Throughout the years of my independent living one of the biggest struggles has been the ability to wind down and go to sleep. Part of this is the understanding of the necessity of taking my medication as prescribed as some of the medication helps me ease into sleep and get some quality sleep.

There is a reality that as many as 40% of autistic individuals struggle with sleep. Even before receiving my autism diagnosis over 25 years ago, I struggled with sleep as a child on the nights that my brain was overstimulated with special occasions that were happening the next day that it made life for my immediate family at the time difficult. This included birthdays, Christmases, or times when there were big events to happen the next day.

When I was first given one medication, for over 25 years I was under the belief that it was to help me sleep. Until earlier this year, I did not realize that it was also helping me with many other factors of being autistic and my mental health challenges. For the past six years, it has been a battle to understand the necessity of all medications that are necessary for me to have the quality of life that I desire, but through stern advice and total understanding, I finally understood the necessity of taking all my medications exactly as prescribed.

I do fully understand the necessity of having to take my medication on the nights when I must go to work or day services early in the morning and I am usually up before the alarm sounds in the morning. That alone is one big feat in of itself because it is something that I have long feared in my head not doing and the  hardest thing of that was when I was not steadily adhering to my medication regimen to the point where the drowsiness would appear at its worst.

Now, do not get me wrong, there are times when I am not totally awake. Some of the hardest times are in the morning and at the close of a long day out and about, but the effects of the medications doing what they need to do definitely outweigh the side effects, which I am finding that many that I had believed in the past that existed actually do not as because I had not had the opportunity to totally understand what is necessary versus what is not to have in life.

My needs are met for what they are and that is what matters the most . I am in the process of learning more about how to fight the drowsiness of my medication and managing how to best work with it and not without it. It has been a process, but I now know that sleep is necessary in not only mine, but everyone’s life and I am extremely grateful for the fact that I would have had such success with the medication if I had to have the quality of life that I have.