Cassandro in knots: sleep, procrastination, life purpose etc

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Ayshe Mod

. said:

You come across as very goal centric and seem to rate achievement and thereby success  in that way. Who is writing the success criteria? You, or an NT society?

OK, this is a key question and prompts much thought. I'm kind of the opposite of goal-centric in my behaviour, but yes, I do want the right outcome for me and everything else. (It's that INTP description again.)

I have learned acceptance, I did have daydreamy ambitions as a kid, and I still want to make a difference, even though doing a bit beautifying gardens is also something I can be sort of content with. But  given some of my self-taught skills, people may think I choose to sit on my a*** all day.  My 'success' in life (still living like a student in middle age) is some evidence of neurodivergence to me, and as such I can accept it more. Religions often say not to be too attached to worldly goods, and I'm not sure I could be if I tried. Is an NT society writing the success criteria? Yes, and I question that, but in an Aspie utopia would no one work or have a relationship?

I may come back to what I really want... no time now.

I've had that behaviour at times in the past, particularly when younger and depressed. Sleeping in the day, so sleeping at night is disturbed. I don't think it's the situation at the moment – surely a few seconds of sleep at the desk in the evening can't add up to much.

Yes, physical activity may help: I had at least three hours' exercise yesterday (running and cycling), and managed to get 6 hours' sleep last night (in cool air and with an eye mask), which feels like a success, but I feel like I still need to catch up sleep from the past ten years. (There is some evidence that 'core' sleep deficits that are 'carried forward' are relatively small, so the explanation could be depression instead.)

I think my problem is more going to bed late. The main causes for my headache I think are lack of sleep and possibly too much sugar or some other dietary intolerance. I can be so tired that my headache is so bad that that prevents getting off. That's rare though. I tend to find the later I go to bed, the more disturbed my sleep and the earlier I wake. I'll try to aim for a little earlier.

Do you think it might be a cycle of poor quality sleep and being drowsy during the day and then because of drowsiness during the day you're back to not being tired enough to sleep at night? I sometimes go through this.

I think a good way to want to sleep and go to sleep easily at night is to exhaust yourself during the day, for just one day. Drowsiness during the day is like having many microsleeps during the day, and you don't burn off enough energy, so you're still not tried at night. If it is possible to have a full day of doing something energy consuming, like socializing, or travelling, or exercising, as I am usually really tired after these activities. Or maybe even having a really full day of work without any drowsiness, e.g., from 7am to 10pm. It usually works for me only after one or two days of mentally exhausting myself during the day. It might take longer if you have been in this cycle for a while. Don't know if it will help you, but this is my experience.

Sleep is a bummer. Recently I did something I had planned to swear off, but it is summer and everyone is on holiday and I needed the work.......two days of split shifts, that is early start and then an afternoon lesson, commuting to. Sometimes with an early start I hardly sleep at all and I read that lack of sleep can raise the risk of Alzheimer's cancer and heart disease, stroke. 

But even with no early starts, I often wake up at 3 in the morning, or earlier, and can't get back to sleep, so it's still death warmed up and misery the next day. I take a herbal preparation of catnip and other such things, though it often seems to be not strong enough. And more recently melatonin and it cost a bomb. 

So more ideas for better sleep are welcome.

Cassandro I suspect everything looks better, with better sleep.

I have been taking melatonin recently? Does it work?

Now, to put another monkey wrench in which goes against your brain wiring.. are you able to seperate and simplify what you are wanting to achieve? The image you post is very telling re your brain wiring in that I perceive it as the view that everything connects to everything else so you have the burden of carrying a “whole” mass of brain at all times and are unable to disconnect one thing from another easily to examine each thing as a separate entity in its own right.

synapsing always firing...a pulsating cortex..working and at risk of burning itself out.

just for fun...

“But—let me tell you my cat joke. It's very short and simple. A hostess is giving a dinner party and she's got a lovely five-pound T-bone steak sitting on the sideboard in the kitchen waiting to be cooked while she chats with the guests in the living room—has a few drinks and whatnot. But then she excuses herself to go into the kitchen to cook the steak—and it's gone. And there's the family cat, in the corner, sedately washing it's face."

"The cat got the steak," Barney said.

"Did it? The guests are called in; they argue about it. The steak is gone, all five pounds of it; there sits the cat, looking well-fed and cheerful. "Weigh the cat," someone says. They've had a few drinks; it looks like a good idea. So they go into the bathroom and weigh the cat on the scales. It reads exactly five pounds. They all perceive this reading and a guest says, "okay, that's it. There's the steak." They're satisfied that they know what happened, now; they've got empirical proof. Then a qualm comes to one of them and he says, puzzled, "But where's the cat?”
― Philip K. ***, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch

“When INTPs are particularly excited, the conversation can border on incoherence as they try to explain the daisy-chain of logical conclusions that led to the formation of their latest idea. Oftentimes, INTPs will opt to simply move on from a topic before it’s ever understood what they were trying to say, rather than try to lay things out in plain terms.

