In a brooding mood today, not sure why. Still not quite catching up with how my sleep works now. I am having problems recognizing the difference when I am done sleeping and it is time to face the day, or when I need more sleep and should go back to bed for a while.

I just spent three rather brooding hours lying in bed, not really sleeping at all, but just laying there trying to sleep and not getting anywhere. What the hell was I doing, exactly? Why didn’t I realize I was not getting anywhere and just give up and get up and start doing things?

Well, I know part of it is that intention lock-in problem I have mentioned once or twice before. When I plan to do something, it is very difficult for me to decide not to do it. And when I got up just before noon, I was still pretty tired, and so I said to myself “I will just go eat lunch and then come back and finish up sleeping. ”

And so, that is what I had to do, even if by the time I finished eating I was fully awake and not really sleepy at all, and probably did not need sleep at all. Had to try taking a nap anyhow. And I am not sure why. I just know I have this compulsion to do what I plan to do. It is surely going to get me in trouble some day, or at least, make me seem extremely crazy to people.

And it is definitely the same part of my psyche that makes me take disappointment so badly. It is not just that it hurts to think you are going to do something fun or nice and then find out you are not going to do it after all. It’s that said pain is wrapped in a much larger pain of sudden change of plans. I just cannot hack sudden change like that. It hits me like a physical blow to the gut and makes me feel like I suddenly lost part of me, and so it always hurts like hell and takes me a while to recover.

And it has always been that way with me. I remember a certain birthday when I was a kid. What I had asked for as a birthday gift was for my parents to get my old, hand me down, banana colored hand me down girl’s bike fixed. My parents decided to get me my own brand new awesome mountain bike instead.

So the morning of my birthday comes, and all my family is gathered around to see my no doubt Spielbergian reaction to this upgrade, and instead I just completely freak out, because I just cannot handle the sudden violation of expectation. I wanted my old bike, not this new thing that is taller and has a bunch of gears that I don’t know how to use and is so tall that my feet won’t touch the ground while I am in the seat any more so now I have to learn a whole new way to ride a bike!

So I was crying and angry and upset, when honestly I should have been tickled pink to have a brand new and much cooler bike that was NOT a hand me down. But the sudden change was just too much for me to handle. So instead of a magical moment of childhood wonder and happiness, they got an angry and accusatory ball of tears and recrimination.

I still fell kinda bad about that. I mean, I was just a kid, and you cannot go against your basic nature and mine is distinctly un-fond of surprises. But still. I can see how that was not exactly a happy day for anyone involved at all.

For the record, I eventually made friends with the new bike and learned to ride it, and it was my faithful steed for years and years to come. Heck, I still miss that bike. It was a lean mean street machine.

So anyhow, that was part of why I laid there trying to sleep for hours. I was just obeying my compulsion to do what I plan to do, regardless of whether it is still a good idea.

But I think I also just did not, for whatever reason, feel like dealing with reality. I remember feeling resentful and bitter about it while I was in the state of being sort of, but not really, asleep. I remember feeling like I just did not feel like facing life and its tensions and variables and complications, and so I was deliberately ignoring it, snubbing it, really.

This is not the sort of emotion I usually allow myself when I am full awake. It goes against my desire to remain a positive and open person. I usually keep my “Fuck you, world!” side firmly under wraps. So I find it interesting that it came to the surface so strongly when I was slightly asleep. Must be time for me to deal with that kind of feeling.

And that is not easy, because it is so unpleasant and so totally not who I want to be.

But there is no point denying that it is there, I suppose. There is a deep vein of glowering rage filled misanthropy in me that I have never really dealt with. A strong part of me that wants to tell the world (and everyone in it) to go fuck itself, and to take an angry and defiant stance against the world.

That is not usually who I am. I am usually a happy, amiable, affable type who does not like to dwell on the negative and just wants to get along with everyone in peace, harmony, and goodwill.

But the emotion is there, and I need to deal with it. I have a deep down rage against the world that has treated me so poorly, and no amount of logic or intention will change that.

And some day, it will come raging to the surface whether I want it or approve of it or not.

Better sooner than later, I suppose.

And no, I don’t mean this guy :

Hey, big fan, glad to meet you, let me shake your…. uh… maybe not.

