Just another day just another night terror

Blair McPherson

You are an office worker. Your day begins at the same time every morning and ends uneventfully back in bed at the same time every night. During the day you follow the same routine. You drive to work along the same route, you interact with the same people in the office, you receive more emails than you send, you go for lunch at the same time, at the same place, you sit in your favourite spot by the window, you carefully study the menu, briefly consider today's special but always order the same. Some times you order a second cappuccino. You read the news paper. The afternoon is a repeat of the morning. You leave the office at the same time every night to avoid the traffic, listing to the same radio show although some times you turn it off if there is some dreadful person on the "phone in" and you play some of your music. Your work colleagues would probably be surprised at your choice of music just as they would be shocked to know what happens when you fall asleep. You suffer from what the doctors refer to as night terrors. To an observer you are having a violent and disturbing nightmare, you shout out and thrash about, it's why you sleep alone. Of course you can remember non of this you know of it through your wife's description. It may explain why you wake up feeling tired some mornings and why your left leg or right arm feels stiff and why you walk down the stairs like some one who has run a marathon the day before.

You wonder if your night terrors have anything to do with work? Are you acting out some violent fantasy, getting your own back on those who spent all day adding to your frustrations, making your job more difficult, being unmoved by rational arguments or simply being incompetent? Or in these night terrors are you the victim rather than the aggressor subject to even more unreasonable demands, unrealistic time scales, unfair judgments and a tsunami of emails?

www.blairmcpherson.co.uk

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