Sleepless Nights

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Completely opposite of me. I need very little sleep to function, and I can function pretty well on about 2 or 3 hours of sleep. I do, however, need a ton when I have to recharge from social interaction. That is the exception. Is it worse for you when you have to interact, or does it not matter?

Actually I have an undergrad degree in psychology and I remember from my intro to Psychology course that not sleeping for awhile can enhance your frontal lobe functions ( which include attention, memory, motivation) etc.......but a lack of sleep over a long period of time decreases these functions. I don't understand how this is possible and my intro to psych prof couldn't explain it in much depth....these were just the latest findings at the time (about 4 years ago). Similarly a day (24 hours) of no-sleep can give a person a serotonin boost and help with depression…..but prolonged lack of sleep is bad for mood disorders/moods.

Anyways sometimes I feel like I'm more fastidious about tasks when I lack sleep but I think this is just because I'm terrified that the lack of sleep will decrease my ability to work.....I don’t think my abilities are actually enhanced….I'm just more careful bsc I know I have to be. Most of my life I've had insomnia so it's hard to say if my memory/attention etc. are affected by lack of sleep.....I've always had to function without as good a sleep as others have…so I do. Still the less sleep I get the less able I am to socialize( although I am indeed bad at socializing already).... but I think the thing that's most affected is my mood. I'm very irritable and impatient when I don't get enough sleep and less able to handle things like sensory overload or people being mean/rude etc.

I'm probably extroverted, actually. As a kid, I was extremely outgoing and would walk up to anyone, especially adults, and just ask a billion questions about everything. I'm probably the least shy of all my siblings. The problem is I'm f*****g weird in my mannerisms, wording, and the way I act, and I ramble on to people forever about things they don't care about, so that makes me a bad combo socially really. "Active but odd" is how I've heard some researchers describe it. So generally social interaction doesn't really "drain" me, but I can emotionally feel bad about how awkward I felt/was during social interaction, but that doesn't really affect how tired I get as far as sleep goes. That said, there are times when I don't wanna interact with people at all no matter who they are, so I guess at most I go through random "spurts" of extroversion and introversion, but I feel I actually probably lean a bit more toward extroverted. If I do feel "drained" by being around people, usually I can shake it off in minutes once I get back to doing something else.

So pretty much doesn't matter, yeah. Then again, I'm diagnosed NVLD, and while I've been diagnosed AS, it's just complications from NVLD and the IQ split, and my general belief is AS is a conglomeration of numerous neurological problems, and as far as diagnostic value, carries the same use as a diagnosis of fibromyalgia or chronic pain. Yeah, the people are having symptoms...but from what?

So...yeah. Sleep, wish I didn't take so much caffeine this afternoon, and wish I didn't spend so much time online just reading crap. For me, too, I'm weird in that caffeine is like, alcohol to me. I'll take it when I wanna calm down and am stressed out. I also take it before social interactions, or during social interactions, to relieve stress and think faster. I can go from "I hate everything" to "Oh, things are all right now" after a cup of coffee. I'm dependent upon caffeine, though, I need it, but if I'm having a good day with a lot of sleep, I'll only need a small cup of coffee in the morning and I'll be fine, but if things start going awry, I'll need lots of caffeine to feel OK and not meltdown. It's gotten so bad with the caffeine thing, that I've gotten stressed out about whatever, and had 2 16oz Redbulls in a row, and then like 1/2 hour later, went to sleep for 2-3 hours from crashing.

Yay.

That's pretty interesting. If anything, you'd think not sleeping would do the exact opposite, according to what people say and how often it's complained about (the people I'm around, anyway). I can see why, over time, not getting enough sleep can take a toll. I know this from experience, at least. Then again, once I get enough sleep to refuel after not getting enough for awhile, I'm good to go again for several months. I'm not sure exactly why this could be. Maybe I should do that when I have a serious bout of depression. I'm gonna try that out and see what happens. I've stayed up really late, lately, and have been a little less depressed, but that could be for other reasons.

I'll try it soon and see what happens and report the results on here.

Same here. I've had insomnia since I was very, very young. Probably three or four years old is when it started; I've been like that ever since.

Ah, okay. So, not so much the functioning in comparison to your mood around people and socializing with them. Is it like that every time you lack sleep?

