I am an insomniac. A person who struggles with insomnia. It is something I have been experiencing for years and I still have not found a miracle cure to solve it. I have no quick fix for the sleepless nights and exhausted days. It's a constant battle I face every day. But despite the fatigue I feel, I still try to live my life the best I can.

If you ask me, insomnia is often overdramatized, sometimes even romanticized. For most people, it is a mystery that you are simultaneously tired and unable to sleep. It captures the imagination of some. It conjures up images of tossing and turning, lying awake at night, yawning through the day. Maybe even reading late into the night by lamplight, blissfully unaware of the world around you, or sitting on the porch as the sun rises with a hot cup of tea and pondering the many mysteries of the world. While all those things are part of what insomnia is all about (at least for me), it is mostly about living each day with the impossibly uncomfortable paradox of being both extremely exhausted and unmistakably awake.

Sometimes it seems like sleep is so obvious to others. They go to bed and within minutes they are gone. But for me, that's not the case. Struggling with chronic insomnia doesn't make me excited about the night; it makes me anxious about it. My stress level rises as my nightly routine comes to an end. Until, inevitably, I am faced with trying to sleep. Ironically, one of the things that keeps many people with insomnia trapped in the cycle of insomnia during sleep time is the fear of knowing they are having trouble sleeping. The worrying that I'm not going to be able to sleep that; the looking at the clock, watching the hours tick away. The questions that pop into my head, "If I fell asleep now, how many hours would I get? Will that be enough? Will I be too exhausted to function tomorrow?"
Descending into the painful knowledge that sleep deprivation is a terrible thing, and the shame of just not being able to do something so normal, natural and necessary.

I know it's important to give my body and mind the rest they need. So I try to find other ways to relax and unwind. But despite all my efforts, insomnia remains a constant struggle. It affects my mood, my energy level and my ability to concentrate. But I persevere. I know that life can be difficult at times and that we all struggle with something. For me, that is insomnia.