Sleep, the constant, or in my case the non constant (Joel the vampire)

We all need sleep and I am no exception. What I am and have always been an exception to is the normal sleep pattern. What is normal? well according to dictionary.com it is;
conforming to the standard or the common type; usual; not abnormal; regular; natural.
The usual sleep pattern could be described as going to bed by oh lets say 11pm and waking up around 7 or 8am. In adults roughly 7 to 9 hours a night.

Okay so where do I differ?

Well for as long as I remember I've had trouble falling asleep. My mind was always the most active at night. Shutting it down was a very lengthy and sometimes unsuccessful process. Then with my hatred of school emerging and my anxiety and depression on the rise I started going to bed later and later and sleeping later and later in the day until I was literally on an opposite sleep pattern from most healthy adults. Sometimes not falling asleep until 7 or 8am and waking up sometimes as late as supper time or on some occasions later. I was always more creative at night as well so it just fed into this pattern.

I don't think normal is always the way to go and I personally love people who aren't "normal" but here's how it messed me up.

Sleeping all day does not help with social activities, professional activities, recreational activities, my love life, imagine trying to date a guy who can only see you after supper or expecting a girl to want that kind of relationship.. I was a freaken vampire okay?? I actually started having trouble being out in the sun as well because my eyes were so unused to how bright it was. Overall it was feeding my depression and anxiety and making all parts of my life more difficult and some non existent.

As the call from God started to become more clear in my life I was realizing that I was going to need to change this bad habit not only to have a "normal" life but also because it had become a coping mechanism for my anxiety and depression. If I felt really bad I would sleep even longer and more off a normal pattern. It's good to have coping mechanisms sometimes but you don't want something to become a crutch so much that you don't work at healing.

I guess we all have our crutches. For me alcohol was also one, I will talk more about that in a different post. We really need to make sure we don't rely on crutches and forget that they don't really help us heal. Truly Healing means facing our problems and that's what I have realized. The only true help we can get is from God. With that said I slept all day today.. So you see it is still a struggle in my life but it's a struggle I will face head on with God on my side and I know I will overcome it!! We have to state God's truth against our crutches and believe we can face the true issues in our lives to have full and complete healing.