I suck at Sleep: My Sleep Story

Sleep? What is sleep? Oh yeah, it’s that thing I never was good at. Oh, don't get me wrong; I can sleep for hours! Just it’s not exactly helpful when I don't actually fall asleep until around 6am. Anyone can tell you that you need a good night’s rest to be at your best. Having a regular sleep schedule is super important to stay on top. Sleep reduces stress, improves memory and can even help you lose weight! And of course I am absolutely horrible at it. I always have been. Ever since I was little I had trouble sleeping at night.

 It is common knowledge that the brain is super active during sleep which is why we dream. Well it seems mine goes into overdrive more than usual when I sleep. And most people have 4 to 6 dreams a night and won’t remember most of them; while I will have anywhere between 10 and 15! And more often than not I can recount them all crystal clearly when I wake up. Well for a few hours anyway and I try to always write the good ones down. And then there are some that I will never forget for the rest of my life. Like “Memuary the 82^nd , year 2001” or thousands of my mom’s dog Cocoa running around the house but they are all about

the size of an oompa loompa. Don’t ask. I also have premonitions in my dreams. They can transpire the next day but usually it is sometime in the next month or so and when they do, the déjà vu gives me headaches. I have had them since I was a child and it runs in my family but I will touch more on this later. 

Either way, the whole dream thing can’t actually happen if I don’t go to bed first! When I was little the rule was that if I couldn’t sleep I could do whatever I wanted as long as I stayed in my room and tried not to wake anyone. The rule actually came to be because I used to clean at night to keep myself busy and my mom actually had to confiscate the vacuum from me and hide it and looking back I think it’s hilarious. In the end my mom got

me a TV and I would watch cartoon network until adult swim came on and that is how I discovered my favorite anime InuYasha. Now that I am much older I realize the fanfiction is much better though *wink wink* 

ANYWAY!!!! As I got older and I started school earlier I learned how to run on only about 3 hours of sleep regularly. I would usually not fall asleep until around 3ish and mom took the TV away so I had to find other things to do. That was a great creative period for me. I realized the less sleep I was

running on, the better my art was. There are quite a few water color splatters on the ceiling in my old room from late night paint sessions. And quite a few epic pairs of painted jeans too. (I wore a pair in my senior photos XD you can see them on my About Me post.)

And the biggest problem with only getting 3 hours of sleep and running to school all week was the usual Friday crash. I would come home, usually fall asleep around 10 and not crawl out of bed till Saturday night or even Sunday morning. About three times I even slept till Sunday Moring, waking up around 4am, and then I would proceed to eat everything in the house because I would wake up starving. 

In high school me and mom fought about me being up all night my laptop (by then I discovered InuYasha fanfiction *teehee*) so she had a rule that I had to keep it in the kitchen in its case at night. It didn’t last a single night. I used to sneak out of my room and swap the laptop out with textbook so it looked like it was still in the case and then I would switch it back before I crashed. I actually just told her that I would swap them just the other

day and she laughed (Couldn’t really ground me anymore now could she? HA!)

And all through high school and up until this past April, one of the major reasons I can’t fall asleep is because I would be in too much pain. My back flares up at night, especially when it rains. And since surgery, I have had severe sciatica and it’s just as bad as the herniated disks were. And since steroid injections (which didn’t help) my right hip has been killing me so throw that in the mix. I’m just a giant bundle of pain and problems, don’t mind me.  

I have been between colleges and sadly I am currently between jobs because of surgery and recovery, my sleep schedule is surprisingly tame. I sleep from about 4am to about noon now so I’m getting my 8 hours, but the timing makes it unhealthy still. And Chris works nights so when he gets home at around 7:30 I usually wake up for a bit before falling asleep again. But some nights I don’t fall asleep till he gets home. And for the last month or so I actually have been having a few

nights when I don’t sleep at all and it really throws me off. These days my biggest problems are pain and my infinite access to the internet and all of its glorious wonders like fanfiction.net, Facebook, Netflix, Hulu and mangareader.net and there is no one to take it away from me here.

I’ve tried to read a regular book instead of looking at a screen all night but I end up just reading till the sun comes up anyway. I have a small collection of manga and a couple of books I *cough cough* “borrowed” from the library back home that just never went back…..oops? I just get super wrapped up when reading it can be hours before I put it down.
Not gona lie sometimes if no one is around I won’t even take a break to use the bathroom, I’ll just take it in with me. 

Another problem is that with my late night history, I feel like a wimp if I get sleepy before at least 2am. I guess it’s turned into a pride thing. I feel like such a wimp when I tell friends about me never sleeping till really late and then at sleepovers I crash before them. It isn’t a competition but I guess deep down I take a little pride in my sleep patterns? Heaven, hell

and everything in between know my sleep patterns are far from healthy but I still think that way sometimes….im just a weirdo. So I am close to breaking 1,200 words for this post so I better stop now. Good night everyone! Or good morning? Who knows? =D