my love to everyone - things have been too rough around here - I hope things smooth out

Pix, that utterly sucks. I hope your meds arrive soon.

Hey, guess who's got insomnia and still can't stop crying? That would be me. I can't even take any Xanax (if I even have any) for fear it'll fuck me up for the morning.

Thanks to all for your compassion and wise counsel. I'm flipping among anger, shame, fear, and defensiveness. I hope i can keep the anger and defensiveness in check and just buckle down and focus. I'm trying to give myself a few days to let the emotions settle so I can figure out what if any of the anger is justified and what if anything I want to do about it.

beth, rewards have never worked for me, and just now I'm thinking it's because they also require consistency? I guess it would be a chane to practice being consistent. It just can't be money or food. I don't fucking know.

I am very sleepy, so I can't quite parse how best to say supportive things, smonster. Bra. That's all I've got. So lots of bras to you and may they be pretty since practical has already been covered better than I can do.

Heh. If someone doesn't want hugs or hairpats, we can at least give them bras for support. Or cups, depending on the gender in need of support.

Not tonight - but give yourself a written list of cons and pros for being late and on time. (there are pros to being late and there are cons to being on time)

and I might start with stickers. - it might sound silly -- but seeing stickers on a calendar - on days when you do what you want/need to do might help. and it is not also a giant disappointment if you don'[t get one. If you worked in a library - I'd have my coworkers do it . but librarians are like that . and there are always stickers at the library .

I am totally sticker motivated and that is ok with me. It may or may not involve actual stickers. But I need that kind of external validation.

smonster I have a really hard time with mornings - insomnia and being a night person and all that.

And the stupid hours of opening the store at 7 am and having to be there actually before open and stuff. Plus factor in taking time to scrape ice and snow off the car and deal with bad roads. I would aim to get to work at 6:30 and sometimes end up there closer to 7 am and sometimes closer to 6 am.

One thing that's worked (mostly) for me is setting 2 alarms (on my phone with 2 different wake up tones). The first one is set an hour before the second. I started putting my phone in the hall to charge. The first alarm goes off, I get up, and turn it off and go back to bed. The second alarm goes off and I get up, unplug it , take it back to bed with me and hit snooze for 10 minutes. After that I either hit snooze again or I don't hit snoose and check Buzzfeed or play a round of Candy Crush saga or do something that's kind of wallowing. And then get up and deal with getting stuff done.

The key is the first alarm. Getting up to turn it off (usually) wakes me up enough that, even though I fall back asleep it's more like wallowing than sleeping. And the second one gives me some more "awake" wallow time.

I hate going to bed and I hate waking up. The only part of the whole being asleep/waking up thing, is the sleepy wallowing part in the morning. Plus I do better with transition times for things that are stressful or big changes. Going from asleep to awake is both so I try to allow for the transition/wallow time.

It is really easy to be down on yourself - esp when other people are involved. So seeing a pattern , that proves you aren't hopeless helps.

I might have to try the stickers for myself. because I need to get on the exercise bandwagon and not fall off.

and I would have a reason to buy stickers

I'm flipping among anger, shame, fear, and defensiveness

Ugh. Been there, hate having those simultaneous feelings. Ick.

I have actually just gotten back on the stickers-for-exercise bandwagon! I printed out a couple months of calendar, and taped them to my hallway, and have been using different colored stars to signify different things! Still hasn't gotten me to go to hot yoga, though I keep meaning to and then chickening out, and I didn't manage to work out while I was traveling last week (even though I had clothes with me...when the alarm went off, my brain said "NO"), but I did go to the gym every day this weekend (even if only for 20 minutes yesterday). It's surprisingly satisfying to put the stickers on.

I also do not understand why it is so hard to get up in the morning. I get plenty of sleep, seriously. Which is why Friday I asked for a referral to the sleep clinic--I'm hoping maybe there will be magic answers. Though I kinda fear it either way--either I"ve got something wrong (like apnea, which both my parents have, and lord knows I don't want to lug a CPAP on all my travels!) or I don't (and just have to deal with needing 9-10 hours of sleep a night??)

Ugh, Pix, I feel ya. Literally, with intense dizziness for the last 2 weeks. I kinda forgot to refill my celexa, and it wasn't all that bad for the first 3 days so I thought "ok, i guess it's time to be done with it!" Been trying to get off it for years but every time I go down to every other day (i'm already on the smallest pill available which is teeny tiny itty bitty way to small to try and split with any sucess) i get super dizzy on the off days. Figured it would pass. OMG, it is NOT PASSING. Finally looked into it and "SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome" can last for months. MONTHS??? Of nonstop dizziness and intermittent heart palpitations???? Ok, fine, I have the mail order refill, guess I'll just go back on it indefinitely since this blows.

eta: Meara- i need 9-11 hrs a night. Always have. It's just how i'm wired. I resented it for years as a waste of time, now I just succumb to the inevitability and invested in a really nice mattress. And last time I flew internationally I got chastised by TSA for having a cpap in my carry-on (apparently they are supposed to go in checked luggage?) Wierd, because I don't have a cpap. I think they might have been confused by my snorkel.