AIBU? Annoying friends and clients with my preference

[ksglag]

Had an argument with a friend and client and am feeling really bad.

I refuse to make any plans before 10am usually aiming for 11am and my client and friends are very frustrated.

I was miserable working in a job for many years and having to get up early to be in the office at 9am. I am not a morning person but more than that, unless I get a full 8 hours uninterrupted sleep I feel exhausted all day to the point of unbearable misery, I get excruciating headaches, and am very unproductive, and unpleasant to be around. It is very noticeable and sounds very dramatic but it can take me an extra day to recover. I suffer from insomnia and struggle to go to sleep for hours and wake up in the middle of the night. I have tried what feels like everything with no solution. Most days I wake up around 9am having gone to sleep at 10pm but sometimes it's 10.30am. I never set an alarm because that will make me wake up unnaturally and I will have a bad day.

As a result I have quit my job and gone freelance where I can choose my hours and plan my whole life around getting the right amount of sleep as it 100% ruins my day and the next if I don't.

My life is 1000% better as a result and I am so much happier.

My two friends and I are going away this summer to Spain and are booking flights. My friend A found the cheapest flight leaving at 7am and I said that that was too early for me but I am happy to take a later and meet them there. Friend B is wants the cheaper flight but is easy going. Friend A has blown up that i'm running the holiday because it's fun to all travel together and she doesnt want to pay extra for a later flight so I can have a lie in. She has gone on to say that I am self absorbed expecting all plans to revolve around me and they should go with the majority vote.

I know it sounds dramatic but it is so terrible for me when I don't get my sleep that I would rather not go than have an early flight.

I freelance and my client is relaxed with me working afternoon and evenings but recently they invited me to a long weekend training conference in London. My time would be unpaid but all expenses would be paid and it is a great opportunity. It's a big conference. I looked it up and a soft start would be 10am and the first workshop at 10.30am. I happily accepted and they booked my non refundable tickets.

They have now stated that they expected me to stay with my parents in Kent as they know I have done many times, and they will pay for my commute in. It will take 2h to get from my parents house to the venue each morning meaning I have to disrupt my sleep cycle. I explained to them why I can't do this and they have gone very frosty with me and asked me to arrange my own alternative accommodation. I would not have accepted if I had to pay my own accommodation or if I had to stay with my parents. I should have just told them my parents cant host me but it's too late for that.

I know my situation is unique but I feel I am not taken seriously. I feel like I have a very limiting health condition, and whilst I know that is not the case it's horrible to be treated like a lazy person who wants a lie in. I am happy for others to go ahead, or to leave me out, but my priority has to be my sleep.

I just don't know how to address this.

Can't you put the money you'd spend on a train ticket towards a budget hotel near the conference venue?

Of you did have to wake up at 8am one day as a one off, I understand you'd have an unbearable day that day and the next, but what would it do to your sleep? Would you still not be able to sleep until 3am that night or would you be so exhausted you fall asleep at 11 or earlier?

I get you. I'm very much a niht owl and worked nightshift for years because days were torture. It would take me ages to recover from waking up at 7am. Most people are naturally early birds or night owls and a small percentage will be extremely one or the other. I moved to a 9-5 job and it's taken me the best part of 3 years to adjust. I still have to have 1 lie in (til 10ish) a week to get over the stress it puts on my body. I'd suggest getting your hormones checked. It's very likely your cortisol is high and with how bad you feel probably others are off balance too.

I’m a night owl and also had a night owl child.
I used to lie in bed reading waiting for her to wake as a baby.

I have insomnia though not to the extent that it affects me badly during the day (I’m able to nap during the day if needed). I find the only way I can actually fall asleep is if I listen to an audio book or some relaxing music (one ear bud, sleep on the side without ear bud). I can then fall asleep very quickly that way. My type of insomnia is where I constantly wake during the night but I put the audiobook back on. Have you tried quietly listening to a book as you try to fall asleep? My insomnia was caused by some very stressful events a few years ago and I’ve never been able to readjust since.

Tell your friend to quit the drama and get the later flight.

Find a cheap air bnb close as you can and suck it up. It’s not worth falling out with a good client over or missing the opportunity.

Go to a sleep clinic and establish what the problem is.

My GP was < shrug >
I have a couple of chronic health conditions but bloods fine. Need more medication for my thyroid but as it's "normal" they won't increase it
I work, then sleep for 2hrs so I can function enough to shower and cook, then go back to bed

If the course the client is paying for is expensive, I'd cough up for the accommodation myself.

This is actually not about your health. These people are absolute pissstakers. They are using your health issues as a convenient excuse to make you do what they want.

I would rather not go on holiday than take a 7am flight and I have no sleep issues, waking up at 3 am to be at the airport at 5am is fucking horrible. Your client is taking the absolute piss, I would not expect a 2 hr commute for a conference and to be told to stay with my parents After already agreed to have travel and accommodation paid for.

I think there is a lesson learned there for the future: NEVER discuss your medical problems with others, especially work. People are not understanding, at all. With your work, tell them you accepted the invite based on accommodation being paid for and you can otherwise not attend. Leave emotions and health out of all future discussions.

Same with your friends. Book the later flight and tell them you are doing so. End of discussion.

I think your friends should be friends and suck it up and understand that you'll travel later.

