username; Irrylath
name; Griene
gender; Female
sunrise or sunset?; The sunrise always has seemed menacing, with the sounds, sights, and lights that accompany it. These things last until the peace of the sunset, and the silence and darkness that come with it. This is my story of inversion of day and night.
For many, night is a time of rest. For me, it’s a time to live my life. Where I live, the night is nearly equal in length to the day, so my hours of consciousness are none too different from those who stay awake during the day. I rise with the sunset, then prepare for my “day”. The first thirty minutes of the night are spent cleaning up and getting what I need prepared. For the next five hours, I work a security job at a bank. There is little that happens there most nights, so it is a safe space in the world for me. The following hour I have to myself to journal, draw, and knit. What I do then varies based on my mood. The final five hours are spent working in a bakery. I help prepare the goods that are sold throughout the day. These vary from season to season, but always include your generic cookies, brownies, cakes, and breads.
For most, the dawn marks the start of consciousness. For me, it marks the start of problems and sleep. The sleep is easy to explain, as I live in the night. The problems are harder to explain, as I don’t entirely understand why they happen. When I was younger, my parents noticed that I struggled during the day. They decided to take me to a psychiatrist to see if they could figure out why. The only thing I understood about that meeting was that the psychiatrist determined that people, noises, and lights cause me to detach from reality. This is still a problem, but because they realized it was so early, I was able to be put in counseling and on medication to help me with it.
Not everyone sees and hears the things I do though, so some are able to enjoy the sunrise and day. However, because of my condition, I have to either sleep through the day, or be heavily medicated to do things during daylight hours.