Last comic before I go to a month-long sick leave to heal from my well-earned battle wounds! :D
If you like cats, this comic is for you.
And if you enjoy supporting people with disabilities, and spread awareness of poorly known sleep disorders - subscribe for free in Tapas and follow me in Ko-fi for more art!
I just remembered that I once acted in a play as "The Sleepy One" prior to my IH diagnosis. I was literally selected to nod off in the play, surrounded by pillow mountain, because every morning when everyone was asked about how they were doing, I replied "tired and sleepy" without a fault.
Call waiting lines are a different beast when you have IH - it becomes a fight between you and sleepiness, drizzled with salty hope that you can actually talk and understand what the call is about when you finally get there half an hour later...
For those who don't know - my vivid, insane dreams, hallucinations, and other symptoms from my sleep disorder are not caused by any medication I am taking. These symptoms have carried out from my childhood, an era when I wouldn't even take D vitamin pills because I took my naps outside in the sun.
I am not taking extra melatonin either, because I don't need help falling asleep. Dreams come to me in the instant I close my eyes. These are in-bult things.
Somehow I got my comic out - so...I hope you like my sloth dreams because the theme of past 2 weeks has been: I wish I could have a human zoo-keeper who would care for my every need so I could just stop humaning for a while.
Nap of many disasters - first an "awareness attack" (sense of feeling my body in HD that would prelude sleep walking/night terror if I didn't know how to stay awake) - decided to fuck it and let it do whatever since It'd be my partner's problem - "cold attack" follows and keeps me away anyway, saved my partner from me walking around in terror - and finally MASSIVE #SleepParalysis and Layered, Realistic, #VividDreams.
BY THE WAY - if anyone else has ever had an "awareness attack" of you suddenly feeling every bit of your body in HD (including every fold of fabric on you like you suddenly realized you have spidey sense of some shit) that has lead into sleep walking and night terrors - PLEASE TELL ME.
I have never met anyone like me who has these, and doctor's can't measure them since they happen very rarely.
I slept so poorly last night (not enough sleep, lots of muscle pains etc.) that my brain feels like its full of radioactive bees that look more like gelatin blobs than bugs. They smear around my skull like tiny buzzing slugs and whisper "Oh, if you could just nap now."
This might be my last comic this year, as I am not doing super great at the moment (probably 23rd ear infection of this year) and still have way too much on my plate.
People have suggested to me many, many times that I should become someone who goes to talk to people about my experiences in life as someone with a sleep disorder and ADHD, and 10 years as a fostercare kid.
Every single one of those people missed the point where I explained to them that I have barely enough energy for life's basic functions, so doing that kind of job is not physically possible for me.
Those who suggested me these things were all able bodied people who were amazed of the single times I could meet them. For an hour. Once a month.
They missed how I crashed when I got home.
How I spent days recovering.
Or how long it took to prepare for those meetings so I could give them my A-game for 60 minutes.
Let my hyperfocus kick in and I could put myself into sleepy coma of days after.
Exactly so. The number of times I've had to explain to healthcare professionals that I have a diagnosed sleep disorder and that no, I will not ever be able to make an appointment before 13:00 astounds me.
This will be unlikely to change, so simply offering me a different 09:00 appointment will not solve the problem. 🙄
#introductions I've never been any good at Twitter so I'm unlikely to be any good at Mastodon, but I'm happy to be here. Happy to diversify a little. I hope I picked the right server to join.
It is going to take some getting used to not having to thread things, I can tell you that right now for free.