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.

Smonster- just to be clear, being consistently late does NOT make you a bad person. It might make you a chronically late person, but that's ok, and shockingly common. My mom is always late to everything. People tell her to be there an hour before anyone else, and sometimes it works out. Ok, one time I was with her so we actually showed up on time and turned out to be an hour early, which was annoying for me because it was a church function and i HATE going to church with her, but other than that it works pretty well. Except that now she knows the trick and is still late, but not AS late, only a few minutes. Can you trick yourself into thinking you need to always be an hour early for work? Sure you'll still know, but it might help with time budgetting. And again: being late isn't a reflection on your worth or inherent awesomeness. It's just time budgetting. Some people can't budget money and some can't budget time (and some both, which still doesn't make them bad people, just poor and late.) If it were really a huge problem someone would have been chiding you about it long ago, every day, likely also with glares.

eta: forgot to mention, everyone in my mom's life *adores* her, whenever she shows up.

Y'all are so awesome. Thank you. No time for proper responses right now, gotta get to work! Flea called, I'm up and dressed and walking Frankie, and I'm on track to leave by 6:15 which should get me there 25 minutes early.

Have a better than expected day, smonster. Also, what they all said.

My laptop ate a long post I had earlier, but I didn't have to to recreate it. Grumble. Hopefully more later.

Pix, I hope you are ok. I really don't like the sound of what you are experiencing and wish there was an easier answer than waiting until the meds come through the mail.

Here 14 minutes early. Of course, it's raining, so who knows how much we'll be able to work today… but it won't be my fault. I'm the first one here. My plan is to get up before flea calls, so I'm not training myself to rely on her phone calls.

Thanks for the reminders about stickers, I've used those before with some good results.

askye, my roommate's bedroom is right next to mine, so I don't think that will work. But thank you for sharing what works for you. It's all good info that gets me thinking.

erin, thank you. I have such a hard time separating my behavior from myself as a person.