intro post

[party_of1]

 hi. im ariel. its 12:59am. ive got quite the vicious cycle here: i take an insane amount of time to fall asleep, then i cant STAY asleep, which gets made up for by "sleeping late" in the morning. the quotes are there cause its not really sleeping late cause i didnt really fall asleep until maybe 4 or 5am. so then i get my sleep, but then that night, once again, i cant get to sleep.
my mom turned me onto these tablets called MidNights, theyre self-dissolving and non habit forming. only one is supposed to be enough; i took two last night and still managed to see 4-something am on my clock. and i had things i NEEDED to do today (college open house, anyone?) which started early, so i couldnt really stay in bed and catch up, but when i did get back i crashed from 3 something til around 7. now, as per usual, im WIDE awake.
i have been diagnosed and medicated for depression (actually thats how i got here, someone on a depression comm linked me here.), and i take welbutrin. it was suggested that i take it at the same time every morning so i could 'get a move on' so i wouldnt be up late. mom and dad and i chose 8:30am for med time. so, in addition to my evil sleep cycle, i also wake up at various times thinking i missed my window but it winds up only being like, 4am. but i hate the way alarms pretty much SCARE me awake, so no alarms. so i dont really think it was ONLY the meds keeping me up, before. its gotta be something else. but i have no idea what. i dont know about a sleep cycle/circadian rhythm or whatever. i did keep a sleep journal for about 2 weeks, but when i did the math, it said i wasnt losing any sleep (probaly cause i make up for what i lost by sleeping in).

TL,DR:
1)cant go to sleep
2)when i go, i cant stay asleep (whatever non med reason)
3)cant stay asleep (med reason)
4)finally fall and stay asleep early morning
5)make up for lost night time sleep w/ daytime sleep
6)because of #5, we're back at #1

Comments

[revena]

My sympathies! Your sleeping pattern is a lot like mine often is.

I take Wellbutrin myself, actually, and I found that when I was taking it in the mornings it gave me afternoon headaches, so I tried taking it at night even though it's supposed to have the effect of waking one up/keeping one awake, and for me it hasn't had any adverse impact on my usual insomnia. Go figure. So if trying to take it at a specific a.m. time is stressing you out and making the sleeping thing even more complicated, maybe it'd be worth it to try moving that window around?

[party_of1]

hmmm. like i said, i dont know if its really just the meds, cause before i started, i would be the same way with just an alarm clock- i didnt want to be 'scared' awake by the sudden BEEPBEEPBEEP so id keep waking up thinking that it was about to go off any second only to find i had like, hours to go. then when it'd be like 10mins to going off id stay up and cut the thing off.

re: meds and times

[party_of1]

dw's not letting me edit my original reply to you, so, heres the rest (warning: i might repeat a little from the first reply)
the whole thing about the clock- alarms scare me awake. with heart pounding and heavy breathing and stuff, so to avoid that when i ABSOLUTELY have to set an alarm, i try to wake up before the alarm goes off.
the part about meds: since welbutrin is an antidepressant, it has a certain amount of stimulant in it to help you want to get up and go, so id have to take it pretty early or else the stimulant in it would add to my sleep problems. that said, i havent really been taking it lately, cause i havent been waking up earlier than noon.

Re: meds and times

[revena]

I have that same issue with alarms. Auuugh. I manage to wake up to music without the same heart-pounding response, but the radio is too variable, so I set up an alarm with a song I've chosen...and then have to change it every week or so, because I start hearing it as sleep-through-able background noise after a few repetitions. Oh, brain!

[untonuggan]

Ugh, that sounds like a royal pain in the arse. I also hate it when you do all the things you're "supposed" to do and still you can't sleep.

If you're up for suggestions, have you thought of using one of those natural dawn alarm clock thingies? It gradually makes the room brighter in the morning. If those are too darn expensive for you - they range from $75-$200 on Amazon - you could always try just getting one of those timers that people use for when they go on vacation and have it turn a very bright lamp on in your room at a set time. I don't know if it will help you wake up, but it might be less scary than BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP. I used one for awhile until my partner got annoyed because I set it early and it was waking her up, too. (Plus, I was "snoozing" the lamp if you get my meaning. Ahem.) Worth a shot, perhaps.

[party_of1]

i have kinda wanted to, but the way my window faces, it naturally lets in the light in the mornings so ive tried to go with that. i think it would help, except that i dont go to sleep til around the time it starts getting light outside :(
then i sleep til around 12 and get called a 'homebody' (moms new term for 'lazy', i think).

