I have never been a morning person. As a kid, I would fight with
my father every morning, “come on, Al, it’s time to get up”, he’d say. My poor
father would holler for me so many times before I actually got out of bed. This
man has so much patience!
I was, and still am, a monster to wake up. Multiple alarms are
always set to go off at different times with different sounds that I snooze or
turn off before I manage to drag myself from bed. I also have this uncanny,
magical power where the alarm, clear across the room, goes off, and I get up,
turn it off and fall right back to sleep. I will have no memory of doing this
later.
Before I moved to UMBC for my undergrad, I remember talking, half-jokingly,
with my family and asking, “what am I going to do? Classes start at 8am, how
will I get up?” My sister had the idea, rather genius, to buy me an alarm clock
for individuals with hearing impairments. While the alarm sounded at much
higher frequency than a standard alarm clock, there were other features. You
could hook it up to a lamp and/or a vibrating pad you slept on, so they’d turn
on when the alarm went off. I ended up not purchasing the vibrating pad piece,
but even at the higher frequency, I was still late. If it was something
important, say a test, or something, my father would call my phone and make me
flush the toilet or turn on the faucet so he could hear I was up and out of the
bedroom.
Once I got to college and beyond, I started to feel more and more
tired during the day. I would tell doctors and they’d talk about going to bed
earlier and avoiding caffeine, alcohol, etc. before bed. Nothing helped. I
would sometimes doze off in class. Initially, I chalked it up to being bored.
The more it happened, the more my negative self-talk happened, “what is wrong
with you Alyson, why can’t you pay attention?” Then it happened here and there
a job. No one ever noticed, or at least they never said anything. And again, I
chalked it up to being bored doing data entry in college.
Studying was another area I noticed I began to struggle in
college. High school as easy, I didn’t have to study much. The classes were
engaging with discussions and worksheets. But college. Man, that was a
different story. I would sit in a lecture hall and have no idea what the
professor had said. I would try and take notes but found it difficult to keep
up with notes and listening simultaneously. The poor grades started to roll in.
I would sit down at my desk with my books and an hour would go by and I’d have
just read the same paragraph 6 times and still couldn’t grasp the information.
The grades my first semester were horrific. I went from graduating 3rd
in my class over 200 students to being on academic jeopardy. Wow. I haven’t
told a lot of people that. I don’t even have to close my eyes and I can still
see that bright red stamp on UMBC letterhead with the words in all caps. I
struggled to focus. I struggle to stay awake in class and with getting to class
on time. I was 18 and had poor coping skills, which did not help.
I was envious of friends who could, seemingly, breeze through
coursework much harder than mine. In graduate school, I remember, vividly,
sitting at the kitchen table, when I lived with my sister in my late 20’s, and
writing my thesis. Ha! Writing, that’s a stretch. I sat there and stared at a
blinking cursor. A few minutes would go by and I’d check the weather, then back
to staring, lost on where to begin. Suddenly, I’d get an idea of what to write
and would search the internet for 15 minutes, an hour, many more, but still not
be able to express my thoughts on paper. By the grace of God, Allah, the stars
aligning, something, I graduated with my Bachelors. A few years ago, I
completed my Masters and pulled off a 3.85 GPA.
On a random day, sometime around 2014 that changed my life. I was
at my first therapy job and was seized a rare opportunity to hang out in Laurie's office, a dear
friend and colleague, while we were in between clients. I don’t recall
exactly how it came up, but we were chatting about my struggles to focus and be
on time, and she asked me if I’d ever been evaluated for ADHD. Long story
short, I have ADHD! Being that ADHD is a “newer” condition, it was, and still
is, often misdiagnosed or totally missed in girls and women. For more info on
that, https://www.additudemag.com/add-in-women/.
One of the lesser known symptoms of ADHD, and one that greatly
affects me, is time blindness. Dr. Russell Barkley, leading researcher and
advocate for ADHD, sheds light on time blindness in this video. And I admit, I
cried the first time I saw it. The idea that my time blindness is no more
intentional than color blindness. Years of guilt and shame began to slowly
lessen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmV8HQUuPEk
Being late is something I’ve always struggled with as a child and
as an adult. I’m not late by much 90% of the time, but a few minutes. The other
10%, I’m either just on time or late, which is my compensating definition of
more than 10-15 minutes late. And it doesn’t matter if it’s school, work, meeting
up with a friend, I’m late. I’m also always “almost there” or “about to leave”
even if I’m really not. I don’t mean to be late or inaccurate about my timing.
I still work to not be hard on myself for being late. I also practice
acceptance and gratitude with myself, these help immensely!
Some evenings, I get this burst of energy and focus, a drive to
“get everything done that I didn’t have the focus for earlier”. My husband,
Gary, will be going up to bed and I’ll say that I’m right behind him. 10
minutes, maybe an hour later, having done nothing of importance, I crawl up to
bed, far too exhausted. Some nights it may have been the internet I wasted time
on, other nights it’s this urge to tackle my to do list. Logically, of course I
know that is not possible, but I cannot always stop myself right away. It will
take serious willpower. I have also been known to tear apart my closet at
midnight to organize it, more than a few times.
*Side note: If you haven’t noticed, I also write exactly how I
speak, slightly scattered and tangentially. Asking Gary, who is even the
engineer/lawyer, to edit something for me, I think is pure torture for him. I’m
known to have half a sentence written and then start a brand new one. And I
rarely proofread!
It’s 2016 now, summertime. At the request of my dentist, I meet with
my PCP, who sends me to a neurologist at GBMC. I’m scheduled for a sleep study
at the hospital. It was a terrible night sleep with over a dozen wires glued to
my head, face and legs, an oxygen sensor on my finger, something strapped around
my chest and several other devices I’ve blocked from my mind. I have my
follow-up with the neurologist and diagnosed with borderline to mild obstructive
sleep apnea. I’m also prescribed a CPAP. I’m not happy. 
The machine is loud and bulky and cute nor comfortable. I follow
all their instructions. I wake up every morning with the device flung onto the
floor, which I don’t recall doing. I follow-up with the phone consultations
that are supposed to help me get over the initial hurdles. It’s not working
though. It feels like too much oxygen, but I’m on the lowest setting. I would also
wake coughing and choking almost. My neurologist told me that was impossible.
Cool.
After the trial period, the CPAP machine went back. Actually, no,
I called them countless times before reaching a human who was able to help me.
So, several months after the trial period, the CPAP machine went back.
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