Living in the fog of sleep deprivation

I learnt a fascinating fact recently which had me wishing I was a giraffe. You see giraffes only need 20 minutes of sleep a day.

As for me, I’m tired; doggone tired, living in a fog. I’ve had maybe 6 months of unbroken sleep in 3.5 years. My eldest didn’t sleep through till 18 months then 6 months later her sister was born. My baby still wakes through the night 16 months on.

It all adds up. I don’t know how far in the red one’s sleep bank can go before we hit sleep bankruptcy. (And I hear all mothers in solidarity say, “Tell me about it!”)

Everyday I wake in a haze, after yet another night’s broken sleep, knowing that I could slip back to sleep in an instant and keep on slumbering for hours. Whilst my eyelids and body struggle to wake, my sense of responsibility forces me to spring out of bed and rush about like a crazy woman to get myself, and everyone else ready for the day.

The non-stop rush continues at work before the rush to pick up the girls from childcare, the rush home, to cook, clean, get the girls to bath and bed, all before I crash into my bed. Then I awake the next morning and it begins again, a little like groundhog day sometimes, except time is really passing fast and before I know it, the week has gone and the next one is beginning.

Work has further been exhausting my brain and my body. Squeezing five days work into four is hard. In fact, it’s beyond hard. It’s impossible. Hubby did warn me.

So there was this project I had to ignore for two months because I had no time to tackle it. It was like a ball and chain around my ankles, a monkey on my back, the piles of paperwork taunting me every day as I sat at my desk.

I’ve finally had to tackle it and it’s overtaking every day, dragging on and on. All I want to do is wrap it up fast and have a massive celebratory bonfire. Pity about record keeping legislation.

Domestic chores have also been leeching whatever energy I have left. Our tiny apartment, and I stress *tiny*, feels like a disaster zone. I don’t work well amongst clutter, but I’ve congratulated myself for learning to adapt by increasing my tolerance threshold, yet I still have a threshold.

With time, the pressure starts rising, like an active volcano, and I eventually erupt. At that moment every “invisible” piece of clutter materialises before my eyes and I turn into a rampaging mad woman, ranting and raving about the mess as I toss things back to their rightful places in a frenzy.

In trying a new tactic, I’ve taken a picture out of Honey and Fizz’s Instagram feed and tried her “flower therapy”.

Hopefully, if I flood this place with beautiful, aromatic flowers, and maybe candles too, the fragrance and the beauty will blind me from the mess lurking below and I will be transported to a more zen state of being……well, maybe………but I need to buy more flowers…..

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Last Saturday morning it was all too much. My head was in a spin. With the excuse of emptying the compost, I took flight to escape the mayhem.

As I rushed towards the front door to leave, fleeing to find a moment of sanity, I kept hollering aloud to myself, “I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t want to make any decisions! I don’t want to be responsible! I don’t care. I don’t care. I don’t WANT to care!”

My problem is that I do care. I can’t help myself. But lately, in my haze of tiredness, I am not being gracious about it. An ugly side of me is rearing its head far too often, leaving me ashamed at the poor example I’m setting for my family and having to apologise for it, time and time again.

As I stole my moments alone in the chilly morning air, I realised the mayhem that was threatening to swallow my peace of mind was pretty much all in my own head. No one else cares about the mess, the piles of laundry, the unkempt home. They want to play, enjoy some leisure time, live in the moment, sleep, and chill out.

I’ve been thwarted by sleep-deprivation but can I thwart my own nature? Can I push beyond sub-optimal brain fog productivity to think more clearly about what matters, and what doesn’t? Can I learn not to care about what really isn’t all that important? Time will tell.

Did, or do, you survive or excel through sleep deprivation? Any tips for me to add to my arsenal?

p.s: A weekly subscription of flowers would be lovely! 😉

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Linking with With Some Grace for FlogYoBlogFriday (FYBF).