The work one is tricky. I don't think you can respond to this with the view of hindsight and insist they said they'd pay expenses. I think it's a miscommunication issue and a lesson to learn for future to pin down the details first (although I can see that you thought you had). I think that if you want to keep this client you need to pay for the hotel or you'll be seen as awkward. I also don't think you can cancel without losing them. I don't actually think you're awkward, but that's how they'll see it. I think you have made a reasonable adjustment in your workplace but I also think it's for you to manage that "in house" and not relay it to clients. You'll need to come up with some stock responses and possibly say you'll need to check your diary and get back to them, while you consider your response.

From a fellow night owl and insomniac, yes it's shit but sometimes you have to just suck it up.

As a freelancer YABVVVU pissing off a client - it's not all about you. Can you afford to lose that client? Just book a cheap hotel nearby.

As for the holiday, again it's once.

You used to do a job where you had to get up early so it's doable. I think your current lifestyle is exacerbating the issue rather than helping it.

Hi - I've only skimmed through the replies so apologies if someone has already said this.....

Re the flight - just say to your friends that you prefer to fly later and are happy to book your own flight and pay for it, meeting them at the holiday venue a few hours later than them. If they are real friends they should accept that, even if they don't like it.

Re the conference - book yourself in to a Holiday Inn or something close to the venue.

I also try to sleep regularly and get 8 hours, if I don't I suffer from migraines. However, I do have to work and do other stuff - I don't let the fact that I might feel really rough dictate my whole life. Sometimes I just have to work through it and suffer consequences.

Re the holiday, I think just catch a later flight and meet your friends later. If you friend still kicks off about this perhaps you shouldn't be going on holiday with them at all. Re work, I think you have to just suck up the travel or pay for your own hotel.

If you feel well, by sticking to your routine, then stick to it. If friends don't accept it, then don't go on holiday with them. If your clients want pay for accommodation, don't attend the conference.
You are not doing anything wrong by sticking to your routine, you have organised your life so that it suits you, not friends or clients. Don't worry about it, just look at each situation as it arises, and judge whether it is worth disrupting your routine for.

"Your client can fuck off, they should absolutely pay for your accommodation costs.

Don't give in OP. Make it clear if they won't pay for the accommodation in advance then you will not be attending."

"Don't give in" is logic of 12-year old in playground.

Reminder for hard of understanding: OP themselves openly acknowledges course is "great opportunity". Not attending damages her, not client.

OP says this opportunity facilitated by client previously unaware of OP's problem. OP is freelancer, not employee, absolutely doesn't have to attend, presumably made decision to attend because major positive for OP's own business.

Client hires OP as supplier and owes OP nothing beyond contractual terms. Client presumably also thinks conference is good opportunity for OP because will make OP more attractive as supplier (= more work), probably left feeling OP is looking gift horse in mouth.

How does OP petulantly cancelling help? OP may lose client, doesn't get to conference. Cutting off nose to spite face. Takes OP one step closer to freelance failure and having to return to regular 9 to 5 that OP hates.

Your friends can do what they want.

What they can't do is control what you do.

They must really struggle with lack of empathy to try to emotionally blackmail you into doing what they want when you've told them you'll suffer horribly if you do.

Sorry but you’re being very precious for a one-off. Most people don’t have the luxury of being able to have that much sleep. That doesn’t seem healthy at all to sleep that much.

I have tried what feels like everything

Except, adapting your lifestyle, commitments and business arrangements around YOUR problems. You're behaving like a prima donna attention seeking princess.

Re holiday; for ONE DAY A YEAR you could go to bed early enough to accommodate a 7am flight.

Re client; you know your limitations so it was your responsibility to check, in advance, every detail of the arrangements on offer. Then you could simply refuse any plan that doesn't fit .

Grow up. Take responsibility.

This is not an unusual commute from rural Home Counties to London. V similar to my DH who did it daily for approx 15 years pre covid. Went to bed early.

You're being ridiculous. I have suffered with chronic insomnia since I was 25 (I'm now 37). I have been to a sleep clinic in London which cost a fortune, I've had CBT, hypnotherapy, acupuncture and tried every sleeping pill under the sun to cure it as well as any number of sleep hygiene methods and natural and over the counter remedies to no avail but I've just learnt to live with it and have held down a normal 9-5 job, maintained my relationships and now have 2 kids. You just need to suck it up and stop expecting everyone to pander to your 'needs.' What an outrageous sense of entitlement. I was actually angry reading this.

It does when it is going to cost them more because one person wants to stay in bed.

If you are happy not to go on the holiday, which you say you are, then don't go. Problem solved.

The training conference is a great opportunity for you. Either pay for your own accomodation, or turn down the opportunity. Problem solved.

Have you ever pulled an all nighter and then stayed awake all day until 10pm the next day.

I've had to do this when my sleep gets messed up after Ramadan.

Also how does your body adapt to different time zones?

It doesn't even sound like your embracing the late wakeups, what's the point of going to bed at 10pm when you aren't going to go to sleep till 3am? That's 5 hours of doing nothing?

It would be like me getting into bed at 6pm, when do you do your chores?!

Why would it cost them more? The OP has said she's happy for the others to go on the early flight as per their preference, fly by herself later on and meet them there. The only person in this scenario who has a problem with that is Friend A.

Or do you mean the client? In which case, they're taking the piss anyway, they shouldn't have said all expenses paid when it clearly wasn't.

I do chores weekends and scattered throughout the day.

If I stay on my phone until 3am or read until 3am with the light on I will stay up beyond that until 5am.

Usually if I lay down at 10pm I stay awake for two hours, have a very light snooze for 2 hours, stay away for hour, then sleep until a noise wakes me up or for 6 hours. If a noise wakes me up, then I'll need an extra hour.

This is just in general