"lazy" - she said

Hi ppl. Today I woke up at 2pm and I really didn't want to wake up, I felt tired and not motivated at all, just wanted to keep sleeping and not many things to do any way.

I’m 42 yo, but I live with my mother. She yells to me quite often in this situations, thinks she's gonna change anything by just screaming a the top of her lungs but makes me feel quite the opposite, more despaired.

I wonder if this also happens to you or you have managed to get into a healthy routine even when you don't have particular obligations. Thanks.

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My mother used to purposely leave her toast to burn in the toaster oven so it would set off the smoke alarm in order to get me out of bed.

Now THAT's annoying...
I find that sometimes those closer to me are the ones that try to understand me the less. I printed some little manual to understand my moods and psychosis but my mother prefers not to read it. She keeps yelling at me, and I've continuously told her that's dangerous and against my mental stability. She just doesn't know what to do and refuses to react any other way, so we keep getting the same results. My pdoc refuses to mediate, so here we are.

I live across the driveway from my mom. I know it can be hard for her to understand that I sleep so much because I have to but she's seen me try to be awake enough times she understands now. It's hardest for her to understand that I can't just get up in the morning and take on the day because she's most active in the morning. I used to be but now my meds make it impossible.


If she were calling me lazy I might consider asking her to therapy for a session or two to help her understand. I've read that bipolar is a disease of energy as much as it is moods. I find that true for myself and my mom knowing that helped.


One thing you may want to ask your psychiatrist about is valproic acid and sleepiness. I was on a very high dose of it but it was amazing how much less sleepy I was as I weaned off it and then wasn't on it any more. Do you take extended release of immediate? I used a combination of both and that helped some but it was more sedating for me than some APs have been. Not nearly as sedating as clozapine but quite sedating.

I'm glad you are able to be there for your mother as well as she is there for you. That's what works here; I help when I can and my mom helps when she can. I hate that she helps more than I do but I try.

May I ask are you going to bed very late, or sleeping for a long time? I have struggled my whole life with getting out of bed in the morning (or sometimes afternoon) and even now I am semi-retired and get up from 10 am to 11 am and some people seem to see this as a moral failing that I'm not jumping out of bed at 6am. I've always been a night person and I'm not sure why. But even if I went to bed early, I tended to sleep late.


It must be very difficult for you to be living with your mom if she screams at you like that. I assume she is worried that you are sleeping late? Or is it some other reason.


Are you personally wanting to get up earlier? I'm interested in why you think you are sleeping late. Oversleeping can definitely be part of a mental illness so I'm not sure why she thinks you are "lazy." Would she think you were lazy for wanting to stay in bed if you had epilepsy? What about MS? Is it because she thinks you don't really have a serious illness?


I was on Abilify for a while and woke every morning at dawn. It just somehow reset my biological clock. It was interesting to realize that I wasn't somehow morally deficient for sleeping late - it was just my circadian rhythm. It worked for years but unfortunately I had to come off it because it ended up having other side effects.

Hi rainbow, thanks for your input . I take valproic extended, but right now I don't find myself where I'd like to be, it's quite depressing, medication aside. I lost my job after a manic episode and my mother is not happy about my application for a disability certificate. She's old school and feels ashamed, I can tell. No other solution after all these years, though... I don't have any broken limb or a visible injury but I'd wish that she made a little effort towards understanding I am not 100% to blame for my failure. thanks.

Hey samicat, I appreciate what you did there, truly .


Of course I'd like to wake up earlier and be considered a successful or even an "average" individual to everybody, things just got a bit complicated I'm afraid... My energy and motivation have been lower in the past though, I still have some hope I can turn things around in September, tweaking my meds and pushing for a new job - maybe even trying to find a local support group, my social life is dead at the present moment.


I can understand my mother: psychosis, mania, depression... those are difficult things to digest, it's not hard to get overwhelmed and sometimes ignoring it all is the first reaction, but... she should know the name of the game by now, after these many years. I just wished she stopped yelling, blaming and dennying that's all (it should be clear I'm not making things up, despite I don't have a wheelchair to show).

(I mostly wrote this post because I wondered how other chat members interacted with their loved ones when they kinda depend on them like me... sorry I took some space to vent and complain XD)


Cheers.Tc.

Bipolar people tend to be night owls. I have been told that by both my sleep psychologist and sleep medicine doctor. The official name for it is `eveningness`. It is not your moral failing. It is actually very hard to live outside of one's own natural chronotype.

Interesting.

My pdoc asked me to do an online thing that over time adjusted sleep schedules to normal. I did the first several days and then the day I was to start decreasing the hours I slept they put up a big thing saying if you are bipolar do not do this part. Apparently it can trigger episodes.

And so disruped sleep is the way I sleep.....