Everyone has trouble sleeping sometimes. Whether it’s an unideal sleep schedule or stress, sleepless nights tend to strike everyone eventually. However, it is extremely common for people on the spectrum to struggle with chronic insomnia, the persistent inability to fall asleep and/or stay asleep.
Sometimes I sleep, and I don’t feel rested. Sometimes I don’t sleep at all. Other times I find myself waking up every other hour, wide-eyed and alert, ready to begin a day that hasn’t begun yet. It’s very difficult for me to lull myself back to sleep once I wake up. Getting my brain to shut down and sleep is nearly impossible to do on command, which becomes a vicious cycle that is impossible to maintain in both a professional and personal manner. Too little sleep is going to wreak havoc on anyone’s brain, and for those of us on the spectrum it can really take a toll on the autism symptoms we already deal with. I find myself experiencing more tics and needing to stim when I’m on little to no sleep, and it becomes particularly difficult to engage in healthy social interaction. It becomes blurry whether the autism symptoms are contributing to the insomnia, or whether the insomnia is worsening the already existent autism symptoms. Whatever the exact connection may be, I know that my autism and my insomnia feed off of each other sometimes in a way that can be hard to explain. It’s something that I have to manage on a nightly basis, though some nights are harder than others. I look forward to the easier nights, when sleep is achieved and my brain is recharged enough to face the day. Taking steps to regulate my sleep schedule has helped, but nothing is a perfect fix. It is persistent, but so am I.
~Anonymous Writer
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