robysue wrote:palerider wrote:Noctuary wrote:Its a forced march through jungles and deserts, leading to labor camps or a ravine.
and having a crappy attitude just makes it much worse.
Sometimes the crappy attitude is a result of slogging through a truly bad situation where it seems like the "light at the end of the tunnel" never materializes.
In my case, I did my best to "keep my chin up and stay positive." But at the same time, I was dealing with some very severe and nearly debilitating symptoms that started
after I started CPAP. For the first 6 months of PAPing, I felt more tired and exhausted than I have ever felt in my entire life. I'd never been very sleepy during the daytime pre-CPAP; within 1 week of starting CPAP I was so sleep deprived from adjustment problems that I was scared to death of falling asleep while driving that I had to have my husband drive me everywhere. I was literally falling asleep while teaching mathematics standing at the board. Colleagues were asking me why I looked like death warmed over and I had to resign from several department and college committees because I just could not function. Yes my adjustment really was that bad. And at 3:00 and 4:00 AM when I was unable to get to sleep due to severe aerophagia and I was angry enough to scream bloody murder and throw the machine across the room, it was not possible to get rid of my "bad attitude" that this therapy really sucked and was ruining my life.
There are only two reasons I made it through those first six months of hell and the second six months of purgatory:
1) My husband: God bless him for putting up with my screaming, crying, temper tantrums at 3:30AM, driving me everywhere, and dealing with the phone tag with the sleep doc's office.
2) The kind folks here: Folks who let me whine when I needed to without making fun of me or accusing me of being a troll or telling me that I needed to just try harder. I was getting more than enough "Just Try Harder" from the PA in my first sleep doc's office at the time and I didn't need more of it from the folks here. I also got a lot of help from folks who continually gave me high quality suggestions to try when I described my sometimes bizarre sounding adjustment problems, and who didn't seem to mind when I would explain why their suggestions didn't work for me. And folks who told me just how lucky I was to have such a wonderful spouse who was willing to put up with all the crap I was dishing out at the time due to severe sleep deprivation. And folks who repeatedly simply tried to cheer me up on my worst days, sometimes with funny stories of their own difficult adjustments.
Robysue... I wish we could make your post a sticky. Of course so people having a really hard time can read it, but more for the people who constantly say to pull up your britches, quit your bad attitude, and move along. They are always the Same People and you can always count on them to say the same things they always say to people. I suppose there are people who respond to, "tough love", but the vast majority don't. It's so easy to say negative things to people on the internet, but why? What do they get out of it? Do they honestly think they are helping someone who is obviously distraught as a result of trying to make this therapy work, or whatever reason.
Fortunately, I got responses from people who encouraged me and didn't belittle me... even when I asked the same question a second time. And, one person stayed on the phone with me until I had Sleepyhead up and running! Just recently I was having a problem and PMed a person here; he answered my question without making me feel like a fool for asking it. He didn't find it necessary to tell me that my question had been asked and answered 23,000 times before. He just answered my question without making me feel awful about asking it.
I'll never understand why nasty, mean spirited people reside here!
PS Thank you for your post and for all your posts over the years. I hope Noctuary has had a chance to read it.