The reverse can also be true when people explain their thought processes to INTPs in terms of subjectivity and feeling. Imagine an immensely complicated clockwork, taking in every fact and idea possible, processing them with a heavy dose of creative reasoning and returning the most logically sound results available – this is how the INTP mind works, and this type has little tolerance for an emotional monkey-wrench jamming their machines.”

Hope I’m not coming across as an “emotional monkey wrench”... more a humanistic elephantine claw hammer..

You come across as very goal centric and seem to rate achievement and thereby success  in that way. Who is writing the success criteria? You, or an NT society?

“So what is the slump about? It seems to be the effect partly of natural changes in our values. We begin adulthood, in our 20s and 30s, ambitious and competitive, eager to put points on the scoreboard and accumulate social capital. In late adulthood, after midlife, we shift our priorities away from ambition and towards deepening our connection with the people and activities that matter most to us. In between, we often experience a grinding transition when the old values haven’t brought the satisfaction we expected, but the new values haven’t yet established themselves.

Surely, if we are lucky enough to have put lots of points on the board by 40, achieving or surpassing our goals, malaise won’t strike? Wrong again. The most perverse effect of midlife malaise is that high-achievers are especially vulnerable. The reason is what researchers call the hedonic treadmill. To motivate us, youthful ambition makes us unrealistically optimistic about how much satisfaction success will bring. Later, when we meet a goal, our desire for status and success moves the goalposts. Despite our objective accomplishments, we are not as satisfied as we expected. We wonder, “How come I’m not happier?” As this cycle of achievement and disappointment repeats over time, satisfaction comes to seem forever out of reach.”

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2018/jul/21/midlife-crisis-myth-life-gets-better-after-50

does that make any sense? 

Thanks, Lonewarrior,, fellow autistic INTP.. No need to attempt  a reply as long as my original post.

I think there were some similarities with Graham's early morning state of mind, but in both cases being on the laptop at 4am may have been part of the problem.

The real world doesn't come in the same order as things in one's head.

I did try writing down what popped into my head with my eyes closed as a kind of alpha-wave diary (I think Ellie suggested), but it could probably produce pages of random stuff per hour, like some entirely invented interview with a generic scriptwriter about how they cope with casting changes (not a metaphor, just a random example).

I need to get some kind of determination and real-world order from somewhere. There are things I should do. This forum is rather a distraction. It would be good to feel things were going to some kind of plan, if only on a short to medium term. No one's ever really helped me with long-term plans, and that may be why my life has gone nowhere as regards careers or relationships.

BTW for BlueRay 'I should like everybody' is less of a rule, than an impersonal way of seeing the world. I think it is, anyway.

Anyway, thanks everyone for the replies, and I am processing this all slowly.

Morning all !

I had not read this post as the words seemed to much for me to digest and theorise on.

Having read all the replies I would like to say “YES” I experience a lot of the difficulties in accepting I need to sleep.

I have never actually seen why I should get ready for bed and climb into bed lay back and tell my brain to stop! My brain doesn’t just stop on demand, I lie awake with my head spinning, flitting from one subject to another, add anxiety to the mix of how will I cope the next day and I am more tense and unrelated than when going about my business during the day.

running out of words now, Cassandro you put into words what I experience all my life. I sleep when my body can no longer keep going, I crash, then no amount of shaking or shouting will wake me,

The INTP-T part struck a bell as I only did the character test yesterday.

As you can tell I am still struggling in my head, short sentences of dialogue but sudden switching to some other relevant point I feel suddenly comes to mind, as with your other thread my finger pauses each time I go to tap in a word as there are many,,,too many things trying to get onto the page,, all the things I want to say to each reply that mean something to me, I am spouting mixed thoughts as best I can , overwhelmed by to much information, to many theories bouncing off the sides of my skull, argh sums it up very well I think.!

Must stop I have lost ability to go back,, delete,,rethink, re order,, sort,, and make this into a half readable item, 

This is raw me struggling, I fear failure and strive for perfection in all things in my life, I try even find myself trying to compete with all of you! In that I see your amazing abilities to explain using words and quoting various knowledgeable people. I am a basic model who has spikes of articulation but more often it seems I struggle just to put a sentence together that actually is readable.

I must stop!!! No more ability to formulate my words, a mess of jumbled words, mixed, confused, 

sorry cassandro it was Graham who started the post I referred to as (“with your other thread my finger pauses each time I go to tap in a word as there are many,”)

Sorry I didn't reply earlier I was away. Thanks for reading.

Get through what? That sounds terrible. And how will we know when we’ve got through it? What will happen then? Is it a test? Do we have to pass? 

Get through times where life doesn't feel like it's working too well. I'd also say all of those questions are both subjective and rhetorical, plus interchangable depending on the situation. Some days you can have a dilemma which feels like a mountain to climb that can be small but because of the challenges we face it can feel massive.

For instance some people might find study stressful and draining, others might love it and find it a release. Some people might love a nightclub and others may find the stress too much.

