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Adapting to New Realities

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High Function ASD2
V.I.P Member
That’s the story of my life. I don’t have issues and I don’t have problems, just as the world keeps changing I have to also keep adapting and changing to suit the new conditions. People often ask me how I manage to stay so happy and so positive all the time and I always answer with some lame humorous comment because to try and explain how it really works would take a serious conversation.

I have no attachment to my past and I have no preconception of how my future should be. I live in the now. As circumstances change I can drop my whole life on a whim and start something completely new, and I’ve done this many times. So even when my whole world gets turned upside down I feel little sense of loss or regret, I just look at what I need to do in order to get what I want and get on with it.

Very few people seem to be like this, I think I might be missing a gene or two in there somewhere, I also never get lonely. :) I like the parable of the monkey getting caught with it’s hand stuck in the olive jar, it’s hand wouldn’t be stuck if it would just let go of the olives.

Letting go of old concepts and ideas is often more difficult than letting go of possessions or social relationships.

For me the new reality of the moment is that I think I’ve become nocturnal. My whole world got tipped upside down a few years back when a doctor prescribed me some SSRIs. I only took them for 3 months but they completely destroyed a lifetime of good sleep habits. I still fall asleep almost immediately but I started waking up again just 3 hours later, wide awake. You don’t last long on only 3 hours sleep so naturally 6 hours or so later I’d be exhausted and need to go back to bed. Lucky I don’t have to work or this would have been truly debilitating, or perhaps the cycles persisted for so long simply because I wasn’t forced to counter them.

Either way, for a few years I’ve had serious sleep problems. I started sleeping a full 8 hours one or two nights a week and that has slowly improved over the last couple of years. Now I get a good sleep about 5 nights a week then I’ll land in another cycle of only sleeping and being awake for a few hours at a time. When stories started to come out about people suffering Long Covid that really resonated with me, but the timing of this happening to me when I took those drugs is too coincidental to ignore.

When you’re only able to sleep in short bursts you’re perpetually low on energy and not capable of doing much, and as it drags on and on you become capable of less and less. Now that I’m getting a good sleep more often I’m starting to get energy and enthusiasm back again too.

Recently I’ve noticed another pattern within myself. Every time I try to get back in the habit of sleeping at night and being awake during the day I seem to trigger another bout of poor sleep, so instead I’m enjoying being nocturnal. I seem to sleep fine from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening and the night times are so quiet and peaceful. The only sounds right now are my clock ticking and the sound of my fingers on the keyboard.

I also like doing my grocery shopping at night. One of the major grocery chains has a shop open through the night, normally during the day this would be a bugger of a place to get to due to traffic but at 2 in the morning it’s only 10 minutes down the road. It’s also nice shopping when the place is near empty and you don’t feel rushed.
 
That’s the story of my life. I don’t have issues and I don’t have problems, just as the world keeps changing I have to also keep adapting and changing to suit the new conditions. People often ask me how I manage to stay so happy and so positive all the time and I always answer with some lame humorous comment because to try and explain how it really works would take a serious conversation.
Pretty much the same here, as well.
I have no attachment to my past
Same
and I have no preconception of how my future should be
I do plan a lot... 1, 5, 10 year plans.
. I live in the now. As circumstances change I can drop my whole life on a whim and start something completely new, and I’ve done this many times. So even when my whole world gets turned upside down I feel little sense of loss or regret, I just look at what I need to do in order to get what I want and get on with it.
Day-to-day... my life is a lot like that. New situations and learning opportunities... especially at work. I routinely get thrown into situations I've never been in... even after doing the job for nearly 40 years.
Very few people seem to be like this
People love predictability
, I think I might be missing a gene or two in there somewhere,
LOL! I would be right there with you
I also never get lonely.
Same
Letting go of old concepts and ideas is often more difficult than letting go of possessions or social relationships.
Same
For me the new reality of the moment is that I think I’ve become nocturnal. My whole world got tipped upside down a few years back when a doctor prescribed me some SSRIs. I only took them for 3 months but they completely destroyed a lifetime of good sleep habits. I still fall asleep almost immediately but I started waking up again just 3 hours later, wide awake. You don’t last long on only 3 hours sleep so naturally 6 hours or so later I’d be exhausted and need to go back to bed. Lucky I don’t have to work or this would have been truly debilitating, or perhaps the cycles persisted for so long simply because I wasn’t forced to counter them.
Got to try some psilocybin-containing mushrooms... just sayin' ;)
 
