred of heat comes from. It should have gone away when my thyroid was destroyed, but it did not.

Now, my tolerance of/enjoyment of the cold is slightly lower than it was before I hit menopause, but I still much prefer it to the heat. And, to me, the heat is anything over 65F. Actually, up to 70F is tolerable. Once we go over 70F, then all bets are off.

Back when I was younger, I was much more into the cold than I am now. I mean, I was dancing in the snow naked at midnight for funsies. I haven’t done it in some time, but it made me feel so alive. I may have to revive it for next winter. Then again, I’m not sure I will be able to handle it, either. I’m not going to do it foolishly if my body can no longer deal with it.

Similarly, I used to play a fun (for me) game of seeing how long it would take me in the winter before I rolled up my window. When I was at my peak, I could tolerate the cold until roughly -10F. Then, I would reluctantly roll the window up. After that, it was another new game of when was I going to turn on the heater? I did it once or twice a winter, which was about how often I used the heater inside the house. Well, that’s a slight exaggeration. I probably used it three to five times a winter in the house–and that was mostly as I slept.

I can tell I’m getting older because I have my heater in my house at 62F all day round instead of 62F during the day and 60F at night. Yes, it’s just a matter of 2 degrees, but it’s still a significant different.

I’m still adjusting my sleeping schedule. I went to bed around 4:30 a.m. last night and got up at noon. Well, a bit before it. So seven hours of sleep, which is decent for me. I got up once to pee, but quickly went back to sleep again.


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Back with more bullshit

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I am back with another weather report. It’s going to fascinate me until the threat of a frost has passed. At the rate we’re going, it won’t be until winter comes–and then it won’t be at all. it’s currently 44F, and this is the lowest it’s supposed to get in the next week or ten days. I’m wearing a hoodie, which I had thought I would not need again this season.

I have said several times that I love the cold. If it could be under forty year round, I would be down with that. The problem is when it switches from seventies to forties over the course of a single day. My body is so not happy. Even though I’m mostly inside where the temp is a calming 62 degrees.

I managed to get to bed around three-thirty, which is istll within the range of when I want to get to bed. I’m shooting for three, but I’ll take this as a huge win considering that I’ve gone from eight in the morning to three-thirty within a matter of days.

It’s got me thinking about other problems in my life and how I deal with them in a similar fashion.  What I mean is that I ignore them, try the obvious solutions, ignore them some  more, then try something radical that may or may not work.

Like with my sleep issues, the bad decision I made (staying up for 72 hours) led to the better decision I made (reverting to my previous habit of doing what I neded to do before doing the fun stuff). Today, I backslid a bit, but as long as I get my shit down by three-thirty/four, it’s fine. Or at least keeping me on track. As I said in yesterday’s post (or the one before, maybe), I would ideally like to make three in the morning my consistent go to bed time. I’m close to it and I’m doing a good job, but I’m worried that I’ll let myself slip little by little until I’m back to my old schedule.

I got a good seven hours last night, but it could have been more if  Ihadn’t fucked up my alarm. What I mean is that I didn’t reset my alarm from 11 a.m. (for my Zoom Taiji class yesterday)  to something later than that. That means that I got up at eleven, even though I was aiming for twelve.

I do wonder what is fucking up my memory even more so than it’s normally fucked. It’s been markedly worse in the last few weeks, and I’m sure it’s a vicious cycle with my lack of sleep. or rather, broken sleep. I have accepted I now have a shitty memory since my medical crisis, but it’s gotten even worse in the past few weeks.


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Groove is in my head

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I’m back with the weather report once again. Right now it’s 55F, which is nice for me. It’s supposed to get down to near-freezing tonight, which…look, we all know I love the cold. I think I have been pretty clear on that. However, I am having the roughest time with the wildly fluctuating temps. My body is, I mean. Here is my post from yesterday, and I’ll just keep going with my musings in this post.

At the same time, I’m just exhausted from the lack of sleep. I mean, I don’t sleep well in general, but I’ve been managing to have decent sleep until the last month or so. Maybe a few months? It’s been especially terrible in the last few weeks. Going to bed at eight or nine and still forcing myself up by two-thirty because I was determined to have a regular time to get up. I was hoping that it would force me to go to bed earlier. Did this work? No. Did I really think it would work? No.

I know myself. I know the way my brain (doesn’t) work. I know what I can make myself do and what I can’t. And yet, I still foolishly do things I know won’t work. It’s not even as if I’m fooling myself–it’s me trying to convince me that I can fool myself.

I think this is one of the things that frustrates me the most about my weird-ass brain. I know what I can and can’t do, but I still try to do the thintg that I know won’t work with the futile hope that it’ll end differently this time.

What I’ve learn is that I just have to do something big and completely different. NOT stay up for 72 hours straight, but moving from one computer to another by a certain time after actually doing the first thing I need to do. This is how I used to do it back in the day before I had my medical crisis.

