Daily Prompt: Mr. Sandman

What kind of sleeper are you? Do you drop off like a stone and awaken refreshed, or do you need pitch black and silence to drift off to dream?

I could quite easily sleep for ten hours, wake up, get dressed, have some breakfast, and then go back to sleep for at least another three or four hours. When I’m particularly stressed, or suffering from considerably anxiety, all I want to do is shut myself away in bed for a few days and just sleep. When I’m on holidays, all I want to do is sleep.

I’m very much a deep sleeper. Sometimes it’s great, but sometimes it’s a bit scary.

Before I met Hulk, it never concerned me. I’ve always been somebody who loves to sleep – probably because I just can’t get enough of it.

Having a partner who is a diabetic is something that truly scares me. There’s been nights where he’s been in bed next to me having a hypo (where his blood sugar is dangerously low), and I’ve been completely oblivious to it. Generally speaking, a severe hypo means that he will sweat profusely, and lose the ability to move. His body begins to seize up, and sometimes he can start to shake / convulse slightly. He loses the ability to talk. The reality is, he can go into a coma in his sleep, or worse, die.

So for me, it’s truly terrifying to know that I’m such a deep sleeper. There have been several moments where I’ve been completely out of it and off in dreamland, and he’s been right next to me, having a severe hypo. Because he can’t move or really say anything louder than a whisper or a gasp, I’m completely oblivious to what is happening right next to me.

I’ve had a number of nights where this has happened, and I’ve woken up to find him like this, purely by chance. I don’t know how long he’s been in that state, but as soon as I realise what’s going on, it’s like an instant shot of adrenaline, and my brain goes into overdrive, and before I know it, I’m rummaging around in the kitchen looking for something sugary to give him in order to bring his blood-sugar levels back up.

The one thing that completely terrifies me is the thought that he could die in his sleep. He could die in his sleep, and I wouldn’t know, simply because I’m such a deep sleeper. Just the thought of it, sends shivers down my spine. God forbid that ever happened… I’d never be able to live with myself. The guilt would just be too much. I’m supposed to be looking after him and taking care of him!!

I’ve noticed that with Hulk, he’s quite tired lately. We both are. Taking on too much, pushing our bodies with our gym commitments, long hours in the office, late nights – it all takes it’s toll on the body. By the time the weekend comes around, we’ve usually got a lot of stuff to do, but really, all we want to do is just sleep. I’d love to be able to go to the gym Saturday morning, then come home, have some breakfast and then have a nap for a couple of hours. Get up, do some housework, go grocery shopping, and then come home for another nap.

The reality of being able to do that however… not an option.

Even when it comes to having a nap – I’m not one of these people that can have a 30min power nap and wake up feeling all brand new. If I have a nap, I need like 2 – 3 hours at least, otherwise I actually wake up feeling considerably worse than I was before I had my nap.

I know that there have been sleep studies done to show the optimal time for a nap, in order for it do be restful and restorative for the body, but for me, the rules don’t apply. I’ll close my eyes when I need to, and then I’ll open them again when my body says I’m ready to. That might be 2 hours, 8 hours, or 15 hours. When I was a teenager, I’d sometimes spend entire days sleeping.

I remember sometimes going to bed and sleeping the whole night, and the entire next day, having over 24hrs sleep – obviously because I needed it. I know that some reports have said that too much sleep is bad for you, but I tend to disagree with that. I don’t think that such a thing exists.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/23/daily-prompt-mr-sandman/

Daily Prompt: Talking in Your Sleep

Have you ever eavesdropped on a conversation you weren’t supposed to? Tell us about a time when it was impossible not to overhear a conversation between people who didn’t know you were there. What was the conversation about? How did it make you feel?

Catching public transport, you always hear conversations that you really wish you could unhear. For me, they’re always the ones that are just full of waaaay too much information, and all you wanna do is start gagging… or perhaps just throw up on them from divulging such graphic and disgusting information in such a loud voice, in such a confined space. Sometimes I actually think that people do it on purpose, just to point out something that they’ve done. It’s kinda like bragging, but you’re actually bragging to an entire train carriage full of people.

I’ve kinda already touched on this subject before, and although it is only one of countless conversations like this I’ve heard, it’s one that I actually managed to document, because it was so traumatising hehehe.

That conversation in particular made me feel quite uneasy. I just wanted a shower to wash away the filth. It was gross.

This is why now I always have my earphones in and the music playing so I can continue to avoid these situations, and prevent being subjected to the trash on transport.

http://dailypost.wordpress.com/2014/03/05/prompt-sleep/

Feb 18: Life Influences

What has had more influence on your life perspective: your upbringing or your experiences?

Without actually thinking about it, I would have said that they’re both as important as each other. However, upon further reflection, I realised that I’ve grown and matured a lot more from my experiences in life, than I would have based merely on my upbringing. Don’t get me wrong, I think by comparison, I had a great upbringing – my parents, (well, my mother at least) was always very open and supportive. Both my parents instilled a great sense of manners, which nowadays seems to almost be non-existent because everybody is more aboutme, me, me!!

But my upbringing, as much as it molded and shaped me, simply couldn’t prepare me for the life I’ve had since I moved out of home. I’ve experienced things that have been great; things that have been not so great; things that I am ashamed to admit and will take to the grave; things that have given me great life lessons.

I kind of compare them to academics. Take law for example – you can spend years and years at university studying the legal system, but all that knowledge is not going to really help much when you’re thrown into a court room and have to lead a large trial. The knowledge (upbringing) becomes secondary to the experience. I also think that being pushed out of your comfort zone and finding yourself in ‘the deep end’.

Having to find your feet by yourself, without anybody else to fall back on is one of the fastest ways you will ever learn about yourself. It will allow you to discover what your limits are, how resilient you are, and what you’re truly capable of when times are tough. I think that it’s something that everybody should go through, rather than thinking that life is going to hand you everything on a silver platter – IM LOOKING AT YOU, MILLENNIAL’S!!