#sorry for not posting for like two weeks it's the adhd and also the fatigue | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

dustykneed · 1 month

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good mornin everypony im sleep deprived!!! have a spones i found in my notes app<3333

this was supposed to be mcspirk but i just... gave up halfway i guess? :P it's an arthurian-esque au if you squint (now that i think about it i think i gave up halfway BECAUSE i couldn't decide on jim's design lmfao i regret that sorely but alas)

btw i have seen your asks!! and i have PLANS for them !!!!!! especially that one i have a whole ass completed unintentional thing in my gallery for !!!!!!!! but i hyperfixated on writing fic for like a week and then work punted me into the sun but i have seen them and i love yall so dearly!! and i will get to them very soon. kthxbaiiiii<33333

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batmansymbol · 3 years

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fellow ADHD/chronic sleep issue friends: try SleepTown

Hey everybody! Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to spread the good word of this app, which has actually, legitimately changed my life. (this post isn’t sponsored lmao i wish)

I’ve had sleep problems for half my life. Around 8th grade, I lost the ability to make myself shut down for the night. I’d sit in front of devices, wanting to stop working or studying or messing around on the internet, but I couldn’t make myself. This was about ten years before I learned what “executive dysfunction” was, and about 13 years before I got diagnosed with ADHD, go figure.

So, when I was a student, I’d pass out at 4 AM, then wake up every morning feeling like I’d been hit by a truck. It was a running joke in college how I would sleep in public places, trying to snatch 15-minute naps here and there because of exhaustion.

After college, it got worse. I’m self-employed, so I stopped waking up in the morning at all. I worked until later and later times, until 3, 5, 7 AM. I woke up at 2 PM, then 4, then 6. Eventually, fully nocturnal and trying to reset my inner clock, I’d pull all-nighters and try to stay awake through the following days. Then I’d pass out for 14 hours, after being awake for 30 hours straight. Rinse, repeat, for years.

Due to sleep issues, I have: nearly driven off the road in high school, dropped classes in college, fallen into depressive episodes, developed a Vitamin D deficiency, gone days without eating, and lost friendships due to self-isolation. It’s been a blast!

I tried so many things to fix the constant grogginess, fatigue, and messed-up schedule. I tried a sleep study at the hospital, repeated blood tests to check for hypothyroid or anemia etc., melatonin, Zzzquil/other sleeping pills, the “multiple non-phone alarm clocks” strategy, a light-emitting alarm clock, and about six different apps, including that one that makes you solve math problems to shut the alarm off.

There’s one called Sleep Cycle that’s pretty good at what it does - it helped me feel less groggy when I woke up - but within a few days of starting it, I was back on my bullshit.

Then, about a month and a half ago, I downloaded an app called SleepTown. It costs two dollars. The concept: you set a goal for your nightly sleep parameters (mine is 12:15 PM to 8:45 AM). Before you go to bed, you hit the Sleep button.

After you hit Sleep, a construction site pops up and begins to build a cute cartoon building like the one above! If you leave the app after pressing Sleep, or if you don’t press Sleep before your bedtime, then the building is destroyed, leaving a sad-looking demolition project :(

So, you have to leave your phone alone. The next morning, the alarm goes off as scheduled. When you press “Wake Up,” and shake the phone for a minute to prove you are awake, the cute cartoon building will be completed and added to your Sleep Town! This is mine so far:

The app has various game-like features. You don’t know which building you’re going to get every night, so when you wake up, it’s like unwrapping a present. There are dozens of cute buildings to unlock, and achievement badges like building every kind of tent. Every seven days you meet your goal, you get a red ticket to help unlock a rare building (like the red-roofed library in the picture above).

There’s also a simple social feature. The pyramid in the pic is from me being in a Sleep Circle with a friend, meaning we have the same bedtime goals. This would be especially good for a couple who’s trying to get more regular sleep.

Despite the gamelike feel, though, it’s not an addictive app. It’s not designed to keep you fiddling around with it all the time and waste more time on your phone. It’s just gamelike enough to create a really good carrot/stick balance. Most sleep-related apps are only the stick, featuring louder or more relentless alarms - but that doesn’t make you excited to go to sleep on time.

This app makes sleeping feel like a fun, purposeful activity. I want to see which building I get, and it makes me really happy to see this town that I’ve been constructing through taking care of myself. And I don’t want to “let down” a building by destroying it.

It’s borderline ridiculous how dramatically my entire life has changed. Excepting a couple times I’ve stayed up for a social situation, I haven’t been awake past 1 a.m. for six weeks. I cannot believe how good I feel. I eat regularly. I have a meal plan and a calendar. I have hobbies and a work-life balance and I stick to (virtual, covid-responsible) hangouts that I make with friends.

It’s not totally failsafe. You CAN lie to the app and press “Sleep” while continuing to do things (except your phone, which will be locked down). I tried to do this a couple times. But I wound up feeling guilty about lying, because it felt stupid to want this little reward when I hadn’t actually met my goals.

