Greetings from a certified Fat PNW Nerd (/positive)
I joined a bit ago and never posted anything (social anxiety), but this forum helped me finally move away from mattresses and I've officially broken my first hammock!
About me: Born in 1991 in Cali, from a nerd household, Sagittarius, trans (ftm), ADHD, twitch streamer, living alone in an apartment but hope to have a mini farm one day!
About my sleep journey:
I've always had trouble sleeping due to apnea, insomnia, and being picky about texture and temperature, etc. Sleep has always been a nightmare, pardon the pun.
I had become homeless in my 20s and forced to experiment with a great many ways of sleeping, all of which were uniquely terrible. Plus lugging a queen mattress or a twin frame around every time I had to move was also terrible. (Which happened a lot, bouncing from one couch surfing spot to another and sleeping in cars, etc.)
Examples of "home" sleeping spots I've had:
- On a very used queen-sized futon on top of very used wood pallets in the back of a van. (Frightening.)
- On a rubberized gym mat on the concrete floor of a warehouse full of other homeless people. (Easy to hose down, I guess.)
- On top of a sleeping bag filled with pool noodles on the floor of somebody else's bedroom closet. (Quickly flattened to uselessness.)
- On a twin-sized "camping mat" on top of a thin sheet of wood on top of a bunch of milk crates. (Surprisingly comfortable.)
- On a queen mattress on top of another queen mattress on top of a fold-out couch-bed. (Preposterously bouncy!)
- On a literal couch. (Too short and prominent "bones"... I kept losing bloodflow to my brain because my neck was on a wood corner. And this is on several different couches, even though I am not a tall man at 5'6"/167cm.)
I learned a lot of things about my sleep needs over the years.
For instance:
- I have wide hips, so sleeping on the floor or flat surfaces quickly becomes an actual medical issue that gets worse every day.
- I tend to drool and/or get acid reflux, so my head has to be straight and elevated.
- I really don't need or want that big of a bed. The extra space ends up getting used for non-bed things anyway, so I'd prefer to just have more furniture and floor space instead.
- I'm very easily frustrated with keeping all my blankets and pillows "just-so" as I tend to thrash around at night.
- For whatever reason, I always feel like I'm going to roll and fall off a mattress. I hate "finding the edge" of it at night and I always try to lay exactly in the center.
- Keeping a bed aired out and stopping it from collecting dust underneath is a losing battle.
Also, I kept losing "custody" of entire bed components because of being forced to move around suddenly all the time.
I finally got in a headspace of "what's something I can pack up and move house with if I had to, that will easily fit through a door, and that I can carry myself without help?"
I had already tried cots and I hated them. They break easily, have all sorts of weird pressure points, and are tippy and creaky. And sleeping bags were both not enough support AND too bulky, not to mention incredibly easy to overheat in. I have a nice "all the way back" recliner I collected from the dump, but it's extremely bulky and can only be tolerably slept in for a few days in a row due to its very-structured nature.
And so on, the problems and ponderings and experiments went...
You can see where I'm going with this!
I started looking up hammock info and quickly became zealously interested.
Hammocks solve literally every problem I have!
I ended up reading about indoor hanging from this forum and made my own setup. It was hard to get in the mental zone of "yes, you are allow to not use a mattress" and I felt like I was a deranged weirdo when I tried explaining my thought process to friends, but surprisingly I managed to convert a lot of people by explaining my discoveries.
I think my biggest problem right now is bigness itself. I'm about 330lb/150kg. I think that lead to the two failures I'm currently dealing with. But it was definitely illuminating and it's only made me want to try harder and keep going, because even with a crappy hammock it's still the best sleep I've ever gotten in my life.
So thank you to everyone here for keeping the dream alive, spreading the good news, and being such a helpful and positive community.
I'm learning a lot and I will continue to learn!
I'll probably go back to lurking lol, see ya! <3
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Originally Posted by Salt
Retired US Navy, 10-year Stage IIIb colon cancer survivor. I believe my last words will be "Hold my beer..."
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