I've done it now.

[Beverly]

karen70 I like my coffee and fags in the morning, not that either actually helps me wake faster but, they are an easy way for myself and others to mark the time until I can function properly and, being a total bumbling ditz is easier explained by a lack of caffeine to NTs, they seem to understand that so, it works for me.

 

[Maelstrom]

I can think fine but, motor, verbal, executive, all are pretty much shot for an hour or so when I first wake up. I'm doing good to shuffle over to the counter and push the button on my Keurig which I set up the night before. Speaking, forget it. "I need to go to town today." Will come out more like "Brfff grnn mrdy." Totally unintelligible despite my best efforts. it's very frustrating if I have to deal with anyone else when I first wake up.

I'm not a morning person either, I do better work later in the day or evening. You are lucky Beverly ,I wish I could fall asleep that easy, my mind has trouble winding down ,and I get waking dreams which I hate...sort of like sleep walking dreams...yuck!

 

[unsurewhattoname]

karen70 I like my coffee and fags in the morning

By "fags" do you mean

or

?

 

[Cosmophylla]

Well that's interesting... When I was young I definitely would have considered myself as more creative and productive at night, royinpink. My dad called me a night owl. My theory is that having kids changed me. The huge hormonal shifts and the unavoidable change in sleep pattern forced me to go to bed earlier or miss out on a good four-hour chunk of sleep. Interestingly, though, my brain has always been in fully alert status immediately upon waking, even when I had been up super late and drinking. The only times I can recall my brain has been slow to move is when I had a particular case of chronic depression at age 20, and recently with ME/CFS there have been days when I can't stay awake...that drowsiness is a symptom.

I don't recall being someone who struggled to communicate for a while after waking, either, Beverly, karen70. But I can say that in the past six months since getting this illness I have found it more difficult to articulate myself... (I have trouble at the best of times but I've never noticed it is worse just after I wake until recently)... My mind is always miles ahead and I can get frustrated with others who can't "see" what I'm trying to say....I'm finding this is becoming more of an issue because I get up and am mentally raring to go (chores to do, places to go, let's get it all done so I can say I've earnt a rest!) but my body isn't doing so well at keeping pace now. And since coming down with ME/CFS I also sometimes find myself struggling to mouth the words properly. That is weird. It must look like I'm stuttering, I think.

Interesting!

 

[Beverly]

By "fags" do you mean

or

?

The later, smokes, cigs, whatever you want to call them. I'd never call a person a fag.

 

[unsurewhattoname]

The later, smokes, cigs, whatever you want to call them. I'd never call a person a fag.

I've never heard an American call cigarettes fags before, it's common in the UK but the only use I've seen Americans use for fags is homosexuals. Is it used there for cigarettes?

 

[Beverly]

No it isn't used here in the USA for cigarettes but, I've got a few UK friends and the first band I was with was British so, I lived in the UK for a while. I just assume smokes when I see fags and, I do cross up American and English quite a lot.

 

[Cosmophylla]

For what it's worth, fags is used both for cigarettes and as a derogatory term for gay men here in Australia. I've also heard gay friends use it to describe themselves.

 

[royinpink]

My theory is that having kids changed me. The huge hormonal shifts and the unavoidable change in sleep pattern forced me to go to bed earlier or miss out on a good four-hour chunk of sleep. Interestingly, though, my brain has always been in fully alert status immediately upon waking, even when I had been up super late and drinking.

It's always possible that I could change with hormonal shifts, I don't know. But it has been a lifelong thing. My whole childhood, I was difficult to wake, speaking unintelligibly, sleeping in on Christmas, walking or carrying on conversations in my sleep rather than waking, sleeping through more things than I care to remember, trying the loudest alarm clocks in all sorts of places across the room. When I'm not forced to wake up at an ungodly hour, I revert to waking up after noon. Even when I've made a habit of waking at 5am for work (I really don't know how I even managed that...), it's not my alert time. It's a time when I zone out, shuffle through the motions, as if my wheels are spinning on ice. I prefer to be alone during that time. It can be productive if i structure it right, but it's not a time when i'm thinking straight.

It's cool that you like mornings. It's a lovely time of day. I wish I could be alert enough to enjoy it without having stayed up the entire night before.

But I can say that in the past six months since getting this illness I have found it more difficult to articulate myself... (I have trouble at the best of times but I've never noticed it is worse just after I wake until recently)... My mind is always miles ahead and I can get frustrated with others who can't "see" what I'm trying to say....I'm finding this is becoming more of an issue because I get up and am mentally raring to go (chores to do, places to go, let's get it all done so I can say I've earnt a rest!) but my body isn't doing so well at keeping pace now.

This, I definitely relate to...happened to me in HK more severely when I went entirely mute on a few occasions, but being "frustrated with others who can't "see" what I'm trying to say" is like, every day I try to actually talk to someone about anything of substance. I so fail at real-time conversations. I just don't process that way. At least now I know why, I guess. You have my sympathy, it is so frustrating to feel trapped by your own body.

 

[Beverly]

It is very frustrating not being able to articulate and, more so when you need someone to hear you and, they can't figure out what you are trying to say.