[synecdochic]

Without meaning to internet-diagnose, and you really should see a sleep specialist: Ah, welcome to life with what certainly sounds like a case of DSPS. If you're falling asleep regularly around the same time at night and sleeping regularly to the same time in the mid-morning, it could very well be DSPS and not just insomnia. (I have DSPS's bigger nastier cousin, Non-24-Hour Sleep/Wake Syndrome. Worst case my doctor's ever seen.^[1])

First off, for the alarm: Have you thought about one of the sleep-cycle alarm clocks (they have apps for iPhone/iPad and Android, if you have either of those; if not you can get a wrist gizmo that hooks into your computer) -- that will let you set the alarm to wake you gently around a period of light sleep, which will avoid the alarm blaring you awake and will help you wake at the optimal time for your body.

Dealing with DSPS is very individual. Some people get really good results from light therapy in the mornings and from adjusting their environment to completely prohibit light exposure in the hours before bed (so, like, turning down the brightness of your computer screen and altering the "temperature" of the light with F.lux); some people get good results from large doses of vitamins (vitamin D and/or vitamin B12) or large doses of melatonin (but there's a connection between taking large amounts of melatonin and depression, so be careful there). (On the other hand, there's a connection between DSPS and depression, in that they are often seen together, and treating one often helps with treating the other.) Interestingly, the few times I went on hormonal birth control, my sleep schedule snapped into a perfect 24-hour day cycle. For the three weeks before the BC made me go crazy and I had to go off it. (I react very, very badly to any hormones.)

It will take a lot of experimenting to see what works for you, though, and unfortunately, many people with a more-than-mild case of it will never be able to wrangle it into a "proper" sleep schedule long-term. The best thing to do is often to recognize that you have a disability (DSPS is considered a disability under the ADA) and adjust your life to fit your sleep schedule, rather than adjusting your sleep schedule to fit your life. It's not impossible to find second or third-shift jobs (and often they pay a shift differential, since people who are willing to work the night shift are few and far between) and with a formal diagnosis of DSPS you can generally get your employer to make reasonable accomodations such as a later start time if the job you're working isn't time-dependent.

From a personal standpoint, I grew up with DSPS as far back as I can remember: some of my earliest memories are fighting with my mom over bedtime. Once I hit puberty (sleep cycle is also tied into the endocrine system and I have a bunch of endocrine disorders) my delay started shifting later and later, and it came totally loose from the clock around age 20 or so. (Seriously, my doctor took a look at my sleep chart and said "This shouldn't happen unless you live in a cave."^[2]) I could wrangle my sleep schedule a little during my early 20s, enough to let me keep working (night shift jobs, though) in the Real World, but by the time I hit 30 I just gave up. Fortunately my job lets me set my own sleep schedule now, and once I started indulging my natural sleep pattern, life got so much better.

One thing I'd change right now if I were you, I'd move the time you take your Wellbutrin, since it's really stressing you out to keep taking it at the early time. I'd also go back to keeping a sleep log, with notes about things like how many times you woke up in the middle of the night, how rested you felt when you woke up, etc. Even if you're getting a "proper" amount of sleep, a sleep disorder specialist can look at the data later and tell you whether you're exhibiting signs of a circadian disorder. From there, start looking into circadian disorders and the ways that people cope with them, and start pursuing a diagnosis with a sleep specialist -- but also, you and your parents should understand that you're not just "lazy" and you aren't just being difficult; life with a circadian disorder is like living with eight hours of constant jet-lag, and everything you can do to ease the way for yourself will help. If that means scheduling all your college classes so they don't come before noon and eventually getting a second-shift or third-shift job so you can indulge your body's need to sleep from 3AM-11AM instead of from 10pm-6am, well, it's inconvenient and annoying and will involve a lot of workarounds, but it can be done!

Good luck. :)

^[1] no, really. My "day" runs between 30-36 hours long -- not only do I have Non-24, I have freerunning Non-24. Here's my sleep log for February '12 so far, which I round to the nearest 15m:

wed 1 feb: asleep 6pm
thu 2 feb: awake 9:45am
fri 3 feb: asleep 3:45am awake 12:30pm
sat 4 feb: asleep 8am awake 3:30pm
sun 5 feb: asleep 6:30am awake 5:30pm
mon 6 feb: asleep 1:30pm awake 8:45pm
tue 7 feb: asleep 5:30pm
wed 8 feb: awake 8am
thu 9 feb: asleep 6:15am awake 8pm
fri 10 feb: asleep 4:15pm awake 9:15pm
sat 11 feb: asleep 9:30am
sun 12 feb: awake 12:15am asleep 8:45pm
mon 13 feb: awake 8am

Some of those periods are because I had to get up out-of-cycle to do something out in the Real World, like a doctor appointment or a night out with my wife, but that's a fairly representative sample of what my sleep chart looks like. If I pasted the whole last year's worth of data, you'd see a periodicity of several days of 'awake 20-25 hours, asleep 12-15 hours', then a shorter periodicity of 'awake 15-16 hours, asleep 7-9 hours' -- but only when I've yanked around to sleeping during the day and being awake at night; I almost never 'stick' at the part of the cycle when I'm sleeping at night and awake during the day -- then back to the longer periodicity.

