I am not sure everyone understands...

crossposted on ASF

...how being dead tired, erodes your psyche, self image and confidence. I know they say depression is physiological but I believe other physiological circumstances can cause this emotional state of mind.

Imagine taking a perfectly healthy person, who is succeeding at most everything he or she does. Now, make them dead tired all the time. Let's try to examine what will happen to this person. Perhaps it will start with social interactions where he wasn't paying attention and says the stupid thing as a result. Perhaps he is at a business meeting or a closing where lots of money is involved and he starts yawn and cannot quite grasp all the intricate details that he needs to understand.

Perhaps it's late at night and raining and she is in the car, coming home from a meeting, and she notices her eyes are closing a little and she is not grasping the traffic too well. She begins to get shaky with her driving.

Imagine she has an important appointment and she over sleeps. Imagine she is so tired before something important she has to do, in order to infuse some quick energy, she eats a candy bar or two and has two cups of coffee which give her an instant burst but as the half life of the caffeine and sugar wears off, she gets more tired than before and is totally useless.

He has a job for the last 25 years and he knows he could do better but he's afraid that he is too "not awake" to compete with fresh quick thinking kids, so he never leaves. He's also afraid that he might oversleep and lose his job, something that isn't important where he is now. He may be a lawyer in court or a doctor in the operating room and his level of tiredness is making him feel like someone else should be there besides him. He loses confidence and starts to avoid situations where he will be an integral part of an operation.

After making a few stupid mistakes in the car because she was tired, she is starting to not want to be in the car, which makes being in the car even harder. She's on a vacation trip and her minor fear of heights becomes more serious as she doesn't feel she has the judgment to know she is safe. Her self confidence erodes.

He is a football player, a quarterback, he almost forgets the current play and while he is over the center he tries to read the defense but all those inputs coming at him at once is too much for him to sort and process so he doesn't and misses the safety blitz that puts him on his back. This continues to happen, his team continues to lose and each time his team goes on offense he feels progressively worse. The sportswriters are killing him and he hates the idea of suiting up for the next game.

She is given 5 proposals to read and pick out the good and bad attributes of each. She starts to read it but because she's tired she isn't focusing and she has to reread each line 2 or three times to get just a cursory idea what is being declared. She decides she is too tired and she will go to sleep and set the alarm for 5:00 AM and she knows that after sleeping, she'll be able to grasp the proposals better. 5:00 AM comes, the alarm goes off, she shuts it off because she is still so tired and wakes up too late to read anything. Now she has to go in unprepared and that is a feeling that she now seems to have to get used to. It is certainly detracting from the self confidence she once had or should have had.

They are in bed; he can hardly keep his eyes open. She’s telling him things that are very important to her and the family and she knows he’s not listening. He is struggling to pay attention but his eye lids keep lowering. He never wants to have sex because he’s too tired. Their relationship deteriorates and he has no idea how to fix it, being so tired.

He's a candidate for political office, a high iron worker, a soldier, a nurse, a teacher or anything at all. Without being able to focus and function, things go wrong and make you feel like you cannot compete with those around you. You know you are very bright but when it comes to crucial situations you crumble unless the situation itself provides the adrenaline you need to focus better and stay on task. You can see why someone could become agoraphobic or be afraid to compete at the higher levels.

All the effects of these kinds of situations, of which I haven’t even scratched the surface, tear away at confidence and self esteem and perhaps lead to things that will further erode them, like overeating, drinking too much alcohol or hiding from competition.

We need to let ourselves have new starts and not dwell on the problems of the past. We are now better able to problem solve our way out of tough situations because we are awake. There's a Steppenwolf song called "It's Never Too Late" The lyrics are below and they tell us whatever we've been through, some more than others, don't make the past exile you from yourself or those who love you. What ever tore you down might be gone now and now you need to tough it out and start gaining confidence in yourselves again. That person, who you always new was hiding in the background, can rise up and restart from NOW with confidence and an understanding that there are those who love and care about him and who accepts him for what he is, even if he underperformed or got moody sometimes. What a breath of fresh air it is now to be able to rewrite your entries in the book of life.

I am Jewish and one of the most beautiful and sacred things about our holiest of holidays, Yom Kippur, is that you acknowledge how you screwed up in the previous year for sins against your mate, your children, society, etc and you start over again learning from your realization and admissions.

I wish I could send you the mp3 of Steppenwolf’s It's Never Too Late but the words alone are just wonderful.