Lucky you, haha. Yeah, but weirdness is awesome. You shouldn't feel awkward; people who barely talk, like myself, should feel awkward. At least you're able to converse adequately enough to get by, right?

Valid points, homie g.

Do you spend a lot of that time on here, too? :p... Gawd, I wish caffeine did that for me. I refuse to drink alcohol, so that's out of the question. I just have to get by with what I have and try to be as NT as possible. Wow! Yikes. I think I'd die from so much caffeine!

0.0... I'M AWAKE! WWEEEEEEE.

Yeah, as far as conversing well enough to get by, it depends on who you ask and the circumstance. For business transactions and the like, I do well. I generally bomb out job interviews. I can't talk to people about emotional things or really give good emotional support. I tend to talk too much about myself. It's just I'm either naturally unaware of how people perceive me or I choose the "ignorance is bliss" option and try not to ponder it too much, as it gets in the way of things I wish to do. It's weird the way things work, too, as you can be confident as all hell about yourself, and still be crazily awkward and have no one like you, but at the same time, your confidence and view of yourself will determine how people view you. Some people, especially self help kinda people, preach a view that your confidence/thoughts about yourself are basically the sole influence about how other people perceive you, and all you need to do is be more confident and problem solved. Well, I can say from experience it only halfway works like that.

So I don't really know, I have friends that say I have good social skills, but I simply just go out more than they do, and they in truth have better social skills, better ability to read people, are less awkward than me, etc, but they just have social anxiety and don't like going outside, whereas I go outside and mostly do whatever I feel like, either naturally oblivious to the people around me, or purposely trying to be oblivious to the people around me's thoughts of me.

I've learned, partially from a friend teaching me it, if you want something bad enough, just disregard everyone and how "awkward" it is. You'd be completely amazed at what I've gotten from people from just asking, despite how awkward it is. For example, one day I passed by an estate sale. I had no money. I looked around, and saw a bike I wanted. I had no money and no chance of getting the amount they were selling it for. So I just walked up to them and asked them "Hey, I got no money right now, I might be able to cash in some cans and get a bit more money, but yeah, I have no money right now, that bike looks really nice, and I know this is a bit awkward, but can I have it?" And you know what? They gave it to me. I even went back and said "Hey, there was a record player I saw this afternoon, I have no money on me, but uh...may I have it?" They said sure, and I got the record player. Sure it's awkward, sure I looked weird, but I wanted a bike and a record player, and so I got it. My friend who taught me this mindset, he had a friend with him in the car, and his friend said he was hungry. My friend said, "All right, well, let's get some sandwiches then." And so, he stopped at a convenience store, and just was like "I'll be right back." And he came back with like 3-4 sandwiches....for free. He simply walked in, chatted with them for a minute, and asked if they had any sandwiches they were gonna throw out. His friend was just awestruck by my friend doing this.

Back to sleep, though, more sleep, more awesome I am, more I can completely not care about people around me and not be anxious, I'll probably still be just as awkward, but I'll get a lot more done. It's sort of a double edged sword, though, maybe it'd be better if I was just more anxious and thought everyone hated me all the time, as I'd do less awkward stuff like that. But yeah, sleep is kickass, I wish I could get a lot. Sleep and nutrition seem to be the biggest things in making me feel good and giving me energy, it seems like it's literally half the battle.

And I'm on here WAY too much. This site is a black hole for time. Yikes.

Yeah - the same happened here - playing music would delay doing assignments until very late the day before they were do - but I'd finish them very fast and I got A's on everything. I remember writing one 3300 word paper in 5 hours (having already read through the book and underlined everything I wanted to quote), 7 hours before it was due. Procrastination, for me at least, gets stuff done. I need the pressure to do something I don't want to do, or it never happens.

I tried melatonin before and I did go into a really deep sleep.The only problem was it gave me horrible technicolor nightmares.Being awake is sometimes enough of a bad dream for me.I go to slumberland to escape not to find a fresh hell.I threw the melatonin in the trash.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I pray the Lord my soul to keep
And if I die before I wake
I pray the Lord my soul to take

Now I wonder why I have insomia.Take me where I wonder?

sweet dreams.

I think I'm always more susceptible to bad moods when I lack sleep so if there's an environmental trigger I'll become irritable or agitated/angry....if there isn't then I'm usually okay.