as small as a world and as large as alone, Hey, do you have any more information on autistic...

1:52am October 9, 2014

thebrightobvious asked: Hey, do you have any more information on autistic people having weird circadian rhythms? I didn't know this was a thing. I thought my weird sleep schedule was due to irresponsibility, and I've spent years de-identifying with my autism because I'm pretty "high functioning". But now I'm not sure.

diloolie:

withasmoothroundstone:

One of my shrinks tried to convince me my weird circadian rhythms were responsibility problems. He told me the only way I could convince him if I was able to be a responsible adult, was to sleep through the night. So I faked it. I have Irregular Sleep-Wake Pattern, so… yeah. Without medications (and even with them), my sleep is completely messed up.

http://www.webmd.com/brain/autism/features/sleep-difficulties-parents-autism

http://www.timeforafuture.com.au/fact_sheets/sleep.htm

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/spppm/research/devpsych/actnow/download/factsheet36.pdf

http://gormanlab.ucsd.edu/files/papers/2010%20Glickman%20Circadain%20rhythms%20and%20sleep%20in%20children%20with%20autism.pdf

That’s just some stuff.

You can do more searchers by:

circadian rhythm autism

[insert name of circadian rhythm sleep disorder here] autism

So for instance for that last one I might enter:

irregular sleep-wake pattern autism

delayed sleep phase syndrome autism

non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder autism

And you can find all kinds of stuff. Circadian rhythm sleep disorders, and insomnia, or both combined, are by far the most common types of sleep disorders among autistic people. So you can also do research into all the different types of circadian rhythm sleep disorders and see if any of them ring a bell. When I’m totally untreated, I have an irregular sleep-wake pattern (which is supposedly rare outside of people with severe neurological problems, but it’s more common in autistic people and in people with a few other neurological things I have). When I’m treated, I have something closer to non-24-hour sleep-wake disorder.

Some autistic people are greatly distressed by their sleep problems. I am. It causes my neuropathic pain to go out of control, when I can’t sleep on a schedule. So I take meds at night to help me sleep. And if I sleep at least a little at night I consider it a success, even though I rarely sleep through the whole night. Left to my own devices I would do 2-hour catnaps around the clock at random.

But there are some autistic people, notably Michelle Dawson, who like their sleep patterns and want to do nothing to change them. She values her ability to sleep only when and where she wants to, and doesn’t understand why some autistic people find our sleep disorders distressing.

http://autismcrisis.blogspot.com/2010/05/circadian-prison.html

Her article is worth reading even though I disagree that there’s “nothing wrong” with having a free-running circadian rhythm. There may be nothing wrong for some people, such as her, and that’s fine with me. But having a messed-up circadian rhythm really impacts my life, and not just socially. It makes my body feel horrible, and with many of the medical conditions I have, I need rest, and I’m not getting that if I’m catnapping around the clock. I just feel lousy if I am not getting longer periods of sleep all at once.

http://www.aasmnet.org/resources/factsheets/crsd.pdf

http://www.circadiansleepdisorders.org/defs.php

Hopefully some of these will be useful to you.

oh my god this is an actual thing and not my fault at all.

This changes so much.

I am so glad.

No seriously when I post stuff like this, and people realize these are actual things. Like circadian rhythm sleep disorders. And autistic catatonia. And autistic inertia. And other things like that. Then I am just so happy that someone has maybe started on the road to not blaming themselves. Because being blamed for this stuff, and learning to blame yourself, really sucks.

There are a lot of treatments for circadian rhythm disorders: Light therapy, medication (especially melatonin, but some people take things like Ambien or sedatives), sleep hygiene, deliberate bedtime cues, and more. They work on some people and don’t work on others, but all of them are worth a try as long as the potential benefits seem to outweigh the potential risks, and as long as you can afford it.

I am still really amazed at this one thing I might have mentioned in the above post:

There are a number of genetic syndromes, including Down syndrome, that have a higher rate of autism than in people without them. I have seen the circadian rhythm sleep disorders described in the literature of those genetic syndromes, as well as a number of other common autistic problems, and they are always described as physical, neurological problems. (There was even a word they used in one of the syndromes to describe a lack of circadian rhythm combined with a lot of other rhythms, I wish I remembered it.) Then you go to to the autism literature and it’s all described as psychiatric or behavioral, and the solutions given are all psychiatric or behavioral too. Even though we’re talking about the exact same problems for the exact same reasons – it’s just that people with genetic disorders get their problems treated as physical more often than people with autism.

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