In the same way, you CAN technically hit “Wake Up” and go back to sleep, but the shake-awake feature helps with that. I’d like it if they added something even more aggressive, like a step counter or something that won’t count you as Woken Up until you’ve taken 20 steps around your house or similar.

As it is, though -- I'm still groggy when I wake up at 8:45, but 1) keeping a regular schedule has lessened the grogginess and 2) when I wake up, I know for a fact I’ve gotten 7-8 hours of sleep the night before and I’ll feel fine in half an hour. So, in order to push past the groggy phase, I usually play a few chess puzzles on my phone or do a crossword, and by then I’m awake enough to get up.

I doubt this app will work for everyone, but I wanted to share it in case there is anyone else out there like me. Hope y’all are hanging in there, and happy sleeping :)

#adhd #sleep #executive dysfunction #feel free to reblog to potentially help ur sleep deprived friends!!!!!!!!!!#long post #looooong post #personal #about me

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thebibliosphere · 4 years

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Hi Joy! I'm sure you've answered this a lot, so I apologize in advance, but as someone that has migraines every two to three days, I was wondering how the green light treatment has been working for you, how much it was to start that, and if there are any medications I can talk to my doctor about?

Hello friend, sorry to hear you are also dealing with the migraines from heck.

So I started the green light project on my own after reading about it on NPR. The researcher stated that the type of lights he used to start the experiment was a simple string of green lights, the kind you might find on a holiday tree and that even exposure to those seemed to help people before he moved on to his super intense green light lamp. The study also stated that the individual needed to spend 2-3 hours minimum I believe in front of the lamp in the dark to get the full benefit of this treatment. Which isn’t feasible for everyone, but I work for myself so I figured what the heck and bought myself a set of string lights off Amazon for $20 figuring I could afford to spend 20 bucks on something that may or may not be a bust.

I will not link to the exact model as Tumblr keeps hiding posts with external links, but the kind I got was advertised as:

LED Strip Lights USB Powered abtong Rainbow Color LED Lights Strip LED TV Backlight Strip with RF Remote Color Changing Strip Lights LED Rope Lights Waterproof IP65 LED Lights 2M 6.54FT

Needless to say, I don’t use the rainbow function or any of the fancy flickering patterns cause migraines. I just leave it set to green and that works well for me.

I wrapped them around my monitor, as this is where I am exposed to the most blue light, which is a well-known migraine trigger. Switching out my old light source for this green light had an immediate effect on my eyes and general feeling of visual fatigue and exhaustion, and after about a week of no headaches, I went the full hog and started changing all my LED screens to have a green tint rather than blue. I’ve also removed a lot of blue light sources from my home in general, and noticed a drastic improvement in my rate of headaches and also the severity.

It has gotten to the point where I am no longer taking medications for the migraines I’ve had since I was 11 years old and am able to use pain killers for them with some effect. Whether this is a combination of other aspects of my health improving (very likely) and the lights, it’s hard to say, but I do believe the green light experiment is helping, both with my physical ailments and my ADHD/depression in general. It’s just a much more calming light. I have also noticed that when I do go back into an environment that uses predominantly harsh blue light, I get eye fatigue/strain and more headaches. So say if I go into ETD’s work to help him out with stuff, I’ll get a migraine unless we shut most of the lights off. Which isn’t really ideal when you’re putzing around trying to get stuff done.

Since starting this experiment I’ve had 2 whole migraines in as many months, as opposed to several migraines a week, which has been my norm for decades. I can’t say if this will work for everyone, but it does seem to be helping me, and I plan to keep doing it and documenting my results as I go.

As for medications, I’m not really sure, as none of the medications I was ever rec’d really worked. (We now know this is because of my other complex illnesses, and my body not absorbing the medications properly.) My best suggestion would be to ask to see a migraine specialist if you haven’t already, and try to pinpoint the root cause of your migraines if at all possible, and target that. Things to keep in mind are that for some people, hormonal birth control pills or hormone therapies can make migraines worse, as can some SSRI anti-depressants, and anything that contains caffeine, though the reverse is true, and some people actually find these things helpful. For me personally, I know that certain PPI medications make my migraines worse. Bodies are both neat and frustratingly weird! If your root cause can’t be determined, you may need to see a pain specialist to determine which medications might be a better fit for you.

Sorry if this sounds like a cheery WebMD article, but I’m trying to make this post as universal as possible so I can hopefully use it again if tumblr doesn’t bury it. I hope some of this was helpful for you, and I wish you all the best in the ongoing battle against migraines

#green light experiment #green light experiment migraines #migraines #chronic health tag #bitchwannatryme

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transrightsjimin · 3 years

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im sorry im not rly in the BE hype atm :((

rant coming which has nothing to do w the album but everything w stress nd fatigue nd crying nd more job stress nd sensory overload and me turning everything into a worse issue in my head etc etc

i was this morning when i saw the mv nd watched the vlive but i obv slept way too few bc i went to bed late nd woke up early for the live and i had to rush a lot w errands nd an appointment w my autism coach nd at said appointment we called a dude from the municipality to inquire abt jobcoaches nd it turned out we misunderstood what jobcoaches are as they are who u get referred to when u have a job, nd the guy found it hard to figure out what type of trajectory(?) would best fit me for help nd now i have time to think abt it and will speak him again in 2 weeks or sooner if i want to. im just so tired nd a bit hungry and on edge and one sec, im in the side of the house tht faces kids playing around aka screeching as if theyre dying every second nd its majking me only more on edge!!!!