I have had narcolepsy since I was about 14. If I am comfortable and physically inactive for 3 or 4 minutes, I doze off unless I actively try to stay awake.

Sounds like I can get as much sleep as I want, but any change in my external environment will wake me up. I can't sleep with radio or television sound, or even "soothing" music. As soon as something changes (new song, change in tempo, instruments, etc), I am awake again.

I started on a new medication recently that causes drowsiness for a lot of people. With it, I sleep SOLIDLY for 2 - 4 hours. The rest of the night is little segments at a time. Even if I use a brown noise source to cover up the incidental sounds, I still find myself seemingly awake more than asleep through the night.

Edit: oh yeah, change bad for me.
 
That’s the story of my life. I don’t have issues and I don’t have problems, just as the world keeps changing I have to also keep adapting and changing to suit the new conditions. People often ask me how I manage to stay so happy and so positive all the time and I always answer with some lame humorous comment because to try and explain how it really works would take a serious conversation.

I have no attachment to my past and I have no preconception of how my future should be. I live in the now. As circumstances change I can drop my whole life on a whim and start something completely new, and I’ve done this many times. So even when my whole world gets turned upside down I feel little sense of loss or regret, I just look at what I need to do in order to get what I want and get on with it.

Very few people seem to be like this, I think I might be missing a gene or two in there somewhere, I also never get lonely. :) I like the parable of the monkey getting caught with it’s hand stuck in the olive jar, it’s hand wouldn’t be stuck if it would just let go of the olives.

Letting go of old concepts and ideas is often more difficult than letting go of possessions or social relationships.

For me the new reality of the moment is that I think I’ve become nocturnal. My whole world got tipped upside down a few years back when a doctor prescribed me some SSRIs. I only took them for 3 months but they completely destroyed a lifetime of good sleep habits. I still fall asleep almost immediately but I started waking up again just 3 hours later, wide awake. You don’t last long on only 3 hours sleep so naturally 6 hours or so later I’d be exhausted and need to go back to bed. Lucky I don’t have to work or this would have been truly debilitating, or perhaps the cycles persisted for so long simply because I wasn’t forced to counter them.

Either way, for a few years I’ve had serious sleep problems. I started sleeping a full 8 hours one or two nights a week and that has slowly improved over the last couple of years. Now I get a good sleep about 5 nights a week then I’ll land in another cycle of only sleeping and being awake for a few hours at a time. When stories started to come out about people suffering Long Covid that really resonated with me, but the timing of this happening to me when I took those drugs is too coincidental to ignore.

When you’re only able to sleep in short bursts you’re perpetually low on energy and not capable of doing much, and as it drags on and on you become capable of less and less. Now that I’m getting a good sleep more often I’m starting to get energy and enthusiasm back again too.

Recently I’ve noticed another pattern within myself. Every time I try to get back in the habit of sleeping at night and being awake during the day I seem to trigger another bout of poor sleep, so instead I’m enjoying being nocturnal. I seem to sleep fine from 10 in the morning to 6 in the evening and the night times are so quiet and peaceful. The only sounds right now are my clock ticking and the sound of my fingers on the keyboard.

I also like doing my grocery shopping at night. One of the major grocery chains has a shop open through the night, normally during the day this would be a bugger of a place to get to due to traffic but at 2 in the morning it’s only 10 minutes down the road. It’s also nice shopping when the place is near empty and you don’t feel rushed.
Suddenly it makes sense. I noticed you seemed to respond and post at times when most Australians would be asleep. I started wondering about that. I frequently notice and wonder about patterns (I am compelled, almost obsessed, with finding matching patterns in veneer facing brick and and stone. not to mention ceramic floor tiles).
 
