3:55am September 23, 2014

I did not expect to like f.lux

But I love it and I think it’s helping me sleep better.

It basically makes it so at sunset, your computer screen starts going into orangeish tones. Normally I don’t like orangeish tones. But somehow this works for me. Somehow it makes me feel like it’s actually night, and gives me more of a chance of falling asleep while still using my computer. The orange gets deeper as the night gets longer then goes away by sunrise.

I’ve been having a lot of insomina trouble lately, due to stress dosing on my steroids. So every little thing helps. Including this. And including consolidating all of my more sedating meds at once around bedtime – which gets me at least an hour or two of sleep, which is more than I’d get otherwise.

I swear that steroids have put me right back into Irregular Sleep-Wake Pattern, which being on lots of sedating meds had solved for a long time.

And yes, I do have Irregular Sleep-Wake Pattern. Yes, I know that it mostly exists in people with severe neurological disorders. I have many severe neurological disorders, several of which (autism, parkinson-like movement disorders) have been specifically linked to Irregular Sleep-Wake Pattern in the literature. Please don’t approach me to tell me how rare ISWP is or that only people with severe neurological disorders have it. These are things I know. How you, on the other hand, would presume to know what neurological disorders I have, I have no clue.

(Yes, I’ve gotten approached by know-it-alls on the Internet about ISWP before, basically telling me that if I can communicate online, I can’t possibly have it. Please, please tell my brain that and maybe I’ll be able to sleep in something other than two-hour chunks. And steroids just make it worse. I already had it to begin with, then I thought I had it semi-licked by being on lots of heavily sedating meds, then the steroids de-sedated me and now I’m back to square one. I can live like this, I did live like this a lot of my life, but I’d rather not. Unlike some autistic people who see their circadian rhythm anomalies as a feature and not a bug, mine causes my neuropathic pain to spike due to an inability to sleep long enough to refresh whatever it is that makes my pain better after sleeping. Meaning I am not happy with ISWP and would do nearly anything to get rid of it. And have tried nearly everything there is. OTOH I really do think the way Michelle Dawson can sleep whenever and wherever she wants, or not sleep, is cool. But that’s not the kind of circadian rhythm disorder I have, and mine causes me a lot of pain and suffering. Everyone’s different, and mine probably interacts badly with my neuropathy.)