Other What's ruining your life right now?

There is never enough time.

So much to do, so much to manage, so much to look after, and there is never enough time.

I’m beyond exhausted lately. I blew right past “burning the candle at both ends” a long while ago. At the moment it’s more a case of “scraping up all the tiny fragments of run-off wax and shoving them back into the remaining scrap of candle in a desperate attempt to stop it sputtering and going out”.

The icing on the cake is that I can barely get a good night’s sleep. Either I can’t get to sleep because the other half is so restless that she’s practically thrashing in her sleep, or I’m waking up with my head in a puddle of sweat because I still can’t figure out why I get so damn warm at night even with a thin blanket. Or both… and lately it’s mostly been both… Oh, and the cat also likes to run across the pillows and over our heads in the middle of the night, or tear around the room scrabbling along the carpet with his claws, or practices his Feline Olympics routine by either launching himself on to your chest or launching himself off your chest, and if we try to shut him out of the bedroom he cries relentlessly and practically scratches a hole in the door… Yeah, thanks buddy, but that’s not exactly helping matters right now…

 

Thanks, I appreciate the suggestion, but the sleep thing is life-long tbh. I now know it's relatively common in people who have ADHD...

Ironically the medication I take for ADHD makes a difference; despite it being a stimulant, I find that my quality of sleep is generally better than it was, even if I sleep for less time or sometimes have bouts of insomnia (maybe once a month or every other month). Before I started taking the stimulant meds I had no trouble getting to sleep, but I did have a problem with getting up and waking up. I'd feel shitty and groggy for most of the day. That's largely gone now - unless I've been having a drink, I tend to feel a hell of a lot more "awake" than I used to, especially in the mornings.

The main problem at the moment is that being run ragged so much just exacerbates everything. I feel like I don't get a break and, when I do have bouts of bad sleep, I feel like I can never get enough rest either. It's a shitty combination.

 

I have ADHD and Sleep Apnoea, quite the combo for exhaustion!

I assume you've tried white noise, music, stories, unintelligent lectures, etc. I find some nights I need them, some I don't, and not always the same thing works.

The main one that's been helping me lately has been mindfulness exercises, in particular the body scan - just concentrate on each part of the body in turn, seeing what it feels (warm, aching, pressure, tingling, etc.) starting from your toes. I rarely get beyond my waist before I'm out for the count.

 

all the things.

my mood is in the shitter in ways i would rather not elaborate upon and it's made worse by the unshakable feeling that everyone is ****ing me about on one level or another.

well i know i'm being ****ed about by some of them, they're hardly hiding it...

 

got caught in a wave of redundancies in work, jobs locally are hard and my Chinese skills are not there to compete for 75% of roles

Half way through buying a property as well here...

 

Best thing so far? Reading books.

Not always new books, I’ve re-read The Martian, LotR, and The Silmarillion more times than I can count. I’ve read the Dune “main series” books and all the Discworld books at least twice.

Usually works a treat for getting to sleep. I drop my kindle so often because I don’t even have a chance to put it down. Staying asleep, on the other hand, isn’t always quite as easy.

If my OH is restless, as she has been lately, she’ll often wake me up just as I’m drifting off. And sometimes I just cannot switch off at all.

My mother taught me this decades ago, and it used to work pretty well. Problem I find with it now though is that it needs me to try and keep myself focused on it, and that’s damned hard work. Which is why I find reading helps a lot. I don’t have to try and stop myself getting off track or steer myself back; the book I’m reading does a pretty good job of keeping my attention, and then bringing it back when my brain randomly hops to a new browser tab…

 

Once an arsehole, always an arsehole. A lot of them among Trump's fans.

 

Aaaargh Windows for me this morning.

Did my upgrade and it was doddle I was sat there thinking how amazing windows was, swapped all around no re-install, up and running in 5 mins as I have done many times before, never do fresh install, all great, then it says active windows, normally I just click and pick the machine it has come from, today my machine has been removed from my account.....Win 11 Pro license gone, apparently it is still on the old board but the old machine does not even show on my account, do I got to the hassle of removing board switching in to try and get it back or just buy a dodgy code.

 

Chest Infection, the antibiotics for which are ruining my guts......... While that is going on, COVID decided to get in on the action :-(