Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
that's funny about the blackberry. whatever works! i find that if i'm having a really hard time, i have to hide the clock because if i can see it, i'll obsess about how late it's getting.
for me it's anxiety 90% of the time, and ideas the other 10%. i hsve to write them all down before i can sleep.
okay, i haven't been able to post much lately, but my whole sleep/work relationship is really messing me up. i've had to change all of my routines and everything for this new job, and i'm sleeping less than ever. i still don't get anything done in the day, though. i can wake up in the morning alright as long as i do everything the same every morning (and set two alarms!), but going to bed is the hard part. i tried to go to sleep early enough to get 8 hours last night and ended up staying awake three hours just full of ideas.
oh, and when i do sleep, i have incredibly busy, anxious dreams.
i haven't been getting any creative work done in the day, either, because i don't think i think that way when i'm that tired, and it just takes so long to wake up. i don't even know. even now i should be trying to get some sleep! anyway, it's been a month and i've been coping, but i don't know if it's sustainable and i'm afraid i'm just going to crash one day. has anybody else had problems adjusting and/or do you have any advice?
yes! valerian! i burn the powder like incense. incense works if it's something light and calming like nag champa. loose incense or powders are also good. oil burners are good, but you don't really want to fall asleep with one burning. lavendar oil is brilliant to use on your temples or diluted as a massage oil. the best thing i've found is having a clean, warm, comforting bedroom — whenever i clean mine, i always sleep better. clean sheets, no junk laying around, incense, low lights, maybe some tom waits, that's it. as if by magic! zzz it sounds easier to maintain than it is!
i've never seen a doctor about it. mostly i can manage it myself, and i guess i always thought they'd brush it off. usually when i try to talk to people about it they say it's all in my head, like i should just be able to fall asleep at 8pm. i didn't have insomnia when i was a kid like you did, but i couldn't go to sleep very early (12 or 1 was normal, then 1 or 2…) and i had a hard time waking up early enough to get to school on time. they don't like that…
definietly not the only one! i can keep going when i'm awake (but 120 hours! holy crap!), i just have a hard time waking up (physically and mentally) too early.
it's interesting that a lot of people have insomia/anxiety related to car accidents. My mom was hit by a car while crossing the street fourteen years ago and she's had severe anxiety and sleeping problems ever since.
i think so. i've been getting even less sleep lately because i started a new job the sleep patterns are changing, and i'm working a bit too much. i was in a shop the other day and i thought the ceiling was caving in. it only lasted a few seconds. it doesn't happen very often but it's usually just seeing something out of the corner of my eye — i thought i saw a turtle run across my kitchen floor once. usually it's just amorphous shadows. doesn't help the paranoia.
That is so weird! I sleep really well in autumn too!! 😮
I don't sleep much in summer but I find I don't always need as much, but, weirdly, I sleep better in sunlight. I feel like I need to be awake at night. there's more going on for me, for one thing, but i also wonder if it could be an anxiety thing — like not wanting to leave one's self vulnerable in the dark? it's like the world operates in the daylight and it can look after itself, but someone needs to be awake and with it at night. ??? latent Buffy complex? LOL whenever i sleep “normal” hours (like 12 – 8am), i wake up frequently and often have nightmares.
it's also hugely affected by temperature. I get extremely irritable when i'm too cold (i know that's pretty rich coming from Minnesota) and more tired, too. So in the summer, when it's warm, i sleep better and less. it's like when you can't get out of bed because the rest of the house is cold. you just resent getting out of bed, whether you're awake or not.
I think sleep patterns must be hereditary. My mother works overnights by preference and so does my uncle (he's in a band…). Both stay up all night as a matter of course and have picked jobs that fit in with this. Like me, they just don't make sense in the morning. My mum has severe anxiety and I think my uncle has an undiagnosed personality disorder. Not sure where that leaves me.
Wow! You've been all over! I bet you have great pictures! I've never gotten to travel much, which is probably the reason I moved the UK! Been all over England and Wales, Dublin once, Paris once. That's pretty much it! eastern Minnesota… Wisconsin… Seattle twice. The furthest south I've been is Chicago (not very). I thought I'd get to travel more living in Europe, but I've been a poor student for most of my time here! Hopefully more in the future!
I play the drums (four years this year! good at blues :cool:), I do pinup photography (which i LOVE! i do the hair and makeup too), and I've just started knitting! It's really good for if you get bored easily or always have to be doing something with your hands. I'm trying to make a beanie with space invaders on it but the gauge is so small it's taking me aeons. Good fun though!
Zombies! LOL Did you see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies? It's just like Pride and Prejudice, but he's edited zombies into it so the Bennett girls are zombie killers! I haven't read it myself but it sounds really funny!
Shakespeare by 13! How funny! I did that too! I got into F Scott Fitzgerald pretty young, too, and I think that affected my tastes more than I realized at the time.
The best book I've read in ages was Nick Cave's new novel, The Death of Bunny Munro, which is a disturbing and hilarious story following a sex-addicted travelling salesman's decline into madness and spectacular demise. And it takes place in Brighton! It's not so much what happens as how it's written. But if smack addicts and gratuitous sex freak you out, you might want to skip this one.
One of my all time favourites is The Virgin Suicide by Jeffrey Eugenides. The movie was pretty faithful to it, but the book was like a prose poem in four chapters. Just beautiful!
and my third and final favourite book of all time in Venus in Furs by Leopold Von Sacher Masoch. It's the “erotic novel” the Velvet Underground based the song on. Now, to say it's smut is just wrong. It's more of a philosophy and a treatise on love and pain. It was written in the nineteenth century, but it's still as engaging as it would be had it been written today. The main character, Severin, believes that the best way to show his love is by letting his lover, Wanda, torture him because loving her through the pain would justify and sanctify that love. Wanda Von Dunajew, however, isn't so keen, and gets crueller as the story progresses. I really can't recommend it enough.
I also love Chuck Palahniuk. Beautiful Monsters was amazing and so, so sick. I'm finding it harder to get into Diary, but he's still a fantastic writer. And any Hunter S Thompson. He only wrote the one novel (The Great Shark Hunt) but a lot of his work is public and his journalism is very narrative. I have a copy of the Proud Highway, which is just a collection of his correspondences — everything from personal letters to letters to bill collecteors and publishers, etc — and that's really good. He kept everything he ever wrote. Thank God! LOL
