Christmas Holidays - opportunity to rest will be squandered again. Ignore this post, it's just an insomnia induced rant.

Folks, feel free to completely ignore this post!

Experiencing really high levels of frustration due to the effects of insomnia on the ability to function daily, and the fact that - even with several days off over Christmas - trying to rebalance rest will be as elusive as ever.  I don't know where the insomnia stems from, may be anxiety related, or just undetected other stressors, or just being autistic and some form of compromised physiological system.  It has been an issue off and on for over 30 years, but the past three have been the worst with many nights running at around 4 hours sleep maximum.  This has caused problems with daytime function, and issues of self-control and behaviour, which in turn seems to have fed back into the insomnia through associated stress and guilt.  Herbal remedies, relaxation, anti-depressants and sleeping tablets have all failed to make any sort of long-term impact. I've had counselling to try and address some of these things for the past 3 years now, and - if I have made any progress through repeatedly bearing my soul - it has been minimal.  I have just felt gradually more and more eroded by the impact on physical, mental and emotional health.  Why am I mentioning this? Because what else do you do early in the morning after being up for a ridiculous amount of time already.

have had the ASC diagnosis for five months now, and again not sure if it has really made any quantifiable difference except it's now possible to identify that ASC seems to be at the heart of this.  Stating the obvious, the diagnosis in and of itself hasn't made any difference, and there is essentially no support for it except that which is personally paid for (i.e. counselling).  I know that the idea should be to re-craft life around what works given the understanding that autism is at play here, yet I feel so utterly entrenched in the demands of life alongside utterly visionless about how life could 'look' better other than that I might actually sleep, not wake up feeling like I've been hit by a bus and have to drag myself through the day.  I mean, how the heck do you re-shape what you are doing in life when - externally - you are doing the 'right' things (working, raising a family, helping out at church, etc) and yet it all just adds up to an inability to cope.  Like, the payback for trying to do good stuff is just that you have to go off and hide in some little corner and try and find a healthy coping mechanism (and frequently fail to).

So tired, and yet can't sleep it off. Seems like I can pull stuff together to function as needed by others (although even that capacity seems increasginly taxed of late) and whenever I'm 'off demand' then I can't direct myself to do anything useful but waste the time in a daze.

Married, with kids, and nominal friends, yet feel so totally isolated in this and irredeemably stuck.  Hating the consequences and just feeling increasingly dragged down which seems to indicate that there is a decreasing chance of being rational or organised enough to solve any personal issues causing distress.

Apologies for the above, hopefully having written it has at least reduced the immediate stress and therefore the need to try and regulate through destructive stimming. There just doesn't seem to be an equitable resolution to any of this. 

Enough.