Rampant randomness

[vulgarweed]

Happy birthday, lakenaiad!

And a moment to think of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, 78, whose work helped make the passage better for so many millions. Thank you, Dr. May your own journey be glorious and your destination profound.

Haven't updated in a while. When I'm not working, I've been sitting on the couch, doing a lot of vegging, and celebrating athleticism in my favorite way: watching other people do it, ooh'ing and aah'ing, and thinking, 'better them than me."

Is beach volleyball slashy or what? (Congrats to Emmanuel & Ricardo!).

And, because I've mostly been watching the late-night coverage of course, here's something about something going on on a Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome Yahoogroup:

Someone on that group who is not the most tactful human on the planet pissed off a few group members by indelicately bringing up the matter of whether our sleep "disorder" is an "illness."

Now, some people in the group do feel that it is an illness or disability, very much so, and much of the discussion is about melatonin, lightbox regimens, vitamins to combat the immune deficiencies that come with chronic sleep-dep (pretty much inevitable among DSPS people trying to work 9 to 5), depression that comes from screwing up your cycles, etc.

Others feel these "treatments" are just frustrating snake oil, and that the condition is really something more like being very short or very tall, or being gay--you're in a minority, and the majority world is not set up to accomodate you and some will be prejudiced against you and make ignorant remarks, but you can certainly build a meaningful life just as you are, even turning your "abnormality" into an advantage, and there's not anything wrong with you--unless you wreck your health, mentally or physically, by trying to change something you can't.

I fall into the latter camp, fairly obviously. But is it a "disability" of some sort, no matter how hard I refuse to feel diminished by it? It does keep me out of a great number of professions. It certainly is a condition much misunderstood, and there sure is stigma. Maybe there are benefits to be gained--lobbying for inclusion under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which many people in this group support, sure would make a hell of a lot of people's lives better. But I don't "feel" disabled, for Erussake, and isn't that an insult to people with real disabilities?

What am I missing here? What's the flaw in my attitude about this.

Comments

[divinetailor.livejournal.com]

i'm curious about how many folks who are in the former camp are ones with 9 to 5 jobs and/or kids, and do feel more disabled by the difference. it makes sense that they'd be more apt to make noise about it. but maybe the real difference here is that you've made it part of your life, you know, built your life around that difference, rather than trying to fit your different life into an unsuitable predominant tendency. (yeah, i don't even want to call 9-to-5ing "normal"! it's just a "predominant tendency!" lol) the 9-to-5 thing is arbitrary anyway, not reflective of the range of natural, actual human inclinations. i don't understand why, especially in the digital, global, information, you name the catchword society we live in, there's still this utter obsession with preserving Regular Business Hours. making everyone show up and do crap at the same time and place each day and then go home at the same time is just for ease of control.

i don't know, though. maybe some people find they can't break out of that, or they feel they haven't got the option. hell, that's the worse disability, in my book. if someone's life isn't theirs to determine, could be there's anxiety and depression causing insomnia, not DSPS. since right now i'm all about the right diagnosis for the right condition, i tend to hyperanalyze that sort of thing. :) anyway i don't know that you're missing anything, or that there's a flaw. what you feel is what you feel.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

It's definitely true that the people who feel the most strongly about a disability designation are those who have wanted desperately to live "normal" (somnotypical?) hours. And the most important thing about being able to identify as "disabled" for them is to increase awareness that this is something that, as far as we know, cannot be changed. Which I do support, 100%. That group is full of people who have gone to so many sleep clinics, tried so many things, screwed up their sleep for years with all these labor-intensive experimental treatments--and still reverted back to a DSPS pattern when all was said and done.

We've all had the experience of not knowing it was a "syndrome," of just thinking we were lazy and undisciplined and thinking that if we just made our "sleep hygiene" better, if we were better people in some regard, we could be "normal." What a relief in some ways to find out that's not true. But also a great disappointment, for those who really hoped to change.

The relationships between depression and sleep disorders are so complicated, because the cause-and-effect goes both ways. How much more anxious and self-loathing you feel when not only are you sleep-deprived, you blame yourself for your inability to sleep and wake "properly" and don't understand why all your efforts to go to sleep earlier, wake earlier, etc., just aren't working.

The worship of "business hours" drives me nuts too. How much more sense would it make to not have everybody commuting at the same damn times!

[erunyauve-e.livejournal.com]

I'm now wide-awake after forcing myself to stay awake through the afternoon and early evening because I knew I'd just wake up around midnight, anyway::g:: Though my problem is more that I can't stay asleep.

[ellimayhem.livejournal.com]

In the late night tv department sometime flip over to animal planet around 3 am and check out the fascinating and nifty whoe "Venom ER". Hunky herpitologist doctor pioneering antivenom treatments in america's #1 rattler territory! I feel faint every time it comes on....

[autumnmist.livejournal.com]

Aw,she's dead? I had fun using some of her work in one of my writing seminar papers... made up some sort of theory of what makes a piece of writing disturbing. lol.

[vulgarweed.livejournal.com]

Yes, she died - Wednesday, I think?

She was old. And from all accounts, she died well--of course. :)