Another sleepless night. An hour and a half, awakened by a feeling of a touch at my feet. I could not go back to sleep. It's almost 6:30 AM, I've been sitting here since 2:30 AM. How can someone continue to go on and not sleep?

I know and can remember as a child, at least at age 10 through High School, sleep was something that I fought. Trying to keep one eye always open, one eye watching and waiting, one eye on guard for who would come. One eye open ready to escape and run if we needed to. One eye needing to know where everyone was. One eye did the sleeping....one eye awake.

All my adult life, sleep has been something that seems to elude me. How does one function, keep going without sleep? Night after night the hours seems to tick by, sometimes I can fall asleep when the morning light breaks, sometimes I can fall asleep knowing someone safe is in the other room, but it doesn't last. Maybe some nights I am sleeping but running in my mind that it feels I have not slept when I do awake.

I feel afraid to sleep. I have always been like this.

This morning, I happened to fall asleep at a little after 1:00 AM, but restless and running inside. Sleep didn't last, and I should be tired. I should be. Normal people sleep. Normal people don't sit up all night long. Normal people------I'm not normal. Never have been.

Did I train my mind so well as a child, always needing and having to stay alert and awake? Did when I was deprived sleep and made to stay awake or punishment came make it so that now I don't need sleep and can still function throughout a day. Still come across as strong, in control, and okay? Is it me that really is the one able to do this or is another part of me stepping up and I don't even realize it?

At times I feel myself as though I am above myself, or at a distant, yet know there are others around. I can hear conversations as though miles away. I feel myself looking at someone but yet they seem far away. Sometimes I feel so silent as if I am afraid to be known that I exist or am there at all. Sometimes the more silent I get, the smaller I feel, the less I am seen; and the less I am seen, the less anyone has to know I am there or care. No one can hurt me if I am not there.

I know I am exhausted, but when does sleep come, when does my mind stop running? When do the memories stop? Is it when I stop being? Breathe-----

It's 7:00 AM, the world is awaking around me. I have to be okay and function as though I am okay and strong. The world does not need someone that is not strong. Always strong, no matter what, always be strong. There is nothing else acceptable. But deep within, no one knows how much I am falling to pieces. Pieces so small, so broken, I fear they will never be fixed or fit together again. Pieces of a person no one could ever care about, ever want to be around or even know.

This scares me so much that its one secret no one will ever know or see. Strong.............breathe.....