I have bipolar disorder. More and more researchers are coming to understand that bipolar disorder is a circadian rhythm disorder. Anyone who is or knows or has heard about a person with bipolar disorder probably has noticed they sleep funny. Too long, too little. Either all day or all night. Can't get to sleep, can't wake up. Nightmares, sleep paralysis, sleep hangovers.....
So for my whole life since I started elementary school, I have not been able to go to sleep until the wee hours: one, two, three a.m. I'd just lay down and stare at the ceiling and usually get scared, so my Dad (who also was a sleep freak) would let me get up and watch TV with him till it went off the air (yeah, back before cable).
I had to make sure I got to school on time myself as I got older (because my mother was too afraid of me to stay on wake up duty -- I was known to throw a punch, threaten murder -- it was not pleasant), so I forced myself to get out of bed somehow -- there were tricks I can't remember now-- having showered and shampooed the previous night and sometimes dressed for school too. I usually squeezed in the door with a minute or two to spare .... or not. I found a homeroom teacher who often couldn't get there on time either, so we bonded. We lied for each other.
Same deal in college, only worse because there was no set schedule. I flunked Geology AND BOWLING my first semester because they both took place before noon. Had they been later, I would only have flunked bowling.
I won't bore you...When I got a job, I arranged things so that I could work whenever I wanted to. (I had a long deadline but freedom to organize the work however I wanted and work from home almost all the time.) My hours slid later and later and my nervousness and embarrassment got greater and greater because I have "delayed phase sleep disorder" -- the fancy name for falling asleep later and later and waking up up later and later, until eventually you come full circle. My job was forgiving. So forgiving, they sent me copy to index while I was in the psychiatric ward. (Remember the thing at the back of the book that told you where things were? That was an index.) Forgiving or just very dependent on my skill set; as my mother used to say -- to my befuddlement: "same difference."
A big hurdle for my husband and I in deciding whether to have kids was how to come up with work-arounds for my utter and incurable inability to sleep less than 10 hours at a time -- and to go to sleep before midnight. Which meant no mommy getting up to feed, clothe, dress and shove the kids out the door. Praise Jesus and my mate selection for this fact: My husband is a lark. He can not only get up early but survive on drastically less sleep than me for long periods of time, maybe forever. He did all the baby-tending while I was dead to the world. To my abiding shame, I couldn't even make teacher conferences, PTA projects or field days if the sun was still coming from the east.
I mean, I could have said "Yes, well, Mrs. Jones," (next door neighbor with child in one of my children's classes at elementary school) "I have delayed phase sleep disorder" but it would perhaps have made me a bit less welcome at block parties or mommy get-togethers, because it sounds so strange, vaguely scary, and just, well, suspect. I could also have said "I'm bipolar" but then suspicion would have turned to outright fear and thoughts of mass murder and god knows what. "I thought so! She was always strange! I wonder if she even supervises her kids at homel? My Jenny won't be spending time at her house anymore!" And Jenny was my daughter's best friend.
More often than not people who discovered my secret were kind of angry about it, like I was thumbing my nose at them, or claiming an unearned special privilege or just lazy and sticking to it. Everybody would like to sleep late, right? But they don't in order to be normal. I didn't know what to say.
I still don't! I still feel embarrassed if not ashamed when people find out and ask me about it. Some guy is doing drywall repair on our kitchen, and today he came at 9 a.m. and my husband was here to greet him. My husband stayed, working from home (yeah: if he couldn't do that, we'd be fucked) until 3 pm. when I rolled out of bed and came downstairs to the kitchen. I made coffee and pancakes and sat down to read the paper. My husband went to the office. The drywall guy kept giving me sideways glances, then finally sidled up to the subject of my "schedule." Ours sounded as "crazy" as he and his wife's, he said, carefully. Then: "Do you work at night?" "No" I said, feeling that nervousness climbing up my throat. "I'm just on a different schedule. I do work on the Internet overnight," I lamely lied and he knew something was fishy. Now, this lie is somewhat hilarious, as the only "work" I do on the Internet is this blog, and a Facebook page for people with bipolar disorder. Plus lots of shopping, reading news, scrolling through tumblr blogs for cool pictures and photos. No paid labor of any kind. But what else could I say? "I have delayed phase sleep disorder?" "I have a circadian rhythm disorder?" I'm bipolar?" "I'm lazy and think I'm too good to sleep at night and be up in the day like you little people?" "It's none of your business?" "I prefer not to talk about it?" I've tried, let's see, 3 of those. They didn't help. The other 3 probably wouldn't either, I'd venture.
It's a medical problem, sure. (I discovered recently I have sleep apnea on top of this sleep disorder. But using the breathing machine seems to have zero impact on this delayed phase thing.) But nobody else sees it that way, at least not right off the bat, before being enlightened at length with lots of scientific data and diagnostic manuals or better yet, told that Celebrity X has it too! But you know I just really don't feel like educating them, arguing with them, justifying myself (in my own house too! to the drywall guy!) and well, screw celebrities. I'm not 5 anymore getting teased by my half brother and half sister about sleeping funny. But it sure feels like it. Like there's something wrong with me and it's obvious, and it's unacceptable, and it's my fault, and damn it, I have to answer for it.
Maybe I'll go with "I have a sleep disorder" next time. I hope they don't want to get into the nitty-gritty, because chances are it isn't the same one their wife's friend had. The nitty-gritty will involve bipolar disorder which is a mental illness which is always paired with senseless violence which means I'll be an outcast. They'll fear me. Or else they'll just be faintly puzzled, and wander off thinking, well, that lazy woman certainly went to great lengths to excuse her laziness. If she could work that hard on doing that, why didn't she just set her sights on getting up in the morning like everyone else? I mean, explaining like that is exhausting. Not enough to send me to bed early, but still: tiring as hell.
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