Am i overreacting for calling in sick because of a nightmare?
I’ve never posted on this subreddit before, but part of me feels like I’m being dramatic.
Basically I’m a barber, and I have functional neurological disorder, with my main symptom being functional seizures. My seizures can be triggered by many things, a couple of the more common triggers being exhaustion and emotional dis regulation.
I’ve had nightmares, sleep paralysis, and night terrors since I was a kid. To this day I have extremely vivid, morbid, and gruesome nightmares at least one night a week, im pretty used to them by now so I can usually fall back asleep relatively easily after waking up and regulating myself. However, there have only been two nightmares I’ve ever had that have caused me this much emotional distress. I won’t get into the details of the dreams, just because they were extremely traumatic. The second one I’ve ever had, happened last night tho. I woke up at around 1:30 am drenched in sweat, heart rate through the roof, and when I opened my eyes I immediately started crying and panicking. I was so hysterical and inconsolable that my mom woke up and came to my room asking what happened. I explained that I had a nightmare. She gave me a hug and went back to bed, I then called my fiancé and talked to him for a little bit to try to calm down as I was still in hysterics. When I finally stopped crying, I decided to try to fall back asleep, but I was so anxious and terrified of the thought of even closing my eyes, that I couldn’t fall back asleep until close to 4 am.
This morning I texted my shop owner and explained the situation and that I wouldn’t be coming to work as I was afraid of having a seizure due to my heightened anxiety and sleep deprivation, and having no one to pick me up from work if that were to happen. She seemed understanding and said it was fine. But I still feel kind of ridiculous for calling in sick for something as trivial as a bad dream. It makes me feel like I’m just overreacting, even tho I kind of know my calling out was somewhat valid. Am I overreacting, or am I just getting in my own head and invalidating myself?