How do I carry this much responsibility and still sleep?
You have too many cases and not enough hours. That part is true and you cannot wish it away. What you can control is smaller than the whole weight you're carrying — it's the next hour of work, done well. Here is the trap: you think staying awake with a case proves you care. It doesn't. It just makes you worse at the next case. The person's freedom was already decided by the facts, the law, and your best judgment. Replaying it at 2am adds nothing but exhaustion. You are not carrying this alone, or you shouldn't be. A team exists so that no single person holds every case in their chest all night. Use it. Say the case out loud to someone else. Let the weight move from your private mind into shared daylight, where it belongs.
You cannot control what happens to the people in your cases. You can only control how well you prepare, how honestly you weigh the facts, and when you stop for the night. Do the work in front of you. Then set it down — carrying a decided case back to bed changes nothing about it.
What changes unlock by starting
- You stop replaying decided cases at night because you have a place to put them during the day
- You know the difference between what you controlled and what you didn't in each case
- Your team carries the weight together instead of each person carrying it alone
- You keep making careful decisions without the private toll it used to take