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Getting up late

Trilby

I struggle to get up in the mornings. I always feel just as tired if not more so then when I went to bed. I need at least 30 minutes or more after my alarm sounds to actually get out of bed.  Sometimes I sleep badly, sometimes well, this seems to be on a weekly rota basis.  I'm used to this, I don't like it and it's depressing, but I've never been any different so I try not to let it get me down. It's common for autistics to have disrupted sleep patterns and difficulty waking up - I'm sure many of you experience something similar!

I work full-time and luckily I work flexible hours so my manager is happy for me to start at 10am or even 11, I also work from home so I can usually get to my desk by half 9 but sometimes it's 10am.  I'm ok with this, I couldn't hold the job without these adjustments.  My problem is not even my colleagues (although I sometimes feel judgement from them but that could be my own paranoia), but it's my dad! 

Almost every day he's laughing at my start times.  Sometimes he asks me what time I started work then snorts. Or makes snide comments like "so-and-so is coming at 9 tomorrow, sorry for waking you up earlier than usual".  He often makes comments suggesting I don't work hard or enough.  The stupid thing is he worked flexibly before he retired so I have no idea what his problem is!  Occasional comments like this I can deal with but it really is almost every day.  It doesn't help that I'm currently staying with my parents, so I'm a target every day instead of a few days a week when I lived alone.  I'm hoping very much to move out soon but my moving date keeps getting delayed.  

Does anyone have a similar experience? I'm just looking for solidarity really, to know I'm not alone with bad morning starts or insensitive family members. Thank you!!

Parents

  • Yes I probably have DSPS so I've had snide remarks from people ever since I was a teenager, mostly family members.

    Naturally I feel like it's extremely grating. However something it took me way too long to figure out is that when people make those kinds of remarks it isn't usually meant to be as hostile as it feels. Ribbing is meant to be a kind of bonding experience. A sort of like, affectionate way of them letting you know that they love you for all your quirks, I guess? The difficult part is that sometimes people do almost the exact same thing in a passive-aggressive way and it's typically hard to tell apart.

    So I find that when confronting people for it they don't understand why I'm so offended and think I'm being unreasonable. Thankfully I haven't had to deal with this in a while but I think if I did, maybe I would talk to them to explain my perspective and try to bridge the gap in understanding?

  • in reply to Jubworm

    That sounds familiar! My mother in particular has often pointed out that I'll take as a criticism something that was more of an off-handed remark. I have got better about spotting the genuine jibes from the 'banter' and trying to put space around my internal reaction in the initial moment of processing it. An example of a comment that initially hurt me, but I can see the humour in now is when my uncle one day found me at home when he called with my oarents and said 'Sure what sort of job is that?' I was just starting late to finish late or something, but the implied assumption (or so I saw it at the time) was that my job was somehow being judged, and me along with it. But he was just 'sleggin'' - as they say in my part of the world - good natured light mockery as a surface way of bonding, exactly as you describe.

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  • in reply to Jubworm

    That sounds familiar! My mother in particular has often pointed out that I'll take as a criticism something that was more of an off-handed remark. I have got better about spotting the genuine jibes from the 'banter' and trying to put space around my internal reaction in the initial moment of processing it. An example of a comment that initially hurt me, but I can see the humour in now is when my uncle one day found me at home when he called with my oarents and said 'Sure what sort of job is that?' I was just starting late to finish late or something, but the implied assumption (or so I saw it at the time) was that my job was somehow being judged, and me along with it. But he was just 'sleggin'' - as they say in my part of the world - good natured light mockery as a surface way of bonding, exactly as you describe.

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