I think in addition to what I say in my last post that one thing that is dawning on me, is that "normal", "productive", "happy" and "successful" are all things that can be dictated by a generalized picture that is bullshit. The older I get the more I realise that trying to fit that model that society dictates is the thing that makes us less of any of those qualities. Everyone included but especially us.

That would be an interesting thread. 

Life purpose? 

(Aside from your self disclosed desire for perfection)... now, as an Aspie, life purpose is almost a thread in its own right!)

Oh god, I’ve got a cat that I’m fostering at the minute but it’s got to go. It’s so gorgeous, tiny, just how I had imagined my cat would be, it’s so much like me (do they simply mirror our ways?), it’s very independent and content in its own company, he’s (I was calling him it!) very loving and so gentle and fun as well, he likes playing with his toys but he does need some attention from me and I have found that I don’t have it to give right now. He’s a real little cutie, but he’s got to go. I was mad about wanting a cat, now I’ve realised I don’t want one! I’ve realised what a commitment it is and right now, I simply haven’t got space for anybody else. And he would definitely think the jigsaw was a game of scatter the pieces! Lol! and he would look at me in all innocence and cuteness and I’d  join in there’s even a cat cafe in Bali where people dress up as cats and there’s cats everywhere! 

The Summer wrecks my sleep patterns as my house always gets far too hot, so I'm down to around fours hours a night now.

I used to love jigsaws & would love to be able to try doing them when I can't sleep, but since I adopted my cat there is no way that I could ever complete one, she would think it was a game to attack the pieces!

You make some great points Cloudy Mountain. As I was reading what you said, I was like, yes, I can see that. It was very comforting to read. 

But then at the end, you said that all we can do is work with what we’ve got and try to use our strengths to get through. 

Get through what? That sounds terrible. And how will we know when we’ve got through it? What will happen then? Is it a test? Do we have to pass? 

Hello Pirate Santa, nice to meet another back to front person  one of my longer term, very good therapists years ago, sussed this out and any therapeutic approaches she did with me, she always did the opposite way around! 

Your story about the melatonin reminded me of when I took a herbal remedy that was supposed to calm you down, it made me want to kill someone! Lol! 

And like you, through many trial and errors, I’ve realised that when I try to force sleep, it doesn’t work and simply serves to make me obsessed by sleep so I use that time to my advanatage now and binge on all the silly YouTube things that I wouldn’t normally watch. I see my sleepless hours as my playground now and binge out. I don’t think it makes me less tired but I’m certainly not obsessed by sleep so the effects of being tired are much less and I’m able to fall to sleep much easier when sleep does finally decide to honour me with its company. 

I also discovered through vipassana meditation, that we don’t actually need sleep. Vipassana meditators can use the meditation as a form of sleep when sleep doesn’t come naturally or easily, but I have to get back into my practicec before I can take advantage of it. 

I also discovered that there are several different sleep patterns and that we don’t all fall into the usual eight hours a night gig. I did a lot of research into it and a lot of experimenting. When I’m at my best, I only need about 4 or 5 hours but I have my favourite slots for sleeping. Dustbin day in summer is my most favourite slot of all ~ oh my, it’s divine! Lol! 

I’m curious to discover my jigsaw building pattern now. It’s given me an incentive to clear and clean my living room so I can get a jigsaw and see how I do it! Thanks for that

I have suffered or benefitted from insomnia most of my life, with the former or latter categorisation being dependent on whether I actually wanted to stay awake all night at the time.

I have read quite a lot about the whole 'Sleep Hygiene' theory (No TV in bedroom, go to bed at the same time & don't read etc), & whilst I can happily accept that it works for most people, it does nothing for me. Like many people here, my insomnia is linked to my brain not wanting to slow down & when that happens I just stay up longer & try again later, as attempts to force myself to fall asleep just seem to make me irritable & often result in not sleeping at all.

I was interested that you mentioned Melatonin not being available in the UK, as I have also tried that following a trip to the USA about ten years ago. I actually bought a generous supply of it, in the hopes that it would allow me to sleep on those nights when I knew I needed to get up early the next day, but my brain wouldn't co-operate. Sadly it only seemed to make the problem worse, i.e. it made me feel wide awake & irritable. I even tried using higher doses than recommended on the bottle, but that didn't work either.

Not sure why everything about my head seems to be reversed, but since I also have 'Reverse SAD' (Summer makes me depressed, Winter makes me happy), maybe it's something to do with that.

Can't say that I am a big fan of lists either, but I know lots of people swear by them. I usually try to do several things at once rather than one at a time.

A very long time ago, my manager at a software company asked me how I approached doing a jigsaw, he "sorted out all the edges first & then methodically worked toward the centre". When I told him that I quite often "put the edges on last, as I prefer creating multiple clusters of pieces that look interesting & then gradually expand them until they merge together", he was genuinely horrified, which made me laugh.

Maybe you're just being too hard on yourself trying to sleep all the way through:

https://www.sciencealert.com/humans-used-to-sleep-in-two-shifts-maybe-we-should-again

Try listening to your body, and giving it what it seems to need?