Night Shift

@Faith-and-Hope Dandelion coffee sounds not pleasent tasting.

@eth At night when I can't sleep, I'm chatting it up big time online, playing multiplayer on my PS4 etc. It depends. If im actually trying to sleep, i read a book and that usually does the trick. What about you?

Hi @eth 😊

My week has been a bit scrambled, as you are aware.

Daughter 3 sent me a text a while ago saying that she had fallen asleep early, but was now up studying, and hoped she wasn't waking me (!)

I had fallen asleep relatively early tonight as well, so I have slept enough, if that's all I get tonight, but will probably doze again in a bit, through to morning proper.

Its a bit tricky with Dtr3, but she's turning 18 shortly and has to develop strength in her adult wings, despite the turmoil in our lives at the moment. I have to decide how many of her choices to try to guide, and with how strong a hand. She is in the middle of tests at school, and has been missing school, so if she has woken up and feels like studying, that's probably a good idea, but only if it is the truth. If she is watching YouTube instead, maybe not so good, but hey, with my husband away, I will sometimes turn the TV on softly in the background in my bedroom if I need distraction from my thoughts. Dtr3 needs to make her own way a bit with these things, and work out her personal boundaries.

I didn't respond to let her know that I am awake tho. It's wise, I think, for her to believe I am sleeping at a time when she should be too. Wakefulness during the night is not a normal pattern for us, and I don't want her to acclimatise to it. She has enough issues going on, and good sleep patterns will be important for her to get sorted out.

Bit of an essay response, wasn't it ? 😏

My TV has been broken - sound but no picture - for a few weeks. I missed it as a coping tool over that time, with all the dramas going on. Glad to have that back, cos it's a way of spending time with Dtr3 and relaxing her tension in a natural way. She will join me on my bed with homework stuff with the TV on low in the background.

Good on you for getting off the Adderall @Tyler77. I have been following the addiction thread and I'm sorry I forgot you are going through this. Coffee is def the lesser of the 2 and no doubt a good stepping stone. You must be used to being awake a lot at night. If and when you want to reduce caffeine too one of the ways that has worked for me in the past is to buy both caffeinated and decaffeinated grounds and mix them together, starting with mostly caf and gradually increasing the proportion of decaf. But it's early days for you I think so I am by no means 'shoulding on you'. As a controlled coffee junkie I've never found any of the other substitutes (ecco, caro etc) to be remotely satisfying.

Ha ! 😏 I answered two questions in one just then ...

@Tyler77, Dandelion Coffe has a taste close enough to coffee for health buffs to make the switch from "real" coffee easily enough, but it's personal taste at the end of the day. A health food shop might let you try it happily enough, if you are interested, even if just to know what it's like.

@eth If my thoughts are in turmoil and I'm feeling anxious when I wake during the night - and that's probably been the cause - I will often play soft piano music that is on my phone. I have deliberately fostered it as a management tool, and it has become an auto-cue to calm my anxiety down.

@Tyler77 lately when I can't sleep I'm mostly on here, sometimes with the TV in the background. For several years reading worked for me too but I just can't get into it lately. Might just need a better book! Then when I go back to bed I do relaxation (mindfulness) breathing and often drop off. But usually I'm awake again within a couple of hours. This can happen 4-5 times overnight most nights. Sometimes I get fed up with the constant effort to sleep and just find someone or more than one to chat with here and enjoy it for as long as it lasts.

@Faith-and-Hope I think you're taking a sensible attitude with dtr3 and agree with what you have said. I was glad to see yesterday that the supports at school picked up the baton and she did what she needed to do. When my kid struggled with year 12 we eventually scaled back the number of subjects with the support of special needs worker and no penalty and did the remaining subjects the following year. It changed everything and worked out really well. Otherwise it was looking like they wouldn't finish at all and the outbursts at home were over the top in the extreme. I did not cope anywhere near as well as you seem to.

There you go ... 😊 I'm sure @eth knows what she's talking about 😊

The mixed grounds are a great idea, @eth, but I agree, the coffee is probably one if your stepping stones @Tyler77 , and I wasn't trying to 'should on you' either. It's just an observation really.

My mum used to drink coffee a lot, but I think she would start a cup and it would go cold as she was busy, so when she came back to it she would tip it out and pour another one. That might have happened a dozen times across the day, but only being about 4-5 cups that she actually ended up drinking 😊

@eth Yea, I think I'll step it down gradually or should I do caffeine cold turkey? I don't know. But i think I'm gonna wait at least a month till I'm over the adderall withdrawal before I seriously consider the possibility of eliminating caffeine from my life. I know the withdrawal of caffeine can be unpleasent, but if i can kick adderall...I definitely can stop caffeine.

@Faith-and-Hope Try doing some light exercise before bed, if i go for a walk(30-60 minutes) like a hour before bedtime..i'll sleep like a baby.

@Tyler77 if you're in one of the major cities there will be healthy cafe's that brew with dandelion in an espresso machine. That's quite nice and would be a good way to sample it if you wanted to. But I hear you, one step at a time.

@Faith-and-Hope My mum does the same thing to this day, either coffee or tea. She swears it has no effect on her but she is totally hyper at times!

@Tyler77 Only you can decide that about the cold turkey thing. If you are also using 'energy drinks' such as Mother I would def work on getting off them first as they have way more caffeine in them. For me going cold turkey was never a problem and I've had long periods of no caffeine at all when I am working my way back from mania (I have bipolar). But it's different for everyone. If using the energy drinks as well I would suggest just having one less per day every couple of days.

@Faith-and-Hope I know the exercise works for some people but for me to do it night is to stimulating. Also it's not at all safe in the area where I live. And I get PTSD triggers easily outside at night.

That was part of our story last year @eth. Dtr3 had to drop back from higher academic subjects to the "softer" course, or it looked like she wouldn't graduate owing to all the health issues she had suffered following her double knee dislocations.

It was traumatic for her. She had suffered intense bullying from academic staff who were ignorant about the nature of dialects when she first started school, and owing to a glitch in the system for speech pathology assessment, kids in English-based dialects were being mis-diagnosed as having something called "dysfunctional language development", when in fact they are just in the process of transitioning into Australian English from another language or English-based (bridging) dialect. She was in a rough class of kids at the time, and it impacted heavily on her self-esteem, so she had a cross to bear from early on, and a point to prove to herself as much as anyone else.

She is actually a high academic achiever, but these circumstances were holding her back. It wasn't until early high school that she had settled into stride and her ability began to shine, then her knee dislocations and follow-on stress illnesses took her down again.

She's an Amazon !