Regina Noctis

When I went up to Seattle last August, I took only a carry-on, because I was going to have to scramble to make a bus connection when I got back. While I was there, I acquired some things that weren’t going to fit in my bad, so I left them with , on the understanding that he’d ship them when he was able. A combination of money issues and the weather conspired to keep him from being able to send them until recently. My stuff arrived today, so I was able to finally give my mom her cat candle holder with the glowing green eyes. It’s currently sitting on top of her computer and staring at her.

Along with my various things, there were some surprises. Sylvan and have taken up candlemaking as a hobby, so I had a large selection of candles that they’d made, along with a candle warmer and a glass plate to put on top of the warmer. We can’t usually burn candles because of the stuff it puts into the air. They trigger asthma attacks in our Maine Coon cat, what with all the soot from the burning wick and wax particles. This candle warmer may be the answer that lets us enjoy the scent of the candles without making the sick cat sicker.

I love candles. I always have. For me, they’re soothing. So all these candles are a wonderful present. Thank you so much, Sylvan and Wolfie. :)

Right now, we don’t even need that to enjoy the scent of the candles. Because they’re newly made, their scents are still quite strong. My room smells lovely just from having the candles in here.

I woke up a couple times late Friday/early Saturday because I’d turned on my side, and the action had inspired my bedroom to start spinning at something approaching the speed of light. I’ve been plagued by intense dizziness, bouts of rooms spinning/disorientation, nausea, chills, and various aches since. When I was a kid, I had regular bouts of bad allergy attacks which had these symptoms. Though it hasn’t happened in a very long time, I thought it was more of the same.

Turned out it’s not. My psycho cousin’s ex-wife has the same set. After suffering through it for five days, she finally went to a doctor. He told her that there’s a virus making the rounds of the area, and that she’d caught it. One of the effects of the virus is that it makes the inner ear swell, leading to all the dizziness and disorientation. She told me about it last night when I called to cancel the lunch date we’d had for today.

I’m on medication now that brings down the swelling, but the dizziness has not gone entirely, and it’s a miserable feeling. It gets worse if I lie flat, so I have to sleep propped up by pillows in a semi-sitting position. I’m also on stuff to help control the nausea. And painkillers for the aches and pains. All of which has me feeling exhausted around the clock. I just managed to get my sleep schedule reset to something more like a normal person, and then this hit. Now I want to sleep all the time, and sometimes lose the fight to avoid falling asleep during the day. I’m trying not to sleep much during the day, or when this virus is over, I’ll have to start all over on Chronotherapy.

Take my advice. Lock yourself in your home and have no contact with anyone if this hits your part of the world. It is about the worst I’ve felt in a very long time. Avoid it if you can.

Just completely exhausted. I hope that I don’t wake up again, in spite of the exhaustion now, when bedtime rolls around. Since I’m doing Chronotherapy, the only thing that fixes my DSPS even temporarily, I can’t go to sleep until 8 pm at the earliest. Eventually, exhaustion will make me sleep past 10 or 10:30, I’ll get a good night’s sleep, and I’ll have temporarily reset the circadian rhythms so I sleep at night and am awake during the day. I need to get this set, so when the new semester starts, I’ll be able to sleep early enough and get up early enough to make my classes on time. I’ve still got some time. Schools and colleges around here take long winter breaks. I got about six weeks for winter break, and the new semester won’t start until the 22nd. It’s a good thing I started the Chronotherapy now, since this bout of disorder craziness is proving far harder to budge than usual.

Meantime, I’ve hit that stage of exhaustion where I’m starting to get moodswings from angry to depressed and back, several times a day. It’s a good thing we are not a world of telepaths. No one needs to hear or know the kinds of things I’m thinking about everyone right now. After all these years of dealing with sleep disorders, I can maintain some degree of filters between thought and mouth, so I don’t go spewing the anger at everyone. It’s not anyone’s fault, and I’m not actively angry at anyone. I’m just angry in general, and before I developed the ability to keep filters and switches mostly in place even in severe sleep deprivation, I used to take it out on anyone around me, just because they were there. Unfortunately, those filters and switches are not a hundred percent, and probably never will be. Sometimes things slip out that never should have been said, and are the exhaustion talking.