Side note: I’m exhausted. I’m so tired. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. After having so much trouble sleeping and being so sleep-deprived, now that I’ve actually gotten a few nights of decent sleep, I’m more tired than ever. I’m not alarmed because that’s how it’s been in the past. My body can get used to not sleeping much (at least when I was younger), but once I start making up the deficit, my body wants more.

I don’t know if there is ever a point when I’ll be truly caught. I’m guessing that if I do this for, say, like six months, I’ll make up a good portion of that. Even if I don’t, I’ll still get more sleep and more consistent sleep than I have already so it’ll be a net plus. That’s the thing I have to remind myself about any progress I make–it’s progress. Even if it’s not as big or as much as I want, I’m still better than I used to be.


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Walking in a winter wonderland

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I’ve been fascinated with the weather in the last week or so (well, all “spring” really, and spring is in quotes because it’s been anything but)  because it’s as if winter is just refusing to leave. We Minnesotans are used to variant weather in March and April, but things are usually pretty settled by May. Here is what I wrote about it (amongst other things) in yesterday’s post.

I personally would not mind if we did not hit eighties or nineties at all during the spring/summer, but I know that would make most other people sad. Since I don’t go outside much, I should just suck it up and wish for eighties and nineties for other people. I have air con, too, which I try not to use. I am conscious that it’s bad for the environment, and while I prefer the cold to the heat, I’m fine up to 76*, but anything over that is unbearable.

Sometimes, I wish I had known shit about me when I was much younger. Such as the fact that I’m very sensitive to any external stimuli. Not just heat, which is my nemesis, but other things such as scents, light, and sounds. Not just loud sounds, but different kinds of sounds. For instance, I hate ASMR. So much. It’s like nails on a chalkboard for me. Even if it’s done by people I adore, I have to grit myy teeth to get through it. Basically, any kind of whispering is irritating to me.

Most fabrics bother me, too. My life is a series of irritating things–physically, I mean. Most of them are on the level of what irritates me in the literal sense, but there are some that just irritate me in colloquial sense, too.

My sleep is such a hot mess right now. I think it’s the worst it’s ever been. No wait. That’s not true. That’s recency bias. It was much worse when I was in college. At least I’m getting sleep now–six to eight hours. Back then, I got four if I was lucky.

I know what I have to do; I just really, really, really rebel against doing it. It really is me fighting my own brain, which is not easy to do. More than that, it’s nearly impossible. Sometimes, it’s physically uncomfortable when I do something that my brain doesn’t want me to do. That’s not an excuse, obviously. I need to do what I need to do, and I need to find a way to make it tolerable.

One thing I’ve decided to do is return to what I used to do that worked for me. There are many things that don’t, but one thing that did was making sure I did what I needed to do before allowing myself to chill out. I mean, this is probably what most people do on the regular, but it’s really hard for me to keep my brain on track.

I don’t want to use it as an excuse, but I really feel this to be true after my medical crisis. Before that, I had discipline to do what I needed to do before relaxing. Since my medical crisis, it’s really hard to keep my focus on one thing. The only exception is when I’m practicing my weapons. Even that, though, is done one form at a time (so a few minutes per form). I will say that when I’m teaching myself a new form, I can focus for up to a half hour or however long it takes me to teach myself the new posture.

Other than that, though, I have to really put my mind to something to focus for more than an hour.

Let me be clear that I’ve always had difficulty focusing unless I was hyperfocusing on something. It’s just that it’s gotten even harder now, and I feel likke it’s not completely my fault. Meaning, it’s not something that I can just fix by pure willpower.

It’s diffiuclt for me to say, but I’m feeling pretty hopeless right now. There is so much I want/need to do, but I have the hardest time doing any of it. My personal life is a mess as is the world around me. I don’t feel like anything I do matters. I came back to life four-and-a-half years ago, and what have I done with my bonus time? Not much of anything.

This is not me being hard on myself; this is me being real. I have wasted my bonus days just as I have wasted much of my previous life. I know that the only answer to that is to actually start doing something–but that’s so much easier said than done. With all that is broken in my brain, it’s hard to think of a way to fix even a portion of it.

It’s the same with the country around me. It’s all fucked. It’s so fucked. We are living in the worst time, and I don’t have the energy to deal with it, honestly. I’m feeling pretty low at this moment, and I’m not sure if I want to claw my way out.

I’ve always suffered from depression and anxiety, and it’s been up and down all my life. Both were bad up until my medical crisis, and then,  it was drastically different. My deperession decreased by 90% and my anxiety went down by 60%. These are rough estimates. I would say that my depression has ratcheted back up to be about 90% of what it originally was (so still a 10% decrease) and my anxiety is maybe 80% of what it was pre-medical crisis.

