Sleep

Sleep and I have always had a love-hate relationship.  I started sleeping through the night at something like three months old (which, for those of you non-baby-lovers out there, is unusually early), and part of me thinks sometimes that perhaps it was because I really just loved sleep more than food.  Then, of course, throughout my early childhood I fought the bedtime thing nightly, but that's normal I'm pretty sure.

When I was sick sick, I avoided sleep at all costs.  I don't really know why, but I understood it at the time and got defensive when people close to me asked me to sleep.  Now that I think of it, I think it was because I wanted complete control over myself and succumbing to the human need to sleep is definitely not a display of self-control (don't bother telling me how stupid that sounds).

About a year ago, a crisis counselor told my family (at a time I was not even in crisis, I might add) that I should be going to bed at 10 because sleep lowers the likelihood of depression.  And, of course, my  overprotective father and step-mother immediately began enforcing the rule and still do, even though I will have complete control over when I go to sleep in less than six months.  But it has done the opposite of lowering the likelihood of depression for me. I simply don't have enough time to get everything done (maybe it's because I'm really busy, or because my school gives an unusual amount of homework, or because I'm a slacker, I don't know) and am extremely stressed out trying to get to bed by 10 every night.  This rule has caused me nothing but stress, and I'm not happy about it.

In my quest to learn to be aware of my body and to get to know it, I've recently discovered that I am one of those unlucky people that truly needs 9-10 hours of sleep every night in order to be able to fully function.  This is unfortunate, because it means I would actually have to go to bed at 8:30 every night.  This, of course, is unrealistic and impossible and would only stress me out about schoolwork even more than I already am.  But when I can't fully function, as is usually the case now, I don't get work done efficiently and am stressed and usually end up staying up late to get it all done...continuing the vicious cycle.

You can't win.