I don’t think it’s “ok” per se, but it’s something I’ve had to live with, as well as my family. I can honestly say that it’s not something I do intentionally, it’s as though my “social filter” is booting up and I just say the absolute first thing that pops into my head, with the wrong inflection to top it off. I’ve said some pretty fucked up things in the first 30 seconds of waking up. I own them, apologize for them, try to explain the situation so we both can avoid it in the future, etc. I don’t think it’s ok, and I just try to avoid speaking at all. Like I said somewhere in this thread, I didn’t know how abnormal when this story happened. If it makes any difference, I don’t sleep like normal people. Apparently, when I sleep, I become totally unconscious and nothing will wake me. Alarm clocks don’t work, people don’t work, explosions don’t work, gunfire doesn’t work, etc. It was an issue in the military at first and I had to learn how to work with it. So, when I wake up, I’m coming from basically being “brain-dead” to full alert. It literally feels exactly the same as being knocked out and coming back in a fight. That might have something to do with it.

However, I think it’s worth pointing out, that at no point in the mentioned code review was I mean, or disrespectful. I was just direct vs. my usual indirect self. I never said anything like “this is stupid” or anything personal. I didn’t have any malicious intent nor did it come off that way, unless you had gotten a review by me before and knew how I usually code review:

“I think this would be better expressed as X for performance, wdyt?”

became:

“Express this as X for better performance”

I didn’t use my lack of being awake as an excuse at work. I apologized and just said I didn’t realize how wording things differently would affect my coworker and it truly did upset me as well. It probably wasn’t until I worked with someone who always reviewed like that did I realize how annoying that kind of wording actually was, but that wasn’t until years later. Anyway, it was a weird day, because I wasn’t intentional in my wording and I paid for it. It’s especially weird when you know exactly what happened and you want to explain it so that maybe the other person feels better about the situation but doing so would just come across as being an ass or just trying to make an excuse. It’s a terrible feeling when it’s a real issue in your own life, but other people don’t have a basis to relate. Further, it a terrible feeling to see someone suffering from it and all you can do is feel shame, and so sorry for the person you’ve said something bad too without even being aware of saying it, or unable to stop yourself from saying it.

So yeah, I don’t think it’s ok, but I’ve accepted it at this point in my life. Whatever bs comes out of my mouth, I accept responsibility for that bs.