XWarriorPrincess, thank you for sharing your experience! I wouldn't wish these problems on anyone, but it really does help to know we're not alone

I'm so sorry to hear you've been having so much trouble sleeping. I've been the same the past couple of weeks. I just won't go to bed! It's really difficult to pinpoint what the issue is. I keep wondering if it's just me not wanting to stop whatever fun project I'm working on, or if it's something more sinister.

I do think that at the heart of it is my fear of my dad. As a child, I felt the threat of physical violence from him was imminent, and this caused me to go into survival mode where I'm always on high alert, waiting for the smack.. It's like the fear went right into my very core and I'm still unable to shake it decades later! I suppose that's pretty much the definition of PTSD.

Part of it may be me never learning to care whether I slept well or not. I feel sleep is such a sensitive thing and should be handled with kid gloves, but I just keep remembering all the fights between my parents that woke me up and kept me awake at night.

The whole routine of going to bed and trying to go to sleep stresses me out as well. For me, strangely, I think it's to do with perfectionism. I actually worry what other people will think of me if I 'don't get this right'! If I fail at sleeping. It's silly, but real!

When I was still living with my parents, there were a couple of recurring nightmares that I used to have. Once I got my own place, one of those nightmares changed so that what had been threatening me before now appeared in a cage, and I was telling an audience that it wouldn't hurt me anymore. It was quite incredible!

These days, I tend to have nightmares if I've seen something upsetting on the news, for example. While they can be so realistic I wake up terrified and sweaty, my therapist says it's actually the brain's way of working out what has happened during the day.

One sleep tip my therapist gave me was listening to lullabies when trying to fall asleep It feels weird doing it as an adult, but somehow really lovely, too. I was actually in tears the first couple of times I tried it as I just couldn't believe I would care about myself so much that I'd do it..

I do wish you the best of luck in getting some sleep soon! I'm practically falling asleep on the keyboard right now, but don't want to take a nap because then I'll stay awake all night again x(