It’s Not So ȼƟɱƿᶅɘẋ

Well, I’m in Biochemistry right now for the first time in approximately one month (give or take), and it continues to disappoint me that I show up to a class only to stare at a picture for 20 minutes while a professor gives an irrelevant demonstration using his hand and fingers as exonuclease (I may be using a specific example). Don’t get me wrong, I generally intend to go to class, but I have an extremely terrible time waking up in the morning (or going to bed at night, conversely), but how can I ever hope to find the motivation, control, and energy to go to class when I can learn the material more efficiently by reading the slides on my own? Now my professor is telling a joke about a dog. I’ll spare you the sad narration of what I’m supposed to be trying to learn, but just know that it has nothing to do with dogs.

The overlying problem here isn’t my lack of interest in the classes. That’s a secondary symptom to something much more chronic. The reason I find it so impossible to go to these classes is the simple fact that my sleep schedule no longer remotely recognizes one of a “normal” person. I can stay up until 9am, then sleep until 5pm and do it all over again. Even if I manage to go to sleep early (like yesterday), I’ll wake up a few hours later feeling–refreshed, perhaps–aggravated that I have four hours to kill before my 9am class. This isn’t all, though. Sometimes, I legitimately CAN go to bed “early” (around 2am) and get to sleep relatively quickly. This won’t stop me from waking up at 5pm the next day, though. If you’re keeping track of time, that means it’s possible for me to sleep for 15 hours without even briefly waking.

Perhaps I have hypersomnia. Hypersomnia is characterized by an excessively deep sleep, trouble waking up in the morning, not feeling refreshed when you’re awake, and being able to sleep at almost any time of day. Obviously, I don’t have all of the symptoms, nor do I have them consistently, but as with any diagnosis, only a majority of symptoms are required. Here’s the fun part: There isn’t really an understanding of how hypersomnia works, nor is there really any sort of treatment option except for such genius recommendations as “changes in behavior and diet”.

Clearly I just need to be a compulsive coffee-drinker.