Dear Prudence: Sleep Sorrows

[minoanmiss]

Q. Sleep deprived and it’s ruining everything: I listened to your “Insomnia” podcast recently and nearly wept when you said the letter writer with the sleep-disrupting boyfriend should kill him. I am part of a service corps and must share a room with “Sasha.” Sasha snores. Incredibly loudly. She also has the worst sleep habits I’ve ever encountered. She survives on three hours of sleep a night and looks at her phone under her covers. I’ve tried talking to Sasha about her issues so many ways: jokingly, at a party, telling her she needs to go to a sleep clinic; writing her emails explaining her problems; setting sleep schedules for her based on what I’ve observed reduces the snoring. She shuts down every time I confront her. I’ve made her cry, and worse, because some of my emails were written under duress—I am falling apart I’m so tired and angry—she’s shared them with our roommates and now I’m the bad guy. I don’t know what to do short of quitting the program. Sasha says she has a medical condition and is making appointments to see doctors, but I know what she needs to do: get proper sleep and not look at bright screens before bed. I have no energy and am suffering at work and socially because of Sasha. For some reason, everyone in our house adores her and takes her side. I have no idea how to explain that I’m this angry because a lack of sleep is ruining my life. What can I do?


A: If you haven’t already tried minimizing distractions from your side of the room, please do so immediately. If you have other roommates in the house, ask to switch with one of them. If your service program has a housing department, make a transfer request. In the meantime, get the heaviest-duty earplugs you can find, buy a blackout sleep mask, find a white-noise machine or (if you can’t afford to drop a ton of money on sleep hygiene) get one on your phone.

For future reference, some of your strategies for talking about serious issues with a roommate are fine (nothing wrong with a clear email) and some of them are counterproductive, like making jokes at her expense in public, or trying to set a sleep schedule for a grown woman. Don’t joke about something that’s really bothering you, because those jokes tend to land with serious barbs and don’t go half as far as a genuine, honest request. And don’t try to manage your roommate’s sleep schedule. You can tell her that her snoring is making it hard for you to sleep, you can ask for a roommate transfer, you can encourage her to get checked out for underlying medical conditions that might contribute to intense snoring, but you cannot tell her when to go to bed or when to wake up. If she’s looking at her phone under her covers, that suggests she is at least trying to minimize the distractions to you, and means you two might be able to work together to find a livable compromise.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

Please help me not hate the LW. Especially since snoring is often correlated with size (or maybe I'm just overidentifying with Sasha since I'm fat and I know I snore) but having my assigned roommate hassle me IN PUBLIC about my snoring and nag me repeatedly about getting a sleep study would make me want to push back. Especially the public humiliation. (LW maybe everyone "takes her side" because they watched you use a party as a chance to shame her, and they cringed. Do you want them to all drive her into the woods for your sake? Probably, actually.)

because some of my emails were written under duress—I am falling apart I’m so tired and angry—she’s shared them with our roommates and now I’m the bad guy. Whatever, LW, in irae veritas. I can just imagine what was in those letters. I hope LW can get a new room for Sasha's sake, really.

The one thing I would advise Sasha is to not use the phone in bed, not because of Sleep Hygiene (TM) but because that kind of light in the darkness can disrupt the sleep of the other(s) in the room. Otherwise I'd mostly commiserate with her.

(I spent 8 years in dorms, so I do know the pain of having others' actions prevent one from sleeping. But I also know how people use that as a reason to bully depricated people such as fat women)

[sathari]

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ forever.

[lunabee34]

The only reason I haven't murdered my husband is because we bought a bigger house and now sleep in separate rooms. I don't think I could have survived much more of trying to endure his snoring and not having anywhere to go to escape it. Never being able to sleep makes you crazy and resentful and seriously clouds your judgment.

Is this LW trying the wrong tactics? 100% yes. Is it deeply horrible never to be able to sleep? 100% yes.

[jadelennox]

Oh, I want to smack the LW. Every part of these is about Sasha's problems -- but by all account, Sasha has no problems, or none of note that bother here. Has the LW tried saying (in private ffs), "hey, Sash, I'm getting sick from disrupted sleep. Do you think you and I could work out some systems so my sleep isn't disrupted?"

Maybe they can agree on white noise machines, on not using screens in a shared bedroom, or on some kind of schedules. But LW will get absolutely nowhere if they insist on telling Sasha that Sasha has a problem and Sasha's irresponsible and Sasha should fix it.

[beable]

The LW comes off badly.

That being said, there is a friend I will not share a hotel with anymore because her poor sleep hygiene involved : waking up repeatedly during the night, watching or listening TV on her phone , supposedly with earphones but they didnt work properly, at high volume.

we were on a shared vacation in Cuba once, and I kept waking up to the blaring (and I do mean blaring) sound of the Law and Order opening sequence. Each time she looked (in the dark of the room) like she was asleep, so I was mentally cursing the adjacent hotel room for the noise while not saying anything (because if she was somehow sleeping through it, she was the one withthe auto-immune condition and sleep issues and I didnt want to disturb her).

Finally after about the fourth or fifth time, I saw her shift enough, realized she was the source of the law and order, got angry about the noise waking me up repeatedly (she either turned it down or fixed her headphones plug after that) and the next morning we were both exhausted and underslept on our big “spend the day in Havana” travel day.

So while I side-eye LW about the snoring, I get why the “playing with ohone in a way that disturbs others” is a trigger point for her.

[lilysea]

Yes!

Also, Sasha might have sleep apnoea, in which case they need to get checked out by a sleep Dr.

For years, people who shared a room with me complained about my snoring,

but it wasn't until a friend said "I thought you were choking to death" that I realised it was something that I needed to see a Dr about.

And now I have a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine, and it helps keep my airways open and keep me breathing. Oh, and I make less noise in my sleep, too.