but urgh i cried so bad during the appointment and was prob way too rudde to her before the appointment, bc she talks loudly nd sounds rude nd confronting but just naturally bc ofher tone nd language nd urghgh h thikning abt jobs nd trying to talk nd not cry too hard when trying to explain stuff to the man over the phone was rly hard, like obv its fine if he knows im crying but its just hard to talk when crying nd im just so devastated thinking abt jobs!! i dont know what type of job i could handle nd it feels like im making everythig up bc i did somehow finish two studies in uni and im privileged enough w education and whiteness tobe more easily selected for a job by e.g. last name on my cv and i shouldnt be this picky but god i cant handle smth as physically demanding and underpaid as this, im tired 4/7 days that im not working nd what i earn in those 3 days is still not enough to cover rent bc they pay only for the delivery time itself instead of more hours!!! it just feels like wtf am i doing bc the municipality guy did admit im not the usual person he works w bc i had an education, as if i dont belong in the group but its really just an issue of having -100 confidence and no job experience!! like i rly dont strive for a fancy job or ‘’’career’’’, i just bneed something that i can pay my monthly expenses w and have a bit left to save up for e.g. emergencies, additional medical bills (like the 350 euros from the adhd diagnosis and therapy, which my autism coach will contact my adhd therapist abt, like if that bill can be delayed or split up in a payment plan), paying back for loan debt eventually and MAYBE soon god forbid i save up for smth fun. and i “need” the job also to have a daily activity and some structure in my life bc a large part of the reason my schedule is so fucked up is bc i have no more set time tht i need to be anywhere or any strictness or reason to get up nd so i just dont ghhh

im always looking for reasons why i cant do smth and why smth would go wrong and im already looking at every area where getting help w getting a job can go wrong like e.g. me being too stubborn abt companies i dont agree w or me thinking i cant do anything just bc i have not much working experience outside of mail delivery :(

nd then there was this A B C task list system my adhd therapist proposed in wihc i keep track of my most to least urgent + important tasks every day nd we werent sure where to keep track of that kind of list and she suggested sticking a paper to a wall (i think id rather use my wardrobe) to write it on and change or replace that every day and it sounds like a hassle but i rly need to do it every day, nd i can try other methods but thatd be either writing it on my phone but im not always on there nd theres not a type of file i can make that doesnt move back chronologically as i make new notes

ALSO im just very frustrated w myself bc my mom wanted to come over w food and i know she was too sudden w it but if only i left on time for the stores it wouldnt have been an issue. i feel like shes rly sad she couldnt come visit. fucking hell i rushed so much back and forth from the stores that i forgot to put the leftover letters from work yesterday into the outdoor mailbox and i already stress abt this bc my current teamcoach (aka manager) is more stricter w this stuff nd recently asked for a statement / explanation by me on why there were 29 letters w/o sticker from a route i did counted from the collected mail that were in outdoor mailboxes, and i did not do that but my only alibi / reason for not making that huge mistake was that i hadnt posted any mail yet that day and obv he wasnt happy w that. i sometimes had dreams / nightmares recently where i was late again or fucked up w a new route and got fired for it and thats quite an awful scenario / fear to me bc thats exactly why my dad was fired by his previous employee, for being late too often nd we’re the exact same. it just sucks bc i know many ppl who worry abt being late arrive to early at shit bc lol anxiety but i still arrive late every day WHILE being stressed abt it nd my whole fucking issue is that i need to break w bad patterns MYSELF, like whether i get help for autism stuff or adhd or sleep or whatnot, the homework / assignments / tasks / advice they give me, in the end i still need to be the one to do it and push through and make a change or put more effort into not going continuously back to the same distractions or demotivating black-white thinking

just URGH im so easily annoyed nd sensitive, also as in sensitive on a tactile level nd it doesnt help tht my room is a mess nd im super stinky from bts BE excitement and from squeezing my skin a lot last night, nor does the fact that i have rly bad coordination / awareness of my surroundings nd continuously bumping into shit or getting caught on smth help, which is also another reason im just so slow at work bc if i try to walk or deliver mail faster i keep end up bruising nd tripping or tear my hands on all these hard to move or sharp mail box slots if im not careful nd slower, which does still happen but not as bad when im careful

im also rly dizzy rn from haing slept too few and just urgh i “need“ a stupid fucking job, i need the money i need the structure but my god does actual labour and having to deal w colleagues every day and trying to keep up w stuff and be fast and precise enough in whatever the job is, sound horrifying hhhgghgh

OK RANT OVER IM SICK OF ME TALKING SO MUCH

#rambles #i dont even feel like explainig any of this stuff more if it was unclear #bc trying to re-tell what ppl from bureaucracies told me and each nd every thing explained is so complex

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