I need to stop typing, even though getting this out here sometimes helps prevent me from spewing exhaution-fuelled anger at everyone around me. I’m having doubts about every word I write, thinking that it doesn’t look like it’s spelled even somewhat correctly. I’ve proofread this short little post about ten times, and every time it just looks less and less like English. I’m going to just have to trust that my fingers know what they’re doing right now, even though my brain does not.

The joys of being unable to sleep.

Sleep disorders are kicking my butt.

Tuesday, got to sleep 4 pm. Woke up 9 pm. Five hours of sleep.

Wednesday, sleep at 6 pm. Woke up at 10 pm. Four hours of sleep.

Thursday, sleep at 7 pm, woke up at 10:30 pm. Three and a half hours of sleep.

Just shoot me now.

A memory popped up sometime after I woke and was unable to get back to sleep tonight. It’s something I remember with bitter amusement. Someone yelling at me, ranting at me that I have no idea what it’s like to get only four or five hours of sleep when I wasn’t thrilled that they were cutting out from something and saying that they might be back if they felt like it. They, of course, didn’t. I was so furious at the time that I couldn’t say a word. I wanted to say, “Oh, so that’s how it’s been for this semester? Try your entire frigging life lived like that.” But I was literally so mad that I could not speak. Probably for the best that I couldn’t. I’d have said a lot more than that, and I’d have probably regretted pretty much all of it as soon as I calmed down.

No clue? It’s how I’ve lived almost my entire life. Sometimes on even less. Ten days with no sleep. Try that on for size before telling me I have no idea what extreme sleep deprivation is like. Even as a kid I had sleep disorders, and went to school every day on four hours of sleep or less. This has been my life for than 30 years.

And I have no clue what it’s like to go through sleep deprivation. Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Ever since we were no longer living in the same area and attending the same parties, has called me after midnight every New Year’s Eve, usually at some varying level of toasted, to slur me a happy new year. Expecting that this year would be the usual, I carried my phone with me everywhere I went throughout the night. I was going to be up anyway, since I’ve been having horrible problems with my sleep disorders for the last couple weeks, and the best I’ve been able to do for sleep, if I sleep at all, is to finally fall asleep somewhere between 7 and 10 in the morning.

Apparently, what he was up to was really good, because I didn’t get drunk dialled at all. Or else he knew that I was expecting the call (I’m usually not, and so either don’t turn on the phone or have to run across the room to get it before it goes to voicemail) and decided that it would ruin the tradition if I’m actually ready and waiting for my NYE call. If I’m expecting it then it’s not a surprise, right? So obviously, in order to surprise me, he had not not call.

Hey, it makes sense to me. Probably because I’m sleep deprived.

I’ll probably call him sometime tonight, since I’ll be up, to wish him a happy end-of-the-first-day-of-the-year or something, even though that’s a lot less catchy and less easy to say. Because, you know, I’ll be up anyway.

It’s something of a relief that the holidays are over, really. This first time since I moved here that we had Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year without John, and I was expecting something quite different than what actually happened. I figured it would be the first time to relax and enjoy the holidays in years, since we wouldn’t have the threat of my psychotic cousin hanging over our heads.He’s bad enough most of the time, but gets especially violent and unpredictable on and around the holidays. Our holidays up to now have either been living in fear, or else actively dealilng with it, including fires, destruction of property, assault, and attempted murder. All of that has left its mark, though. We weren’t able to really have much of a holiday. There wasn’t even a Christmas tree, a major tradition for us and a bonding thing for my mom and me. And when I have been able to actually sleep, it’s to have nightmares about John trying to kill us. I’m not the only one having them, either. We were fine until a few days before the approaching event, then insomnia and nightmares would start, and last until a couple days after for all three of the last major holidays of the year.

I go fall over now. I haven’t slept at all in nearly 24 hours. Here’s hoping I actually get some sleep.

And welcome to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the last one.