The 4AM Wakeup

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Awake up at 4 AM and recording from my car, I'm sharing some thoughts during a tough winter period where both physical illness and mental health challenges have been colliding. Winter has always been difficult for me, and getting sick complicates many of my energy-dependent coping strategies for managing my mental ill health. Burnout is a tough foe to battle, along with the various disorders that I’m up against. But the fight for peace of mind rages on! 

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Follow my journey through the chaos of mental illness and the hard-fought lessons learned along the way.
Lived experience is at the heart of this podcast — every episode told through my own lens, with raw honesty and zero filter.

This is a genuine and vulnerable account of how multiple psychological disorders have shaped my past and continue to influence my future.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 0 (00:05):
G'day everybody.
My name is Elliot Waters andyou're listening to the
Dysregulated Podcast, as always.
Thank you for tuning in,alright, so I'm recording back
on my phone again, because it'scurrently 10 minutes past 4 in
the morning.
Yours truly can't sleep beforework, so I'm awake, I'm up, I've
had breakfast, I've done allthat and I'm now sitting in the

(00:28):
car park at work just waiting towalk inside and begin my day.
This definitely wasn't planned.
I didn't really want to be upthis early on a Friday morning
before work.
Getting up at the normal timefor work is early enough, but
what can I say?
Sometimes these things happen.
I don't know why, and I knowthis isn't exclusive to me, but

(00:50):
I know that sometimes thesethings happen.
You just can't sleep, or youwake up early because there's
something on your mind.
There's plenty on my mind Icould be stressing about,
although there's nothing inparticular that I can identify
that has caused me to wake upthis early.
So I don't know what's going on.
There Wouldn't have a clue.
But anyway, here we are.

(01:10):
This is the way it is Now.
This week I have been trying todo the next Discharge Papers
episode, but unfortunatelybecause I've been sick.
I've been sick because it'swinter and it's freezing and you
know the whole winter coldthing sort of coming on, because
I've been sick, I've soundedreally nasally, or at least in

(01:32):
my opinion I've sounded reallynasally, and you know, talking a
bit like this, I don't knowwhat my voice sounds like on
this recording, but it hasn'tbeen up to standard for me to do
this next Discharge Papersepisode, because I think this
episode is going to be a big one, it's going to be important,
and I want to do it properlybecause I think it's going to

(01:53):
explain a lot about thesituation and context in which I
find myself in at the momentwhen it comes to my mental
health and moving forward andproceeding through life.
So that's why that episodehasn't come out yet, because
I've been sick and my voice hasbeen a bit here and there

(02:14):
dropping in and out a little bit.
So I want to do it properly, Iwant to wait until the
moneymaker is back to fullhealth and then that Discharge
Papers episode will certainly becoming out, which is which will
be really good.
It will be really good.
I haven't actually read thedischarge papers myself that I
was given after that lateststint at hospital a week or two

(02:35):
ago, so we'll.
It'll be very interesting forall to see what's contained
within.
The doctor was was really good,so I've got high hopes but of
course, nothing has actuallyreally changed and that's a big
problem.
There's been no actual changesto really my predicament and
that means that I'm not movingforward, which means I'm getting

(02:57):
very stressed because I knowthat I'm not achieving the
things that I want to achieve,which is depressing and that's
causing a bit of a depressiveepisode which I've had recently.
Being sick hasn't helped.
Being sick is terrible for mymental health because so many of
my coping adaptive strategiesare strategies that require

(03:18):
energy.
So if you're sick and you'vegot no energy, that is a problem
and that has been a problemthis week because I've had some.
You know there's been somemental anguish, as there always
is with me, and, unfortunately,my options to do something about
it and mitigate those problems,those options haven't

(03:39):
necessarily been there becauseI've been feeling like absolute
garbage, because I've been sick,because this cold weather is
too.
Oh man, I'm not built for winter.
I'm telling you I'm I, I'mbuilt for summer.
Heat I can sort of stand.
Heat's not so bad, but the coldjust really, oh, it's not good

(03:59):
for me, I'm telling you, it'snot good for me and it's at the
moment it's single digits.
It's single digits.
Outside, I'm in the car withthe heater on, but I know full
well that this little moment ofpeace is not going to last,
because I've got to get intowork soon and it's going to be
freezing.
But you know what can I say?
I've got to get the timber outthere.

(04:19):
You know I already drove pastbefore.
The trucks are waiting for me,it's all happening.
But yeah, winter's difficultbecause I tend to always get
sick in winter.
I think most people do, but Icertainly do.
There's always at least onesort of main sick period that I
tend to have and unfortunatelyit correlates very strongly with

(04:43):
my mental health going downhilla little bit as well, because,
like I said, I don't have thoseoptions available to me or not
all the options available to meto do something about the mental
health complexities that Imight be experiencing in that
time.
So winter is very difficult foryours truly, always has been,

(05:04):
and this is why I need a reallycushy office job that has an air
conditioner in it.
So that's the goal, you know.
Next winter, at least I'm hopingthat I won't be out in the
freezing cold, necessarily,loading and unloading trucks,
but who knows, maybe I will andmaybe that's exactly what I want
to be doing.
But I'll tell you it's freezingright now.

(05:25):
It's just gone what?
20 past four in the morning.
I'm tired, I'm cold.
I'm going to wrap this one up,so, hopefully, yes.
So the main point, what I'mtrying to stress, is that the
discharge papers episode iscoming.
It is definitely coming.
I'm just waiting for the voiceto come back to 100% and then
boom, it's going to be out thereBecause, as I said, it's a big

(05:48):
one.
There's a lot in that documentfrom what I could skim through
before.
There's a few pages to it andit explains a lot of what's
going on at the moment with mymental health, because there is
a lot going on, but at the sametime, there's not much going on,
and I'll explain all that inthat new episode.
All right, thank you forlistening everybody.
This episode is definitely afiller episode.

(06:10):
So you know, hopefully it wasentertaining enough to hold on
and listen to.
As I said, the next episode'scoming very soon, once I can do
it, and I'm very excited aboutthat.
So I'm going to go now and have.
I'll do a little bit of I don'tknow, not meditation, but just
sort of sit, enjoy the airconditioning, and then I'm going
to go into work and give it myall, even though it's been

(06:32):
really difficult because of thatsocial capacity sort of drama
that I've been talking about.
But I'll explain all that inthe next episode as well.
All right, thank you everybody.
Have a good day and I'll talkto you soon here on the Dears
Regulator podcast.