It's Never Too Late
Words and music by John Kay and Nick St. Nicholas

Your eyes are moist, you scream and shout
As though you were a man possessed
From deep inside comes rushing forth
All the anguish you suppressed
Up on your wall hangs your degree
Your parents craved so much for you
And though you're trained to make your mark
You still don't quite know what to do

It's never too late to start all over again
To love the people you caused the pain
And help them learn your name
Oh, no, not too late
It's never too late to start all over again

Well, it's much to late to start again
To try and find a little bliss
So on your woman and your child
You release your bitterness
You drift apart some more each day
You feel the guilt and loneliness
And the God of your childhood you can't find
To save you from your emptiness

It's never too late to start all over again
To love the people you caused the pain
And help them learn your name
Oh, no, not too late
It's never too late to start all over again

You say you've only got one life to live
And when your dead your gone
Your family comes to your grave
And with tears in their eyes
They tell you, you did something wrong
"You left us alone"

Tell me who's to say after all is done
And you're finally gone, you won't be back again
You can find a way to change today
You don't have to wait 'til then

You're right, there's much misunderstanding both within and without the camp. Those who have not experienced some of the things you described may interpret the changes to be character or caring issues. Those experiencing such changes are usually desperately trying to continue to perform at their previous level of capability, and are dismayed at this new role of "failure". Even within the camp, those whose sleep disorder(s) had not yet dragged them to the lowest depths can be judgemental and set themselves up as a standard that they themselves could not have reached had their untreated condition lasted longer or done more damage.

The good news is that awareness is increasing, admittedly at a slow pace. The more we tell our individual stories in our own sphere of influence, the quicker understanding will spread.

Seems like shedding light on the issue is a passion of yours. May you continue to find venues in which to share.

Kathy

Yeah Steppenwolf. I had several of their LPs (vinyl) back in the 60s and early 70s. Gotta go through the cabinet and see if any of them are still there. In front of the cabinet I can see Led Zeppelin, Janis Joplin, Rolling Stones, Doors, Canned Heat, Hendrix, Dylan, Tom Waits.

Steppenwolf was also a great group. I remember this song but I don't remember which LP it was on. It sure fits me before I was diagnosed and started cpap.

Yom Kippur sounds more like being born again than this Baptist southerner ever realized. Good for you.

Allend-

I'm left speechless. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!

Bravo!!!

Chuck

L'Hayim!!!

Allend,

I've quoted your post to my wife. She is the reason I got diagnosed and an on treatment. I believe in my heart she has OSA as well but she won't get checked. She is suffering daily and everything about her is eroding, from the physical to the emotional.
I hope she reads this and takes it to heart.
Thanks.....

cajapato wrote:Allend,

I've quoted your post to my wife. She is the reason I got diagnosed and an on treatment. I believe in my heart she has OSA as well but she won't get checked. She is suffering daily and everything about her is eroding, from the physical to the emotional.
I hope she reads this and takes it to heart.
Thanks.....

Ditto for my wife. I could sign exactly what you wrote and it would be true in our house also. It is heartbreaking to see how she suffers some days.

The kids asked me if I had to move to another bedroom because my cpap bothered mommy. No, her constant snoring was interrupting my sleep.

Thanks for the story.

You know you are very bright but when it comes to crucial situations you crumble unless the situation itself provides the adrenaline you need to focus better and stay on task.

Dr. Steven Park's book mentioned that he finds certain professions correlate with SDB - especially high-adrenaline, flexible-hours ones, I think. I've found that for myself, and it makes sense - you can make up for being tired by doing something very exciting. For awhile, at least, before it catches up with you.

Allend,
You described my life before CPAP, my job suffered, my family life suffered & my in general suffered. My hubby is now in the testing phase for CPAP. I know he has OSA, and I'm really glad he's decided to treat it. My marriage is suffering & until he decided to try treatment, I didn't see much hope for us. I won't leave him as long as my mother-in-law lives, I love her too much to put her thru that, however I had planned to leave him the day after her funeral if things don't get better at home. His deciding to treat his CPAP is the first positive step I've seen. He really shocked me when he decided to get the test and actually treat his OSA. The lyrics you posted almost made me cry, they describe both my life and my hubby's. Its so true that life with untreated OSA is just one long troubled 'get thru the day' and hope tomorrow is better. Thanks for this post, I needed to hear the words of hope.
Jen

Cpap has changed me, my husband, (he's a hoser, too) our marriage, my job, and a thousand other things every day.
I had no idea how many things were somehow "wrong", until they started getting better.

I'm so glad this thread got bumped from the distant past. Such a great explanation of how it works, how it feels.

Yeah, sleep apnea really sucks (even from this distant post's perspective). I think most of us on CPAPtalk get this. That's why many of us here on this Saturday morning (I should be decorating the Christmas tree) are going thru the posts and trying to help in our small way. The OP certainly did capture the depths of feeling that one suffers as the disease takes hold: for the apnea sufferer, the friends, co-workers and relatives. Now it's time for all you sufferers (Note: I didn't use the word victim) to look for solutions and take the steps necessary to start the healing.