DSPS, a sleep disorder

xiv. THAT’s what friends are!

When you often cannot get up on time, you are seen as unreliable, irresponsible, careless, selfish and worse.  As long as neither you nor anyone else knows that there may be a real reason for this behavior, it is all too easy to believe that you are, in fact, all those things.  And it doesn’t get better as youthful resilience fades.  Been there, done that.

How, then, can some friends offer help and support through it all, year after year?  Real help, as in ‘phone calls at 7, daily for months.  Organized help, with meetings, even.  Are these friends naive, even foolish?  Are they just being “nice”?  Can you trust their judgement, when they are willing to support a seemingly lost cause?

My friends were delighted, as I was, when a diagnosis was defined.  They were justified, could relax and leave the nitty-gritty to the sleep specialist who’d finally popped up.

I haven’t really figured it out yet, after these months of studying DSPS and pondering on how my friends could, somehow, have known.  My good news, a recognized disability, was almost overwhelming to me.  But they’d “known” all along.  I am so grateful.