When the time changes, it’s like my sleep got put in a blender on high. Last night I was awake till 3 am. Not because I was interested in something or doing something. I was dead tired, but couldn’t sleep.

Before the time change I was sleeping much better.
 
When the time changes, it’s like my sleep got put in a blender on high. Last night I was awake till 3 am. Not because I was interested in something or doing something. I was dead tired, but couldn’t sleep.

Before the time change I was sleeping much better.

The time change screws me up, too. I want a nap right now.
 
When the time changes, it’s like my sleep got put in a blender on high. Last night I was awake till 3 am. Not because I was interested in something or doing something. I was dead tired, but couldn’t sleep.

Before the time change I was sleeping much better.

Sounds all too familiar. Wondering if it takes months to adjust to the time change. Which always throws me off, leaving me needing more sleep than I ever seem to get.
 
Whew.. could really identify with the OP here . Really fight to get my sleep/ rest . All kinds of over the counter stuff. And a tiny tranq. Took me awhile to learn the SSRI trap. 10 years of Docs trying various , / all types of those . And bunches of the PTSD crud . During those times . Seems lots of older people ,/ especially older ones , not sure ,if just propaganda for people not to make connections between Some M.H. meds that people defer to Psyche docs, Med Docs presciptions . Possibly eventually can subvert sleep cycles ? . If you do not have that resilience . to get over changes, that might be necessary . In order to move forward with your own existence . Sometimes it just takes time and reasoning .To process things . But occassionally some over the counter meds can help you get through the current side effects of big changes . Those longer term prescriptions affecting your nervous system/ brain . Can and do have side effects and the long term side effects may take much time to get your brains regulatory patterns back to normal , imho.
 
Suddenly it makes sense. I noticed you seemed to respond and post at times when most Australians would be asleep. I started wondering about that. I frequently notice and wonder about patterns (I am compelled, almost obsessed, with finding matching patterns in veneer facing brick and and stone. not to mention ceramic floor tiles).
Probably because I speak to a lot of people all around the world all the time I have that sense of time awareness with posters too. It's not something I spend any time thinking about, my brain just does that sort of stuff without me asking. :)

Sounds like I can get as much sleep as I want, but any change in my external environment will wake me up. I can't sleep with radio or television sound, or even "soothing" music. As soon as something changes (new song, change in tempo, instruments, etc), I am awake again.
Once I'm asleep almost nothing disturbs me, except for some reason a sudden drop in air pressure, I'm very sensitive to shifts in the weather.

Whew.. could really identify with the OP here . Really fight to get my sleep/ rest . All kinds of over the counter stuff. And a tiny tranq. Took me awhile to learn the SSRI trap.
The worst part for me is that for 50 years I had a perfect sleep routine, getting 8 or 9 hours of deep unbroken sleep every night. So I'm more aware than most of just what I've lost and how much difference it makes to me. I actually like sleep.

Seems lots of older people ,/ especially older ones , not sure ,if just propaganda for people not to make connections between Some M.H. meds that people defer to Psyche docs, Med Docs presciptions . Possibly eventually can subvert sleep cycles ? .
SSRI stands for Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor. Seratonin. It has to have some effect on your sleep, and people that are neurodivergent have a different neural structure and not all neurally affective drugs are going to work exactly as advertised on us.

But occassionally some over the counter meds can help you get through the current side effects of big changes . Those longer term prescriptions affecting your nervous system/ brain . Can and do have side effects and the long term side effects may take much time to get your brains regulatory patterns back to normal , imho.
As a general rule of thumb I avoid all meds, I had some serious injuries when I was young and had to take a lot of different pills, since then I've learned to do without unless I think it's really needed.
 

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