Vicious Cycle

I swear it is like clockwork every day at around 2:30 PM, the intense fatigue starts to take over. I am at work sitting at my desk, I feel my eyes get heavy and start to cross. I grab a lollipop from my drawer for the sugar. This seems to help for about 5 minutes. Suddenly, I feel myself slipping right back but still, I manage to keep on typing thru it. My head begins to fall down, over and over. Then my brain snaps, “Nicole, wake up & get it together!”

Walking to wake up

I force myself to get up from my desk, take a few steps and feel the cataplexy kick in. Ah, I feel my body lapse, my knees get weak but somehow walk through it. I think to myself, “Do you think anyone just saw my body do that?! No, there’s no way! I walked through it, my body only twitched a little.” I look at myself in the bathroom mirror and give myself a pep talk and then remind myself to re-check my work.

Back to work

I go back to my desk and start to go through the work I did while I was falling asleep. "Okay, I managed to do that correctly, but I need to delete that because what in the blue hell is that?! I do not remember doing any of this work." However, anytime I eat sugar to wake myself up, it seems to make things worse, but I continue to do it for the extra five minutes of consciousness. It drives me nuts that I do not remember things that were just done. Then I get the comments, “You shouldn’t be this forgetful at such a young age.” Oh really!? Thank you for the feedback, I will keep that comment in the back of my mind and subconsciously overthink it for years now.