I figured I would start this thread as a lot of us are experiencing the issue of not being believed by both professionals and the people we know personally. Not only are we having to cope with the problems, we have to cope with this as well. My greater concern is when the professionals don't believe us.
I included details on my own experience with sleep issues below. In addition to this, my daughter is extremely shy. Often when she is around other people, her anxiety is so great, she is almost paralyzed. I had a few comments that I was spoiling my child as she would not respond to my requests during these times. She listens great when she is in her normal state of mind, but not when she is traumatized. But like many of these other things, a lot of people have trouble believing it.
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I dealt with sleep problems for three years with my now DD6. It did not help any that I also have had issues with sleep. The most she would sleep was around 7 hours and stopped taking naps during this time. The details are below. By the time I got to sleep after I knew she was sleeping and having to get up early to get ready for work left me with at most 5 hours of sleep a night.
I tried everything I could think of and was told to try. Nothing worked, but what made it worse is nobody believed it was a real problem. Having to cope with the problem, the extra time used to work on the problem, a lack of sleep, almost complete exhaustion and to top it off having nobody believe what you are telling them, does not make it any easier.
From 18 months to around 4 years, I had great difficulty getting my daughter to sleep before 1:30 AM give or take an hour. It started suddenly one night at 18 months and became less severe at 4 years just after moving. The problem started again in one room at the new place. She had this look of fear in her eyes and was staring at the window. I asked her what was wrong and she said she did not like the window. The window itself was identical to another room, except for the curtains.
A few people made comments about feeling uncomfortable in the old place. The old place had a slight pinkish tone in the carpeting and the room in the new place had pink curtains. I don't know if I buy into this having anything to do with it, but I had heard pink is a colour to watch out for.
It did appear as if fear was somehow involved in the more extreme sleep issues I was dealing with. Although the extreme nature of the problem is resolved, she still occasionally takes longer at times to fall asleep. This I think has to do with her mind running in overdrive at times. She has a creative mind and I think this may be her primary issue now.
A lot of people in my family including myself also have sleep issues. From as early as I can remember, I could not sleep before 2:30 AM. My most alert time of the day was from 11:00 PM to 2:30 AM. I have found this to be less of a problem in the last 8 years however. My one aunt has never slept before 4:00 AM and gets up before 8:00 AM everyday. At first, I thought my daughter might have this same issue, but I think her issue was related more to some kind of fear.
Over the years, I have done some research into this and discovered an interesting and not well known condition. It is known as DSPS (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome). This condition is actually easily measured as the bodies other cycles are in sync with the abnormal sleep cycle. There are many others, but I thought I would mention this one as it is not well known and easily diagnosed. Not so easy however to find a doctor with knowledge of the condition. As my own sleep issues did not cause any significant problems, I never bothered to get diagnosed.
I think a lot of gifted people may have a sleep problem related to having a tendency to think a lot. But it never hurts to consider other issues as well. It could be a combination of more than one condition.