I mean the mythological fellow who is supposed to go around dispensing sleep. I have been having trouble sleeping today and it is making me grumpy and irritable. And this, despite my new sleep medication, which is fairly potent stuff.

The problem is not sleepiness. That I have down, thanks to Quetiapine. It takes a while to kick in, but that is something you can just plan around. And yup, it puts me to sleep, and does so slowly but firmly, which is what I wanted. And it seems to be better quality sleep than I was getting before too, without as much mental disturbance making for fitful and disturbed sleep.

So far so good. But somehow, I am still not quite sleeping right. I have felt sleepy all day and keep trying to correct that with more sleep, but I seem to fall asleep very, very slowly, and therefore I do not get that much of the really good deep sleep before my goddamned bladder wakes me and I have to get up and empty it, thus resetting my whole sleep cycle.

And usually, by then, it is close enough to a meal time that it is easier to just stay awake until after I eat, and when I eat, I of course drink water, and so you can see how this whole cycle perpetuates.

I realize that my long ingrained habit of slow constant hydration is a big part of the equation here. All the sleep hygiene guides say not to drink anything within a couple of hours of going to sleep, and I try to adhere to that. In that, the fact that the pill can take up to an hour and a half to kick in actually helps in that. Take the pill during my midnight snack, then just do not drink anything before it kicks in. And make sure to empty my bladder right before I lay down to sleep.

But nevertheless, my kidneys seem to just keep cranking out urine regardless, and I end up having to get up to pee anyhow. No wonder I have a history of two to three hour naps. That is as long as my damned bladder will give me before it is pee trip time again!

That leads to stage 2 of problem, which is that I do not seem able to wake up just a little in order to make my little trips. I wake up all the way to full alertness, exactly as though I was getting up to face the day, and that makes getting back to sleep that much more difficult.

So again, no wonder about the two to three hour nap thing. It is almost like I am keeping to a six hour clock, two hours asleep, four ours awake, and every waking is a whole new day.

This, needless to say, is painfully fucked up.

I understand that other people do not have this problem. They can get up to take a leak and retain their necessary sleepiness, so when all is done, they can just go right back to sleep and it is nary a blip in their sleep cycle.

And that sounds great. I want to learn how to do this myself. I sometimes wonder if my parents’ oh so “progressive” move of taking away bed time and letting me sleep when I felt like it when I was still pretty young actually did me a disservice by interrupting the process of learning to sleep eight hours like a normal person.

Anyhow, it would be great to learn to wake up only a little, just enough to get the job done, and then go right back to sleep. But the problem is, by the time I am awake enough to remember that this is what I am trying to do, it is already too late.

Damned overmuscular meta-consciousness. Why do I have to be so awake to be aware?

Oh, speaking of awareness, I finally figured out something that had been bugging me. When I first got the Quetiapine, the pharmacist who handed them to me was smiling really big and sort of fake and said something about when I take this “… relaxant. ”

And I went away wondering the heck her deal was. Why did she say “relaxant” in the same way a small town church lady would refer to someone’s unwanted pregnancy as their “little problem”? And Quetiapine is not a relaxant. I mean, seriously lady, wad dee fug?

Well today, the penny finally dropped. She was handing me a powerful antipsychotic! She naturally assumed that I was probably a psycho, and not just any psycho, but a six foot tall bearded sort of scary homeless looking one. She was probably just a tad nervous and wanted to make sure I stayed nice and happy. She was giving me the same response anyone might if they just realized they might be three feet from a dangerous loonie. It totally makes sense now.

And now that I realize this, I find it very funny. I will totally be watching for how the pharmacy staff treats me now that they think I might be a dangerous lunatic, and not just a run of the mill depressed big fat diabetic dude.

Of course you know and I know that I am as harmless as a bag of marshmallows, and I am not a psychotic, I am just using an antipyschotic as an off-list sleep aid.

But the only official, on-list use for Quetiapine is as an atypical and its off-list uses are too many to mention, so as far as they know, I am potentially the sort of fellow who hears voices and who will sooner or later do what they tell him to do.

Hilarious. A little insulting, I suppose, but mostly just hilarious.

Seeya next time, folks.