I share this with you to let you know that even with a circadian rhythm like mine, it's perfectly possible to lead a happy, healthy, and productive life! Even before I was working for myself, I could work third-shift jobs and find employers who didn't care when I did my work as long as it got done.

^[2] Light cues set a lot of sleep cues. This is why blind people usually have some kind of sleep disorder, and why light therapy is often used to treat sleep disorders.

[party_of1]

thanks! i went to the dsps link you put in, and im kinda thinking that thats it. thats what i got. although i dont remember how i was with sleep as a kid, i didnt really notice until i was in college. id go in from about 10 to maybe, 3pm and come home and just CRASH from the moment i got home til late that night. the only thing really keeping me from sleeping late and making up for it was that i had to go in for classes. for awhile, when i need to make an appointment for something, id say "im a mid-morning person" (mid morning for ME meaning anywhere from 11am and on).
i have googled 'sleep disorder quizzes' but dont really know which one really fits me when i get results, except that i know i dont have apnea, cause my dad does and my symptoms dont really match for that. but dsps sounds like what it is.

[synecdochic]

Yeah, I've heard estimates that like 10-15% of cases diagnosed as insomnia are really DSPS. If you can keep to a regular sleep schedule that's just time-shifted differently -- like, if you have no problems falling asleep if you're regularly sleeping from 3am-11am, but regularly have problems falling asleep if you're trying to sleep from 10pm-6am, that might very well be DSPS.

I'd start with the melatonin and light therapy, and keep a good sleep log with notes on what you try and how it works, and head for a sleep disorder specialist if it continues being a problem for you! Good luck. :)

[avendya]

Thank you for this comment. (In other words: oh dear, I just figured out what's wrong with my sleep cycle and why nothing fixes it.)

[synecdochic]

Heh. You're a member of the club too, huh?

[avendya]

Yep. 3 AM to 11 AM for me...

(is it worthwhile getting an official diagnosis? I mean, I am a college student, so can mess around with my schedule to make it mostly work.)

[synecdochic]

It can be helpful in non-college life to have the diagnosis, to urge your future employers to make accomodations (since it can fall under the ADA). But I fumbled along without one for years and didn't officially get mine until long after I started working for myself, just by a) a willingness to lose sleep when necessary and b) careful choices about what jobs I would take. I did have one disasterous attempt to work 9-5 for about a year, before realizing that no, it really wasn't possible for me (including such things as one day when I slept through my alarm, which was set for 7AM, and woke up at 2PM with alarm still blaring and a dozen missed calls from my boss asking where the fuck I was), but once I accepted that no, I really was one of nature's third-shifters, life got a little easier. heh.

[rydra_wong]

but i hate the way alarms pretty much SCARE me awake, so no alarms.

Are you managing to take the Wellbutrin at 8.30am without an alarm, or are you taking it later in the day on days when you sleep late? It does have a stimulant effect on many people, so if you're taking it late, that might be contributing to the insomnia.

I'd also second (third, fourth, whatever) the suggestion that it might be worth investigating some of the alarms that wake you up gradually -- e.g. with gradually increasing light or music. If you could find something tolerable, then it might help with making your sleep patterns more regular.

I think a first thing to try would be getting an alarm you can tolerate and seeing if waking up at a consistent time in the morning and not sleeping during the day helps reduce the insomnia.

You might find some of the resources on "sleep hygiene" (it's a horrible term, I know) useful, e.g.:

http://www.umm.edu/sleep/sleep_hyg.htm

Are you managing to take the Wellbutrin at 8.30am without an alarm, or are you taking it later in th

[party_of1]

no, i realized that about the stimulant so i dont take it if i wake up any later than 11am. problem is, i ALWAYS wake up later than 11am except once in a while. so i havent been taking it.

Re: Are you managing to take the Wellbutrin at 8.30am without an alarm, or are you taking it later i

[rydra_wong]

Okay, so you're not taking an antidepressant right now?

Sounds like you need to investigate possible non-stressful alarms (maybe ones that wake you with light or music or whatever) and/or talk to your psych about switching to an antidepressant that won't have to be taken at the same time each day.

Obviously, depression can mess with your ability to sleep all by itself, so it can create a vicious cycle.