Waking up is hard to do.

Ah, morning!  That beautiful time of day where the world is full of possibilities!

 

But not at my house!    My mornings look a lot more like this:

 

Let's face it:  Waking up with medication is hard to do!  Waking up for me feels like I am on the bottom of the ocean inside of a barrel, and I have to climb out of the barrel and swim up to the top.   I sometimes stagger around and bump into walls.   I also have a hard time organizing myself in the morning.  I have learned to do many things the night before.

 

Waking up was one of my biggest fears when I went back into the work world.  Could I do it?  Every Day?   Or would I be calling in all of the time because I couldn't wake up?  Back in my college days when I was undiagnosed and my bipolar was a very turbulent beast, I would live with deep, dark depression and his obnoxious friend, anxiety.   They would keep me up all night with their constant chatter about death and fear and heaviness, and I often would miss my 8:00 am classes.

I even failed some very easy classes because I simply did not attend.

 

Mania, of course, does not sleep.   So you are awake, and impervious to caring about sleep at all.  But with medication, I usually always sleep.  Just not as much with cycles of mania.

Most of the time, I feel like I could never get enough sleep.   Never.

By Friday, I can barely function.   On the weekends, I need to sleep forever to make up for the work week.   Sometimes on Friday nights, I go to bed at 8:30 or 9:00 pm and don't wake up until 10:00 am on Saturday morning.   And then, I need to have what I call "jammie time"  where I sit at and stare at he wall for a couple of hours until I feel coherent enough for the day.

 

This often puts a damper on friendships.   I will get invited to go do things by friends on weekends.  Usually in the mornings. I don't want to say: "sorry I can't go because I need to sleep in for hours and hours and then bump into walls for awhile and then stare at the walls while I pound coffee."   So, I usually say that I have plans, or I try to go.   Many times I need to schedule a vacation day if I have many weekend plans, or I just can't face the exhaustion of the work week.  I really need that 'jammie time" to recuperate. 

 

I guess that this is just one of the ways I have learned to adapt myself to the needs of my illness.  Sometimes, I feel bad that I need this time of recuperation.   I guess that's because sometimes, I feel bad that I have bipolar.

 

Most days, I am okay.   I put one medicated foot in front of the other and get out the door.

I am very grateful for coffee!

 

 

Good Morning Monday!  What do you have waiting for me today?