The early bird doesn't end up with shit on it's floor

The current reality of getting up in the morning at a
 reasonable hour

I've never been a morning person.  As soon as I was old enough to take care of my own morning routine without the assistance of my mother I quickly learned that staying in bed longer and getting dressed really quickly was preferable to getting up with enough time to eat breakfast, swoon around in a dressing gown and shower.  At university, sometimes "getting ready" would literally involve putting a coat on.  I learned that by choosing certain pajamas you could get away with wearing them out and about, provided you put up with a bra during the night.


During my time in full-time employment, which spanned approximately 18 months, I did go through a phase of showering in the morning.  A new haircut meant if I washed it first thing I could have bouncy curls, and to wash it the night before and tie it up would often leave me looking like I'd been dragged to work feet first.  But aside from that very brief period my mornings have always been a rushed affair.

Since I've been signed off sick from work (approximately 14 months ago) things have deteriorated further.  I take a strong cocktail of medication on a night-time, some to alleviate various symptoms of the BPD, OCD and recurrent depression, and others to help me sleep.  The cocktail consists of Trazodone, Quetiapine, Temazepam and Diazepam.  I get up at around 5am to let my dogs out, and take some more Quetiapine, and then go back to bed (the Quetiapine is an anti-psychotic and part of my daily medication routine, the only optional medications are Temazepam and Diazepam but I've been taking these regularly for a number of years - it's something I'm trying to address).  With the best will in the world I try to get up around 9, but if I'm perfectly honest, 9am very soon becomes 10am, 11am, 12pm.  At my worst, although before I had dogs, I would frequently get up between 1pm and 2pm.

Initially, when I got my new puppy and following a recent hospital admission, I was able to get up at around 9 - 10am, which I loved.  The dogs were happier.  I was even taking them for a walk first thing which made us all feel brilliant.  However very gradually it's crept back to midday.  So far it's only been just over a week, but I'm fully aware that staying in bed that long is not good for my dogs or my mental health.  It's shaken their routine up, and although they do have a few breaks to go outside during the night, me being unconscious does nothing to entertain and stimulate their minds.

As a result, in the last few days I've come down to piles of poop in my living room.  I take full responsibility for this and to be perfectly honest I'm ashamed this last few days has resulted in them being forced into that. I saw my CPN today and she agreed; something has to change.

I've identified the problem.  That of not being able to get up at an appropriate time.  I also know that 9 times out of 10 it's because I'm not properly awake enough to rationally decide it's time to get out of bed.  I often feel very drugged up in a morning and without weighing up the pros and cons of getting up (the pros being happy stress-free dogs and owner, the cons being a soiled living room and 2 grumpy dogs, and one very groggy owner) I quickly re-set my alarm for a few hours later, or just turn it off altogether.

The solution?  I'm going to get one of those old-school alarms and set it to go off half an hour after my bedside alarm goes off.  That way, I get the option to get up gently to some soothing rain music (with the aid of 'Sleep Cycle' (for more information visit the iphone app site here), but if I do decide to go back to bed I will be rudely awoken by a very loud, very persistent bell.  The only way to turn the alarm off will be to drag myself out of bed, go downstairs and turn the thing off, by which point the smell of freshly made coffee prepared very kindly by the timer on my coffee machine will be circulating through my system and I should be awake enough to rationally decide that getting up now is far better than returning to bed and being lazy.

The expectation of getting up with
the new plan in place

Watch this space.