[cherrychapstik]

My question is: when people hear about the fact that you have insomnia do they ever just disregard it and make you feel like you should just “get over it?” I was talking to my step-mom today. Last night was bad, and I'm obviously really tired and feel yucky today. Still I made dinner for my dad and step-mom, went to the store, worked out. It's not like I don't do anything! I was explaining that with the ambien I sleep for 3-4 hours, and then often wake up for 3-4 hours and then maybe sleep another hour if I'm lucky. In that hour I sometimes wake up a couple times. In the morning, because so much time went in between sleep periods I just feel shot. My step-mom then said condescendingly, “I never get more than five hours of sleep. My whole life I've not slept more than five hours. My body just got used to it.” I tried to explain, “I can't sleep without the ambien. The other night I was up until four in the morning because I was trying not to take it, and decided to just take a half so I could get an hour or two of sleep in.” She then said, “I've gone many nights without any sleep and I'm fine.” Does anyone ever make you feel like this? How do you deal with it? I felt really bad, like I shouldn't be so tired all the time, because she's not. I wonder all the time about this. It's part of the reason I get so depressed, because so many people treat me like I'm just a whiny little kid who is overexaggerating. But I do feel exhausted often. I do feel too tired to do things. I don't sit and complain about it, but sometimes I have to explain, “I'm sorry I seem out of it. Sorry my focus is off. I don't get much sleep anymore.” Then I get reactions like I'm just being stupid.

Freaking people.

[Kik]

'cherrychapstik' wrote on '30:

Freaking people.

That's pretty much my story too.

Everyone from my family, my Doctor (who doesn't even listen to me anymore – I'm sure he's mentally writing out my prescription when I walk into the office now), co-workers and most recently my boss (who suggested I get more exercise to cope with his scheduling me to work 9 night shifts over 8 days. I really hate that guy) have all pretty much told me to get over it.

I do day and night shifts and when I'm on days, I've started having to drink a lot of coffee to cope with being sleepy at work which turns into jokes and jibes about it clearly being the reason I can't get to sleep. I've given up trying to explain that the insomnia was there first and has been chronic for coming up to two years.

I don't know if people expect me to become narcoleptic at my desk before they'll consider it a problem. Because they see me as a functioning person, they just hear my issues as whinging and pay no attention to the effect it's having on my memory and my mental health.

I'm still learning to deal with it. As soon as I've learned to cope with one person, someone else decides to throw their unhelpful two cents in. It's a pretty lonely experience. Makes me really glad I found this place!

[Martin Reed]

I think this is a major problem, and one of the reasons why I started Insomnia Land. I think it stems from the fact 'insomnia' is an overused term. People who can't sleep for a few hours one night out of the month claim they have insomnia. Therefore, we don't associate the word with a real, debilitating condition. That needs to change.

At least here, we all understand each other. Hopefully over time we'll expand and really change how people perceive insomnia.

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