Sleep

As defined by Dictionary.com, sleep is a verb which means "to take the rest afforded by a suspension of voluntary bodily functions and the natural suspension, complete or partial, of consciousness; cease being awake."

I am particularly bad, downright suckish at doing this verb at normal human hours. Because of this, I have developed what some people call "night owl tendencies."  Which is somewhat redundant . . . I mean, you only ever see owls at night. When was the last time you saw an owl at two in the afternoon? 
 

 Okay, you win.

However, generally, owls are nocturnal and unfortunately, so am I, sort of. 

I did a little researching as to why I was having such trouble at falling asleep at regular hours to fit societal norms. I came across a specific condition that fit me pretty much to a T. A big capital T, like those last two Ts you just read. I believe I have Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. 

DSPS Overview, Incidence and Prevalence - Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome - Sleep Channel

Oh, hey look! A magical link you can click! I almost went with Wikipedia, but some people like to question its reliability. Wikipedia can be a useful source if you follow the citations given at the bottom of the page. 


The sad thing is that I've been like this for, like, ever. According to my parental and grandparental units anyway. When I was a wee little babe I had a difficult time going to sleep. Clicking around on that link will show people out there going through the same or similar situation. Huzzah! I'm not alone. 

However, being a night owl has put me in awful situations: Missing several classes and my grades being affected by it. I also have been called lazy, told I have a poor work ethic, and a variety of other things that are completely untrue and hurtful. I don't mean to miss classes. I don't mean to sleep till 12 on the weekends (or weekdays). I don't mean to be anything other than me (I feel like that is a song lyric/line of poetry). I am a night owl. I can't change that. As much as I would like to try and change that, there is no changing that. If I've been like this for 18 years, why and how would I change now? Someone, give me an answer. 

That's what I thought. 

I don't appreciate being told to be more pro-active with sleeping and waking up on time. I do try. Nothing works. I don't appreciate being condescended to because of my sleeping habits. Just because I don't pop out of bed like a Pop-Tart every morning like some people I know [cough cough], doesn't mean I'm a bad person who has no future. Society can suck it.

Okay, society already has been sucking at, well, everything for a while now. 

I am also making generalizations, something I try to avoid doing, but every so often they slip out.

So basically, sleep and I are on really good terms, specifically, its terms. Meaning, no sleeping before one in the morning, two sometimes. If I choose to rebel against it and just say hey, I'm not going to do the whole sleep thing tonight (which happened way too many times first semester), sleep will come up from nowhere and beat me into submission till I'm sleeping, which makes our relationship abusive. (Sidenote: I know abusive relationships are real and aren't a joking matter) Sleep is pretty much the dominant partner here and no matter how much I try to take control, sleep lulls me into a false sense of security and pounces on me later, effectively taking control back. 

And that's all that I'm going to say about my relationship with sleep.