Long days - long nights

I have been spending a copious amount of time at work, and I often come home with an attitude. I wish I didn't, but when I come home to "could you do this?" and "daddy, can we do that?", my responses are pretty curt, and I feel bad for being such an emotional burden to everyone.

I have lived with a sleeping disorder for the whole of my life. Most people are on a sleep schedule of roughly thirty minutes of falling asleep, thirty minutes of REM sleep, and thirty minutes of waking up and then starting over. I, on the other hand, fall asleep instantly, dream persistently, and then wake up feeling exhausted pretty much no matter how long I sleep.

Sometimes I am in such a deep REM state, that I will get up and maneuver about the house in a complete dream state, occasionally waking up to find myself in other rooms of the house and having no idea how I got there. Some people think that REM sleep means restful sleep, but to the contrary, there is so much going on in my dreams that I am getting very little restful sleep.

I also remember most of my dreams.

In the end, when I do not get at least eight hours in, I wake up absolutely exhausted and I suffer most of the day because of it. When I wake up, I have this dog who looks at me like I'm insane for having slept so much, and who taps her tail at me like an impatient nun waiting to rap my knuckles if I do not provide an immediate reconciliation to her displayed desire.

So, I do that...run the dog outside. Sometimes, because I am not awake enough to even venture outdoors, I take a shower first, which only serves to further irritate the dog so much that upon getting her outside, she attempts to rip my arm off bolting through the door.

Then I head off to work...where I talk to roughly 30 people a day who hate my absolute guts and who tell me to bugger off. (The life of a sales guy.) By the time my day ends, it is VERY difficult for me to be in a good mood, although there are hundreds of things for which I should be infinitely more grateful.

The roughest part is that my relationship with my wife has been suffering of late because of my long days at work and my restless sleep, which is compounded by a newborn baby and a particularly rough few weeks of dreams that are so vivid I might as well be awake. She wakes me up to ask me to take the dog out in the middle of the night, and I verbally rip her head off for daring to wake me up when I'm trying to sleep. It's not her, it's exhaustion. I want to recognize her difficulties more effectively, but somehow at 3 am, I have very little in the way of diplomacy or understanding. I am a jerk.

By the time I get home in the evening, I am wiped out both mentally and physically, and any of my wife's attempts to get me to do anything extra serve to do nothing but irritate me. It's as if I am offended that she needs me...and I know that isn't right.

Since I'm sure she'll read this at some point: I am sorry, honey. I know I'm wrong, as usual. lol

It's frustrating having so much going on in our lives and having no means by which to affect the parts of our lives that are driving us crazy...all we can do is wait and pray, and attempt to control our rampant emotions until things start to level off a bit...and by "we" I mean "I". :D