#N24SPD

[resonanteye]

right so I'm diagnosed with non 24 sleep phase disorder. it's a circadian rhythm disorder, usually blind people are affected by it or have it.

blind people have this because they do not receive proper melatonin signals from their optic nerve (some of them) and so, taking melatonin or other medications that stimulate the receptors for it will fix this, fix their sleep schedule the way they want it.

I am not blind. I had a childhood brain injury that is the likely cause of this. my diagnosis took 30 years- I had no insurance most of my life, so seeing a neurologist who specialized in sleep was not a possibility for most of my life.

my sleep pattern is currently 24.75 hour days; I take two medications to attempt to regulate my sleep pattern but this is as close as it will get to "normal". to Earth days. rozerem has been helpful in shortening my day, my day used to run at 25.5 hours or more if I was free running.

Free running means you are not trying to wake/sleep according to external schedules but are allowing your body to dictate tiredness and wakefulness. when I'm free running I have a 25 hour day, and I sleep about 8 to 9 hours of it. I don't have insomnia, I don't have trouble waking up, when I'm free running.

the issue of course is that work- I have to work daylight hours, the shop is open only certain times, so I build my work schedule around my sleep patterns as much as possible.

after about July 2020 I was able to free run until I went back to work in late 2021. you can see from this sleep graph that there's a consistency to the hours I wake and sleep. it is a diagonal that runs across the days.

take a look here and see the struggle I went through to go back to work hours.

I'm still, and always will be, struggling. this is not a disorder with a cure or treatment, only management which involves accommodations in scheduling. luckily it is recognized as a disability and I have a lovely employer who provides proper accommodation for it. she goes beyond to ask if there are things I need to make it easier for me to do my job (I work in a creative field so this is really wonderful).

I'll have to fight the demands of the world to wake up at the same time every day, for the rest of my life. but it's easier than fighting my sleep pattern, which is a medical disorder that can't be fixed.

I'm not a night owl; I'm not a morning person. every three weeks or so I'm one of those, sure. but that will change. every day I'm in bed a little later and awake a little later until I'm up at the crack of dawn, up at noon, up at 4 pm, waking up at midnight. in bed at 2pm, 10pm, 6am, etc.

it is as if I'm on the wrong damn planet.

I get to enjoy every hour, eventually. so it's not so bad. I've lived with it since I was a kid and I'll keep doing that.