Ever had one of those, “That’s it. It’s been done. We can all go home now.” kind of moments? One that sends you hurling through your own personal history, where you realize, “Wow. So that’s what was going on?” So, it took almost 5 decades, but I finally realized that there are two seemingly disparate things in my life’s history which absolutely are connected. My Autism (Aspergers/ADHD) and my sleep cycles/disturbances. Here’s the info that just sent me down a long mental rabbit hole.
Honestly, though, it all makes so much sense. You’re autistic, so you get bullied all day long by “well meaning” Cretans who just don’t know any better, and then you can’t sleep well at night because of everything that bullying put you through, and your fears about more bullying tomorrow. You don’t get enough sleep, so your Autistic traits are harder to mask just to keep from getting punished by everyone around you, and it isn’t until you’re in your, say, thirties or even older, before you learn you shouldn’t have to mask at all.
Anyway, no, sleep disturbances do not cause Autism. There’s no reason to believe such a thing. Literally, there are genes associated with Autism, and I re-iterate from my previous post, there’s nothing wrong with being Autistic, and no one should bully those who are Autistic. Anyway, the point here is, sleep disturbances are just going to make Autistic traits more noticeable.
Also, I want to note a response to that article I linked you to:
Oh too fucking bad, if people who copulated wound up with a noisy child who doesn’t easily sleep at night, then wake up all sunshine and roses every morning with a big, fat smile on their face. Guess what?! When you have sex during fertile years, you risk parenthood, and you get what you get, loosers. Deal with it. Wimpy, crying-assed jerks. You didn’t want parenthood? Shouldn’t have had sex. Duh.
But, you know, neurotypicals and all that, right? I mean, they just gotta go “do the deed” and “come what may,” but then they whine and blubber about it later on when all the sudden, they have to deal with the results of their actions… And then they have the nerve to go around judging those of us who rarely even date (if we do at all). Fuck them, and fuck the horses they rode in on…
Anyway, nearly 5 decades in, and I’m still dealing with the sleep disturbances. At this point, people who know me have finally stopped “trying” to get me to somehow magically sleep when they think I should. So, at least there’s that. But really, I fucking don’t care when I sleep. I care that I sleep. I care that I get the rest I need when my body is good and ready for it, and is so worn out from all the day’s bullshit that my brain finally conks out and then…
Nothing. Abosfuckinglutely nothing. If I dream, I nearly never remember even having had a dream. The few dreams I’ve had have nearly always been night terrors. I have no idea what it’s like to have mostly nice dreams, or really, to usually at least wake up knowing I had a dream. Science supports the notion that people have to reach REM sleep to survive, but I’m starting to think that that’s only for neurotypicals. The rest of us have brains that work differently, I think, in a lot of ways, and this might be one of them.
Either that, or I was really born somewhere in Russia or Ukraine, then ported over here to the US when I was an infant, and no one’s been kind enough to tell me that that’s why I do so much better sleeping during daylight hours (usually, anyway) and being up at night (on this side of the globe). In any event, I’ve come to accept it that this is just what works for my body and my brain. The upshot is that, when I’m asleep during the day, I’m not being put through 99% of neurotypical humanity’s bullshit. At least there’s that.
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