World around tiredness

So many nights and days.

You are supposed to wake up in the morning and make yourself ready to go. Either you are home taking care of the kids, or you’re going to work, or you’re going to school or just hanging out with friends. Either way, you wake up in the morning. People tell you ever since you’re a kid that: “You have to go to bed early since you have to wake up early. That’s how it works.” If a kid refuses to go to sleep, he/she gets punished because they aren’t obeying. If a child isn’t tired in the evening, they must have been eating too much sugar or something. Now if a kid is tired in the morning, they will get yelled at: “I told you that you should go to sleep earlier. See now how tired you are!” All this is very true. Most children are tired in the morning because they were awake too long and they aren’t tired in the evening if they eat too much sugar and stuff.

Tho, people tend to forget that, even if you aren’t tired in the evening and you’re dead tired in the morning. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the person was up all night or ate too much sugar before bed.  Some people just are tired by “design”.

I myself suffer from chronic tiredness together with extreme insomnia. These in combination is extremely hard to live with. I’m are dead tired most of the time, but I cannot fall asleep. Doctors have found out as much that I lack a certain -chemical- in my brain that normal people release when they are about to go to bed that puts them to sleep. I’m not a doctor so I have no idea what it is or how it works really. Just have understood that I don’t have everything I’m supposed to have to be able to sleep properly.

Other thing is that I am one of the people who has a 28hour day instead of 24h. Most people say this is humbug, but it has been proven that some people tend to have longer days “built in”.

When I was younger I used to be late for school most of the days. For a while my aunt got mad at me for being late, but she realized after a while that I could manage school even tho I wasn’t always on time. When I got a bit older she started to get annoyed of my tiredness and used to pull me out of bed angrily and made me do chores and stuff as punishment. I understand her, she didn’t know why I was tired. She just thought I was up all night doing what ever and then tried to sleep during the day. It wasn’t my choice really. Sometimes I would get so mad at her and defied everything. When you’re tired all the time you really get angry lot faster than others. Everything is annoying.

When I started High School. I took a school an hour away from home, instead of one of the schools near as the others. My aunt laughed at me and said that I would never be able to manage that. The thing was, I took a school with only 3 days of schoolwork and rest I did on my own, when ever, where ever. This made it possible for me to sleep more some days than others. Tho my insomnia escalated at this point and I wasn’t able to fall asleep properly for days sometimes and then I would just “crash” and sleep a whole day. This made my aunt even more angry and ended up on that I had to move out. She thought I did it on purpose. So I moved to my own apartment. Took care of myself. No one was complaining and telling me what to do. This helped actually. I got to sleep when I felt like it and I was less tired at school when I got there.

After a few years, being out of work and just being with myself for a while. I started to study again. Realized that I’m not made to just be, I need something to do.

During the first half year. I started to get more and more tired. I had to go to school 5 days a week and it was starting to get to me. During the next year I crashed. I didn’t know what happened at first, but after being home for 3 weeks because I couldn’t take the subway to school. Always got nausea on the way. I went to see a doctor. Talked to her for a long time and she started to ask questions no doctor ever had. She then told me that she will refer me to a psychiatrists who could help me more. It turns out that I was deeply depressed, had socialfobia and that it’s not normal to have insomnia as long as I have had. So I started to go there regularly and I started to get better for most parts. The tiredness stayed. After a while the doctor at the psychiatric told me that I’m not made to work/go to school 5 days a week. I seem to take a lot of damage of it. I didn’t care. I liked school, but I promised to take it easy.

After school I got a job and it was fine at first. Then I started to sleep even worse, I couldn’t eat properly and I was agitated all the time. My psychiatrist saw this and reported to the doctor, who then called me in for a meeting and made me stay home for a month and look for another job. Apparently the job I had wasn’t good for me, it made everything worse. I got a new job, much better job. With a boss who was understanding and helpful. I got back on my feet, started to feel better and I started to believe everything would be okay again. It did for a while. Everything was much better for couple of years.

Last year I started to feel more tired than usual. First I thought I was sick, but after few weeks I started to wonder. I reported this to my doctor who asked me: “Do you think it is temporary or is it going to get worse?” I said temporary I hoped. So we let it be and I promised to come back if it didn’t give in. During the fall it just got worse and worse. Started to loose my will to do anything. Everything is boring and uninteresting. Ate less and slept really poorly. Finally I contacted my psychiatrist again and told her how it had been for a few months and I did a test to see how depressed I was, again. Seems a lot, but mostly it could be the tiredness fault. So now it’s time to see the doctor again. See what she has to say. Since I can barely take myself of out bed in the morning to go to work. I’m late most of the days. Just so dead tired every day and no one knows how to help me.

I’m tired of being tired all the time. It’s not as much fun wanting to sleep all the time as it may sound for some people. I just want to sleep properly, know how it feels to wake up in the morning and be wide awake. Can’t even remember when I last time felt like I had slept well. 2 Days left until I see my doctor again and then I get to know what she want to do. Since it’s starting to go out of control.

I want to work. I love working. I don’t want to be tired. I have tried to eat differently. Move more ( walking and stuff ). Eating more and more vitamins. Going to sleep different hours to see if it helps. Sleeping between 4-12 hours to see if it does any difference. Everything fails. I just sleep badly and I’m always tired. Always.

One day I will get away from this and I will be happy and enjoying life. Until then. Stop complaining about me being tired, sleeping a lot and just being me. I look tired all day long so I have to tell people that I am per default tired. I’m working on it. I’m trying to be better. One day, I will be better and I don’t have to look tired all day and want to sleep. The day I’m starting to feel normal again, I will be happy!

Just remember. Some people are tired even if they aren’t up all night doing god knows what or eating too much sugar.

As a side note; I don’t drink coffee (never have), I have cut down on sugar intake a lot the past years and I try to stay away from stuff that are supposed to make you ‘alert’. So my insomnia has nothing to do with these.

Tiredness, well, not much helps on that. Not even sleep. I get a bit less sleepy during the night, but I’m still tired when I wake up. Still tired during the day and when I go to bed… Evil circle that is!

There isn’t much you can do when you are tired. You see world differently. You don’t want to all the things others do because it takes too much energy. Just stop caring about trivial stuff and take care of yourself. Most people give up and stay home. Refusing to do anything. I don’t want to be one of them. I want to get better and be able to work my fullest. I want to give everything. For now, I give my average and try to stay healthy and keep working. Getting better and just living my life as I see fit.