One of my biggest struggles that I have had in my time being on my own is when I have to “call it a night.” My brain is always flowing with ideas of things to do and see throughout the day and whether or not my body sometimes thinks it needs to shut down, I often want to fight my body and not shut down for the day.
When one has that taste of freedom such as I did over four years ago, you just want to prove that you are the one calling the shots and that it is your choice to make. While indeed I do have the right to make those choices, I had a hard time realizing that I have responsibilities. I have struggled until the last four months with this skill.
One could say my struggles come from over three decades of living with my parents and being continually reminded to take a certain medication so that I could sleep throughout the night. This was because at the height of puberty I recall being in the kitchen of my homeplace at an night hour. This was always viewed as a negative connotation and that was something I thought I could never experience again.
Then I had the chance to. It was a up and down struggle for the majority over the past four years. In summary, in the first year and a half in my first living experience, others noticed my “off” behavior. It would not be until the COVID lockdowns and me living with my parents for me to literally crash and burn. It continues to take seeing that as a reminder of the need to take care of myself and while within the last few months it tool utilizing my self advocacy skills, therapy and psychiatry to get a better balance on the part of the pharmacy that blister packs the medication as well as myself being more grounded to get better at it, which it mostly has.
With the onset of 2023, I want to move past all the misery these cycles I experienced over the past four years to dissolve and move on. This means having a self-awareness that I am not like the Energizer Bunny and cannot keep running. I, like any human, need a certain amount of sleep to be able to function in society. Being unable to properly mitigate all the struggles that are out in a world that is not made to fit for me is a recipe for disaster and shouldn’t be tempted.
I have realized this time and time again, but continually the stubborn manly self plays more that the sound one and allows the negative behavior of just “sleeping awhile” play out and while things have been better, they are not totally perfect when I do not allow myself to completely follow my medication regimen and I know that.
It can make me think of less of a person because I need to go to bed at an earlier hour than my peers, but I know that is not my authentic or best self and ultimately I must do what is right and is not the popular vote. I can think of years ago when a group I attended voted to move a meeting up an hour. They said to me that they vote for themselves and not others. In reality isn’t that what we should do. Life is not a popularity contest, if given the opportunity, shouldn’t we think how things affect us if we are given the opportunity?
It takes knowing what is best for ourselves and knowing that we need to be our best, that staying up and fighting our mental or physical health isn’t worth all the extra energy that it takes, rather, turn things down, get cozy in bed and have a nice sleep. As the character Scarlett O’Hara said in her closing line “After All, Tomorrow is Another Day!”
Dustin's Dynasty 