I just want to get out of bed

Why is this so darn hard?

What is it that is keeping me from doing this? I set my alarm with the most optimistic of intentions and fall asleep.

But something goes sideways between the time I go to bed and the time I had picked to get up.

And I hit the snooze alarm. Heck today, I reset the alarm about an hour before I had planned to get up, avoiding the snooze altogether.

This is not who I have been.

I used to love getting up in the morning. I am a morning person. Some of my best writing has taken place before the sun comes up. But now I can hardly drag myself out of bed. I find myself clawing at the alarm clock, hitting snooze and fighting any reason I can think of to get up.

My therapist suggested a book about getting up.

I appreciated that and have tried the author’s “count-down” method. But I have only had success one time in ten using this technique. I am just not feeling like getting out of bed. To me, there seems to be something else going on.

My mind is set to get up early.

My body is fighting it tooth and nail. It is going against my brain in a battle for what I will do. And the body is winning. If it was just that I need a little extra sleep because I have been working a lot, I could understand that.

But this is a persistent drain on me, as I cannot commit to pulling off the covers, sitting up, and then putting my feet on the floor. And I am back to waking up many times during the night. The whole thing is unsettling.

READ: Waking up depressed

In case you were wondering, I do eventually get out of bed.

There comes a time each morning when I feel forced to commit to getting out of bed. For instance, I know how much time I need to get ready for work and how much time I need for my commute. So I work backward and that becomes my “Got to Go” time for getting up.

What I give up is my “self-care or me time.”

I forgo the extra hour to write, or read, or just sit on the front porch with my first cup of coffee, watching the birds at the feeders. As I write (and this is why I have been doing this), I can see that I am not valuing myself. I do what I must to survive and pay the bills, but I’m having a hard time justifying to myself “doing what I need.”

Looks like I’ve got some work to do before I can get up.