Due to the chronic insomnia I generally have energy to be social one night a week and that's with allot of planning. I used to be a more spontaneous free spirit before all this. Now, though I am 45, I have the energy of an 80 year old, but I refuse to give up while I'm still young. I haven't even met my life-mate yet and I want to be ready when he arrives.
I literally have on my dating profile, "My favorite thing is laying in bed all day and watching shows", because that's what I usually have energy enough to actually enjoy. Although it really is much less adventure than most people are seriously looking for and I hope to improve my energy level in time. Now I usually need at least a week to prepare for leaving the house for social interaction and then through a series of strategic procedures, everything must go somewhat to plan. The first thing to note is that in order to have a social night, I need at least two days off from work, which is generally the case. I usually choose Saturday for my Me Day and/or Social Night, which gives me time on Sunday to "blob out" without concern for social expectation, catch up on chores and prepare for the work week. The goal is to gather enough energy throughout the week for a day's event, in order to feel like I'm still living. While two days off of work really isn't enough to have a life one day a week and recuperate adequately, I try to make it work. If I know I have plans on the upcoming weekend, I will take the necessary steps to gather enough energy for the event. This means maintaining a strict schedule, which also includes: slightly less than desirable levels of caffeine, an increased caffeine cut-off time, exercising in the morning and not the evening, staying balanced in all areas, including diet, taking my medication as early as possible and making sure there is at least one "break" night during the week before the event. When I am not able to take a break at some point during the week before the event and I continue the medication throughout the entire week, by Saturday, when I have taken the medication 4-6 days in a row, it doesn't work and then, which has happened too many times, I either have to cancel my plans or suffer painfully to get through it. In either case not only are my plans ruined but my weekend and possibly the week to come, due to a continuous imbalance and lack of time to correct it. Most of the time, one might say, I don't "do" anything. On the weekends when I don't do anything but lay in bed or just lay around (i.e. - "blob out"), it can be an extreme relief not to have anyone expecting you to have any energy that you don't have. People rarely understand that I often lack the energy for simple tasks such as, driving, doing something "fun" and having a simple conversation and much less energy for crowds, traffic, parties, etc. Most people in my age range can't understand that, especially when you're meeting someone new and you have to explain it to them, it really is a social and date killer. I met someone a year ago whom I had to explain that I don't have time for socializing during the week since I'm on a later schedule and they couldn't understand why I could not set aside an hour before work. It was beyond their comprehension that my mornings were devoted to sleep and getting through the morning haze to get to work on time. Even during social times, I rarely leave the house before early evening, because sometimes it take an entire day to wake up and gather energy for the later activity. One of the major social problems with this is it makes it next to impossible to make commitments. I've learned the hard way that making commitments for activities is a huge mistake, where it's much more desirable for everyone to cancel when I've had abhorrent sleep than to follow through with my commitment and be abhorrent, ruining everyone's time. Therefore all my plans are "tentative", which makes me seem like the ultimate flake but my true friends understand. A few months ago, when making plans with a newer friend who I thought understood my plight, with the usual agreement of confirmation of the day's plans upon waking in late morning, decided to go without me, without notice or confirmation because I was taking too long. He was always annoyed with the frustration of my predicament. So sometime last year I took my dating profiles down and just decided to take a social break till my energy starts rising again. It will require life changes, that I have been working on for a few years now. So if you know someone with chronic insomnia, just be patient with them.
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AuthorJust a sleeping beauty trying to wake up by getting some sleep. -GG Archives
November 2018
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