Now, if my band mates or crew are here and, my bodyguards know to leave me alone until I speak to them in the mornings but, it hasn't always been that way for me. My ex was bad for asking me questions that could only be answered verbally too early in the morning, then getting upset when I got frustrated and threw my coffee cup across the room. I had told him numerous times to leave me alone in the morning but, he never got the message.

That used to bring my whole day down when it started with frustration and an argument, or him storming off because I threw my cup and wouldn't talk to him. I don't miss that one bit. Much nicer in the mornings now, Scalper might wave and smile at me right off but he lets me do my thing and ignores me until I speak to him other than that and, the rest of my crew totally ignores me in the morning if they happen to be here.

 

[Cosmophylla]

I had told him numerous times to leave me alone in the morning but, he never got the message.

Poor guy...My husband is a bit like you, in that he needs his coffee and he isn't quite awake until he has had time to process things.... And I'm a bit like your ex. We make it work because my husband works really far away so we have to wake at 5:30am every day when he's working. He sets his alarm earlier than necessary so he has an hour and a bit to get ready and it works better for his mood, especially when he gets up before anyone else and has a bit of time to himself. I still sometimes ask him questions before he's ready for an intrusion into his thoughts, but I'm better than I used to be.

 

[tfwo]

Interesting...my sleep habits were determined to be a narcoleptic event during two independent sleep studies. I can consistently enter an REM state in under one minute.

I'm very interested in this. I've noticed that sometimes if I close my eyes for a moment, I sometimes drop straight into a dream sequence. I don't really fall asleep, as I'm often standing when it has happened.

 

[Nitro]

I have attributed this event in me due to the amount of visual information I process during times I am not sleeping. I hyper-analize my surroundings at all times,paying attention to details in everything that are not necessary to function as a human. My world is one filled with way too much input that clouds the amount of internal imaging that goes on inside my head as my image files as it were are opened and presented for review.My brain continues to review images while I am sleeping,so I assume that my brain shuts off all outside influences so it can continue to work without distraction. When it is time for sleep,I am already in a state where it is safe to do so,and it is never a problem as it was when I was falling asleep while standing or driving that prompted my sleep studies. I was told by one lab that I had sleep apnea and was a candidate for a C-pap machine. I wasn't satisfied with the program that it offered and was pushed by their staff with the threat of all my internal organs shutting down if I didn't purchase a machine they were selling and strap it to myself nightly. I asked some other professionals their thoughts on it and they sent me to their preferred sleep lab that did not push any product,only provided the testing. Their conclusion was that it wasn't apnea,but a case of narcolepsy most likely brought on by a situation similar to post traumatic stress from a diverticulitus surgery that I had a month before it was a concern. After I got diagnosed as a candidate for the spectrum,much of my past health history really started to make sense.

 

[Progster]

Congrats on your diagnosis

I also need about an hour to wake up, and coffee (but not cigs, I don't smoke). I can't stand to have anyone round me in the morning, I want to be alone. I've been like this since I was a kid.

Luckily I have a job where I don't have to get up early

 

[artfull dodger]

Welcome to the club(Officialy). I knew you belonged here all along, but having that official dx helps us find our place, and validates to us that we actualy belong here. I knew that fags in UK are cigs, my wife and I have friends in the UK, so I have picked up a bit of the UK style of speach. Mike

 

[Beverly]

Welcome to the club(Officialy). I knew you belonged here all along, but having that official dx helps us find our place, and validates to us that we actualy belong here. I knew that fags in UK are cigs, my wife and I have friends in the UK, so I have picked up a bit of the UK style of speach. Mike

Wait until you start learning Cockney rhyme slang, you can talk and, if you're the only two in the room that know it, you speak English and no one can understand a thing you're saying LOL.

 

[unsurewhattoname]

You can talk in a lot of English accents and struggle to be understood.

 

[Jonathan Lees]

i always show this video to non Brits to explain our variety of colourful accents, unfortunately I've moved around to much to have any of these accents (especially seeing i was born and grew up in a non English speaking country) and just speak the queens English, also my voice is so low and monotonous (like Barry white and Leonard Cohen, it is a sexy voice though). in university people are from all over the country so i get to hear a mix of accents, and there is a Leicester accent among those who were born and grew up here. i like the accents from lots of different country's as well particularly eastern European and Russian accents (which i find very sexy).

 

[unsurewhattoname]

My accent is hard to pinpoint too. I'm somewhat monotonous (not completely, but more than average). I've stayed in the same house my entire life, but people here do have a varied background, some local going back generations, others moved into the area from other parts of the UK (like my parents). I've been exposed to a lot of accents so mine is a mix, but not queens English or bbc voice or anything plain. Just a mix of existing accents.

I tried an app and this is what it guessed:

The purple markers are where it guessed and I take it the redder the closer? All that really says is that I don't have a south west accent. Which makes sense, as nobody around me growing up was from the south west. I don't think you could guess where I was from based on this.

 

[Jonathan Lees]

I tried an app and this is what it guessed:

what's the app called id love to see what it makes of my monotonous voice.