I’ve lost nearly three days.
I didn’t see it coming.

My weekend was pretty average. I took Summer to her first swimming party where Kike and I got an hour to ourselves thanks to a very well-timed nap by River. It was mostly spent doing admin, but we managed a drink and some chips, which felt like a treat. Sunday we stayed in all day. I felt a bit tired, accidentally had a two-hour nap, but it’s January and I’d eaten a roast, so none of that felt unusual.

Monday morning I didn’t feel quite myself. A bit of brain fog, but I shook it off and went to work.
I was OK when I was teaching. I even helped lead a staff meeting. But there was a buzzing in my head, a strange underwater feeling and a strong urge to lie down.

I got home around 5pm and, unusually for me, immediately lay down on the sofa in the recovery position. I felt cold. Kike put a blanket over me and gave me a hot water bottle. Assuming I was just tired, he left for jiu-jitsu.

I don’t remember falling asleep.

When I tried to open my eyes, I couldn’t. I could hear the kids, but I couldn’t lift my head. I lay there trying to move for what I thought was five or ten minutes. Eventually I managed to prop myself up and asked Summer the time. I realised I couldn’t speak properly, my words were slow and slurred. She couldn’t understand me at first, but on my third attempt she told me it was 7.30pm.

I’d been out for an hour and a half.

Both children were lost in their devices, blissfully unaware but obviously it was past River’s bedtime. Summer, my little angel, tried to help. She fetched his pyjamas, though he was never going to let her dress him. It took all my effort, but I managed to get him changed and walk him to bed. He cried because I couldn’t read him a story or say our usual script. He didn’t understand.

I passed back out under my blanket just as Kike came home.

He saw me and asked Summer, “Has she been asleep the whole time?”
That’s when he realised this wasn’t just tiredness.

He helped me to bed, and that’s where I’ve been since.

---

An Autonomic Crash

Over the last few days I’ve been asleep about 80% of the time. My speech has slowly returned, but it still sounds like I’ve drunk a bottle of vodka; long pauses, missing words, sentences arriving half-formed. My eyes feel impossibly heavy. Bright light hurts. Noise hurts.

I can’t regulate my body temperature. The house feels like a sauna, yet I’m under a blanket with a hot water bottle, or drenched in sweat. I spent two hours on the sofa yesterday and it exhausted me so much that I slept for another three hours.

I’ve had an autonomic crash.

It’s when the autonomic nervous system, the part that controls things like temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, speech, energy and alertness, essentially shuts down after being overloaded for too long. The body hits a wall and forces rest, whether you want to or not.

I’ve had them before. The last big one was in June. Usually they follow periods of high stress or illness, but this one was sneaky. I haven’t been ill and I didn’t feel more stressed than usual.

I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome over 10 years ago and I sometimes forget it’s always there, quietly running in the background. My body doesn’t always cope with stress, fatigue or sensory overload in the way I expect and when it doesn’t cope, it tries to send polite warning signs and then just pulls the plug.

Yesterday I felt very emotional, which apparently is common afterwards. I don’t really know how to make myself better and neither do the doctors. One even suggested looking online for answers. The hospital I was previously under is no longer taking patients.

So for now, it’s rest, hydration, salt and time.

Kike has effectively become a single parent. The kids come in to say goodbye in the morning and goodnight in the evening. I try to watch a bit of TV with them when I can, before the headache returns.

---

The Quiet Panic

I panicked thinking about Monday evening, what if something had happened and Summer or River had needed a functioning adult?

I’ve taught Summer how to use my phone to call Kike. I’ve made a list of nearby adults she could go to. I need to put emergency numbers by the house phone in case she can’t find my mobile. It’s not a nice job, but it’s essential.

As for River, I can’t be left alone with him for long at the moment. On Tuesday I managed to put Mr Bean on, perfect, no talking, easy for me to tolerate. He sat cuddled into me and kept turning to say, “Don’t be sad.”

I wasn’t sad but it takes a surprising amount of energy to smile and he’s not used to me being so quiet and still. I managed a short bedtime story that night and he went to bed happy.

---

Looking Forward (Carefully)

I will get better. I always do. But this one has shaken me.

My family relies on me. I genuinely cannot afford to be sick. When I’m back on my feet, I need to look more closely at those polite warning signs: the random nap, the brain fog, the temperature issues. Maybe they were there and I didn’t want to see them.

I wish my job were more flexible, not my employer, I’m lucky there but the hours. Teaching is strict, face-to-face, eight-to-four. If I can’t speak properly or keep my eyes open, I’m not going to be the greatest teacher. And I love my job, which makes that thought painful.

I know I’m more emotional because of the crash, so I need to stop following that thought path.

Maybe this is just how my life will always be. Maybe I’ll never quite get pacing right. Maybe there will always be a little too much going on.

But I also know and am grateful for this:
I have a bed to crash in.
A partner who makes sure I eat and buys me Lucozade.
A clever little girl doing her best to be independent.
And a small boy, who, as long as he has TV, cuddles and a slightly slurred bedtime story, is content.

There’s also a strange irony to all of this. For the last four months I’ve been pouring my spare energy into designing a sensory room at school. Reading about regulation, overload, calm, safety. Helping children learn how to step away before their systems tip. And then my own body did exactly what I’ve been teaching about. It hit its limit and shut everything down.

Turns out, I needed a sensory break too.