I have read a lot of material on insomnia. In almost everything there is a statement along the lines of "at some point or other most adults experience sleepless periods".
I don't know who decides to keep writing this, but they miss the point of the hell that is insomnia. I have suffered from insomnia since birth. As a baby / toddler I suffered from glue ear and would spend most nights screaming and banging my head against a wall. I never developed a sleeping pattern. I don't know if this caused my insomnia, or if it was co-incidence, but I do know that I have never known a "normal" sleep pattern.
As far as I can tell, most people lie down in bed, and drift off, somehow shut down. Imagine (if you need to) that you lie down in bed and close your eyes, but apart from that your mind continues on as though you were standing up cooking tea. This is the best way I can describe my insomnia, very simply I don't know how to sleep. I do of course eventually fall asleep, and I wish I could identify what it is that I manage, but I can't.
The problem with this situation is that I am tired. so it becomes an itch that you can't scratch. It is well documented that this inability to sleep becomes self perpetuating, and as the frustration increases the odds of sleeping decrease. I have spent entire nights in this cycle, only to have to get up and continue with my life as though I'd had a full nights rest.
I tried to pretend to dream, fantasize if you will. I've tried just about everything I can think of, right now I'm writing this with a feeling in my eyes as though they are leg muscles after a marathon, but I know that while closing them will release the pressure on them, I won't sleep (I spent 6 hours today lying on my bed with my eyes shut).
This should mostly be familiar to everyone. We have, as the quote I mentioned at the start so obviously puts, all had sleepless nights. The difference is when this is not a bad day or week, but life.
I wonder at times whether I just don't need the sleep, and if I am in fact living a normal sleep pattern, and people always feel like this. I know that people that I explain to that I suffer from this, perceive it as having more free time than most people. Trouble is I choose to spend that time feeling knackered.
So back to the title... imagine insomnia to be a prison sentence of being caged in your own head, unable to escape and let your mind get the rest it needs. We can all cope with periods of this, but I've found that it gradually sucks the life out of you, and after 20 something years of this, I do get the feeling I can't go on.
