I scared myself last week. For a whole day, I couldn’t function. I felt an overwhelming tiredness, I couldn’t think straight and caught myself zoning out several times during the day. I struggled through my daily tasks doing the bare minimum at work (I had particular trouble writing emails and had to take breaks halfway through typing them) and caring for grandma was a blur, doing what I had to do on autopilot, not taking anything in. Thankfully, she had a post-birthday lunch date with one of the neighbours so I didn’t have to cook. I felt so fuzzy that I couldn’t feel panicked at my state, I knew I felt something uncomfortable but I couldn’t put my finger on the feeling.

The next day, I felt a bit more alive and discovered the consequences of my temporary malfunction. I had left tea bags everywhere, in the fridge, in a cup with no water, I had left two on the little side table in my ‘office’ (the spare room). This was clearly my (unsuccessful) attempts to make tea but I have no recollection of how they got there. I had also left an entire bag of frozen peas in the kitchen cupboard. I discovered the thawed bag sitting in its water puddle in the morning as I was getting grandma’s breakfast ready. I had put her creams in the wrong cupboard (grandma relished pointing out my mistake – she mentioned it throughout the week) and I don’t think I ate anything that day, I can’t remember and the leftovers I was planning on eating were still in the fridge.

I was still very tired but I felt worry creep in at the lost day I had just experienced and had no recollection of. I resolved to pay extra attention to what I was doing that week, it was a somewhat effective decision. I realised that I do a lot of multitasking and I need to remind myself of all the things I have to do at once. Throughout the week I asked myself a lot of questions to keep myself on track such as: ‘What am doing?‘ / ‘Why am I in this room?’/ Did I send that email? /Do I have time to cook grandma’s lunch before this call? /I need to look at that letter from the bank./ Where did I put my cup of tea?/I need to text my friend back./ Did I put grandma’s hydrating cream on? (No point asking grandma for that last one- she’d say yes even if I hadn’t- she hates it.)

At a minimum, I am constantly juggling two tasks between work and caring and I think, it all got a bit too much for my brain. I fumbled through the rest of the week without any other major glitches. I told a friend what had happened and concluded it was probably some kind of burn out warning, there isn’t much I can do about that but I will brave the GP receptionist when I get a moment to see if a doctor can help. Feeling myself crumble cognitively scares me, I can deal with exhaustion but I need to be capable of caring and working.

I also resolved to have a nap at the weekend, which I managed as grandma was engrossed in the rugby Six Nations tournament. I felt better after my 45 minute lie-down but not enough to understand what was happening in the game, fortunately grandma is (somehow) a rugby expert so I let her shout and cheer at the TV as I slowly came round from my sleep.