Life Lesson
Sleep is important.
Last Saturday I went to a History concert in the afternoon and then raced over to Tokyo International Forum Hall to see Gackt's concert (which lasted 4+ hours). Adding together my high emotions for both concerts, the fact I cried off most of my makeup at Gackt's, and everything I've been dealing with (two deaths in the family, homesick, disappointed in my program, dealing with ex drama) I was utterly exhausted after that.
That smart thing to do after a day like that would be to go home and sleep.
Instead, I attempted 4 hours of sleep in a karaoke box with my friend so we could be first in line for the priority area tickets for History the next day. I functioned fine on that day, and actually managed to stay up 23 hours straight.
But since then, my sleep has been shit. Maybe 4-5 hours, not deep at all. The medications I'm taking of course complicate this, but I started getting really worried the past few days when I caught myself doing very stupid things, like thinking I had left my train pass at home when it was in my pocket (this went on an entire day), getting on the wrong trains (twice), having blurry/double vision when looking at screens and trying to read, and nodding off in class.
The last one was especially embarrassing, and it actually made me very angry, since I hadn't slept much the night before because the UCLA lockdown was going on for the shooting and I was frantically confirming that my professors, friends, and former students were okay. I went to bed filled with anxiety on top of the days and days of poor sleep. So I nodded off in class. Just some closing my eyes, looking tired, not responding. No snoring or drooling or anything. No putting my head down.
And people were laughing about it.
Now, I've accepted that people don't like me, that I intimidate them, that I'm the scary American, whatever. But I had been up the night before worrying about the safety and lives of people... so to be laughed at was really disheartening. Nobody knows anyone's personal business here, because everything is shallow. Everything is the surface. All that matters is appearances - that you look like a grad student, look like friends, etc etc. I don't feel like people really know me, or that I know them. It's been over six months. I don't think anything about that is changing.
So, that's my rant. Sleep is important. I saw the psychiatrist today and had another medication adjustment, and I'm forcing myself to go to bed tonight at a reasonable time to try and catch up on some of my sleep debt. It doesn't help that I stay up late to talk to people back in the US just so I can feel like I still exist in the world.
Last Saturday I went to a History concert in the afternoon and then raced over to Tokyo International Forum Hall to see Gackt's concert (which lasted 4+ hours). Adding together my high emotions for both concerts, the fact I cried off most of my makeup at Gackt's, and everything I've been dealing with (two deaths in the family, homesick, disappointed in my program, dealing with ex drama) I was utterly exhausted after that.
That smart thing to do after a day like that would be to go home and sleep.
Instead, I attempted 4 hours of sleep in a karaoke box with my friend so we could be first in line for the priority area tickets for History the next day. I functioned fine on that day, and actually managed to stay up 23 hours straight.
But since then, my sleep has been shit. Maybe 4-5 hours, not deep at all. The medications I'm taking of course complicate this, but I started getting really worried the past few days when I caught myself doing very stupid things, like thinking I had left my train pass at home when it was in my pocket (this went on an entire day), getting on the wrong trains (twice), having blurry/double vision when looking at screens and trying to read, and nodding off in class.
The last one was especially embarrassing, and it actually made me very angry, since I hadn't slept much the night before because the UCLA lockdown was going on for the shooting and I was frantically confirming that my professors, friends, and former students were okay. I went to bed filled with anxiety on top of the days and days of poor sleep. So I nodded off in class. Just some closing my eyes, looking tired, not responding. No snoring or drooling or anything. No putting my head down.
And people were laughing about it.
Now, I've accepted that people don't like me, that I intimidate them, that I'm the scary American, whatever. But I had been up the night before worrying about the safety and lives of people... so to be laughed at was really disheartening. Nobody knows anyone's personal business here, because everything is shallow. Everything is the surface. All that matters is appearances - that you look like a grad student, look like friends, etc etc. I don't feel like people really know me, or that I know them. It's been over six months. I don't think anything about that is changing.
So, that's my rant. Sleep is important. I saw the psychiatrist today and had another medication adjustment, and I'm forcing myself to go to bed tonight at a reasonable time to try and catch up on some of my sleep debt. It doesn't help that I stay up late to talk to people back in the US just so I can feel like I still exist in the world.