So overall, it’s not quite as bad as it once was, but it’s still bad. I think the worst part of it is that I just don’t have the energy/wherewithal to do anything about it. Each day passes as an imitation of the one before, and I feel helpless to do anything to make it better. I know that one thing that may help is seeing a therapist, but it’s cruelly ironic that the thing that may help the most is often somethnig that seems so far out of reach.

I really am at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do.

*Fine, of course, is relative. I mean fine as long as I don’t have to move much. Bearable is the better word.  And as long as I’m shielded from the elements.

Gender redux; gender reflex

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One more post about gender? Yes, sadly. Here is the post from yesterday in which I talked about how I just did not feel gender at all or get it.

I was reading a question and (answers)  about gender (eh, kind of. It’s good enough for the purpose of what I want to write in this post)–well, in a way. It was a work blog, and the question was from a woman who had been at her work for sixteen months, but only recently started getting complaints about the skirts she was wearing. She stated that she was having bloating issues and did not wear tight clothing/belts that would bother her stomach (paraphrasing). She stressed that the skirts fell to just above her knee, which was acceptable at her job.

Other women wore the same kind of skirts, including her boss–the person who reprimanded her about her (the letter writer’s (LW) attire), and there were men who wore hoodies and were fine while the LW’s bare shoulders were not. She was in a customer-facing position, and she wondered if that was part of the difference. But she was frustrated, embarrassed, and did not want to have to buy a whole new wardrobe.

I want to say that this has been a left-leaning blog for as long as I’ve been reading it (which is seven or eight years, I think?) with a lot of self-proclaimed feminists. The amount of commenters who came up with an embarrassing amount of reasons why this was reasonable on the part of the boss was discouraging. Very sexist reasons, I may add. I was glad to see a few people call it out, but for the most part, the commentariat went all-in on the sexism.

Including one woman who was really ugly with it–saying older women needed to be told when they looked ugly. No, not in those exact words, but close enough. She may not have meant it, but that’s how it came across, and she doubled down on it when questioned.

What really got to me was what always happens with questions like this–the desperate search for anything other than sexism as the reason the sexist thing is happening. “She’s wearing a too-tight skirt” (despite her saying she had uncomfortable bloating and wore nothing too tight); “Maybe it’s rolling up/she doesn’t realize how it looks on her”, which got a distressing amount of similar comments, etc. “Maybe the sleeveless arms are considered unprofessional” (but not the hoodies?).

Very few of them remembered or addressed the fact that the LW had been at her current job for sixteen months, but the comments had only started recently. None of the comments took that into account, which was frustrating AF. In the year 2026, we have gone backwards with feminism, I feel. A commentor actually wrote with all their fingers that a woman not shaving her legs in America was considered “gross”. Again, in the year 2026. I haven’t shaved anything in thirty years and have never gotten any shit for it. Then again, I’m Asian. And I live in a very progressive area.


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One last post about sleep–and a plan! (Maybe)

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I’m back to talk about sleep one more time. Here is the post from yesterday in which I talked about sleep, the lack thereof, and how hard it is for me to get said sleep. I’m still getting over my unwise decision to try to stay up 72 hours without researching what could happen if I had actually managed it. I mean, sleep deprivation is considered a method of torture for a reason. I will say I think it’s really funny that I was mainlining coffee when Ian messaged me asking if it was dangerous for me to stay awake for that long. I quickly looked it up and realized it was, then went directly to bed. I fell asleep in less than a minute.

I have said it before, and I’ll say it again: caffeine does not affect me. I can drink it up to the point of going to bed, and I’ll still be able to fall asleep. As I just noted. In fact, I don’t know why I drink it in the ‘morning’ except that’s what you’re supposed to do.

I have realized that there is just no quick solution. Nor is there any easy solution. I can’t just snap fingers and suddenly be able to sleep well and at the proper time. It’s wishful thinking. I also can’t simply force myself to go to bed at a better time. I’ve proven that that isn’t going to happen, either.

It’s the worst feeling in the world to sit there watching the clock inch forward, knowing I should be in bed, but not doing anything to actually move towards that goal. It doesn’t help that I’m chanting in my brain that I should be going to bed. The other weird thing is how time seems to draaaaag and then suddenly leaps ahead. Time is weird. It just is.

I think another reason I’m having a hard time is that I’m just tired (no pun intended) of dealing with my sleep. I’ve been doing it all my life, and while it’s gotten slightly better and then got a whole lot better after my medical crisis (before slowly sliding back into bad territory). I am resentful that I’ve put so much effort into it for so little return.

On the third hand, it’s been at pretty disparate times, and I may not have put enough concentrated effort into it. I’m a pretty impatient person in some ways, and me trying to find ways to sleep was one of those ways. I did try so many things, but I don’t know if I gave any of them enough time to stick. The problem was that there were some negative results to many of the options, which made me reluctant to keep trying. For instance:


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