Have you ever not been able to sleep the night before a big day? You try your hardest to shut your eyes and allow yourself to relax, but your mind continues to race full of anxiety, excitement, and nerves. After hours of this, you are in complete agony because the biggest thing that you actually need to successfully tackle the big day is the one thing that you can’t seem to accomplish: sleep. A couple of nights like these throughout your life are not something to fret over. However, have you ever had this happen multiple days in a row for multiple weeks of multiple months over the span of years? I have.

We all know that sleep is a very vital part of good health. I often get a lot of questions about my poor sleeping habits. Why don’t you sleep? What do you do with all that time? There are many reasons that people simply can't sleep at night. It could be the result of medicine, loud neighbors, or an uncomfortable bed. Sometimes, though, it runs so much deeper than that. Personally, I just can't shut my mind off. I stare up at the ceiling and think. I think far too much than any human being should be capable of thinking. I replay moments, decisions, and situations in my life that have happened not only yesterday but years ago. I play the "what if" game and I think about every single way I could've changed every single scenario, sin, and mistake. I literally torture myself resulting in the most earth-shattering anxiety.

Another reason that people don't fall asleep is fear. Some are so afraid of not waking up in the morning that they simply can't bring themselves to even close their eyes. Others, like myself, suffer from realistic, heartbreaking nightmares. Images of the people I love getting hurt or trying to hurt me flood my brain when I am unconscious. I only dream a couple of times a month, but it's enough to make me terrified of what the night's sleep will bring and the emotional trauma to follow.

I'm sure that people often wonder what I do at all hours of the morning. Sometimes I feel that they think that I'm like Max from Where the Wild Things Are, Wendy Darling from Peter Pan, or Boo from Monsters Inc. and when everyone else is asleep I'm off having these outstanding adventures that everyone should be jealous of. Let's get one thing straight here: there's no adventure.

Another misconception is that I get a leg ahead on things because with all of my extra time I am able to get so much accomplished. Very rarely does anything productive occur when I am experiencing insomnia. I'm not saving the world or getting extra school work finished. I'm tossing and turning in bed in absolute agony just wanting so badly to fall asleep. Most nights it gets to the point that the tears make an appearance and I start bawling out of pure frustration because the mental and physical exhaustion is so great, but not great enough to counter my inability to actually sleep.

So no, I am not Wendy Darling running off to Neverland with Peter Pan at night to hang out with the Lost Boys and fight Captain Hook. I am just a girl, all alone at night, who is hanging out with her demons and attempting to fight her own personal villains. As someone who has suffered from insomnia for a long time, take it from me: insomnia is exhausting both literally and figuratively. Before you start asking someone questions about why they don't sleep, be careful. You don't know the demons that come out to haunt them at night. We just want the thoughts to shut off. So if you've ever wondered about our "secret life," there you have it. I wish that we were having adventures with the Wild Things or hanging out with Sully and Peter, but really we are victims to a terrifying imagination that is all our own when everyone else is sleeping safe and sound.