Side effects

Think of something you really like doing. Really, really like doing. Your favourite experience ever. Eating chocolate, watching tv, shopping, whatever. Now imagine you can do this thing all the time - sounds great, doesn't it!

Imagine you're doing this thing for a few hours, and while you're enjoying it, you decide it would be nice to stop for a rest. You try to stop for a breather but find you are unable to - you have to keep on doing it for a while longer. You're still enjoying it, but gee, it would be nice to be able to do something else as well.

Then imagine you start getting really tired, and really need to sit down. You manage 5 minutes, and then have to start it again. This goes on and on all day until you're ready to collapse, and perhaps beyond that point, and then you finally get a bit of a break and fall asleep. After what feels like only a few minutes, you have to start again. You've had enough sleep to manage another few hours of it, then you feel like collapsing again. It's like being on a never ending treadmill session at the gym. At the same time you're trying to maintain your every day life.

After a few days and weeks of this, you struggle to remember what you enjoyed about this thing. You know you love it, but you can't seem to find the fun in it any more. Everyone tells you how lucky you are and how great this thing is, and you agree on an intellectual level, but you've got to dig pretty deep to find the feelings to match.


I don't feel like this all the time, but I do sometimes. Lack of sleep certainly brings out lots of negative emotions in me, and I struggle with the unpredictability of it - I never know at this stage how much sleep I might get (or not get!)

But I wouldn't swap it for anything. The solution is to trust God, take it a day at a time, and rest when I can. And to enjoy the good bits, of which there are more every day. I know I'm blessed - it just comes with some serious side effects.