All my life I have had trouble sleeping. When I was about 6 or 7ish I remember being scared to fall asleep because I was scared I wouldn't wake up. I think this fear is perhaps what started my sleep troubles. As a very young child I used to stay up late in my parents bedroom as everyone in the house slept and I watched nick at night back when it used to play the patty duke slow late at night rather than fresh prince. In high school I started taking sleeping pills to fall asleep and caffeine pills to wake up in the morning. I've always had difficulties around going to sleep. I can't count all the times I have been the last one awake in any situation. My mom likes to call me the "rat of the house'' because I used to be making noise in my room till very late.

I am now 26 and live on my own. I get anxiety around the thought of laying in bed with all the lights off. I have the worst time falling asleep. I lay down and close my eyes and all of a sudden all these horrible images flow through my mind and keep me from sleeping. Sometimes I get anxiety from it and sometimes I just cry. I can lay there for hours and just lay there in the dark waiting for sleep to take me. The thing is once I do fall asleep I end up having lots of nightmares. Not every night but enough to make me know this is common. I dream that people are trying to kill me and I am fighting for my life. So it's fair to say my sleep isn't very restful. In the mornings though I find it so hard to wake up. When I wake up even after a full nights sleep (which may start at 5 am when I can finally sleep and go to on for 8 hours) I still feel like death. I feel so tired. I never wake up feeling refreshed. I drag through the day. I went to a therapist she said I was suffering from Depression and Insomnia. I was also recently diagnosed with thyroid disease (Hashimoto) which I know sleep disturbances are a symptom of but my levels came out fine as far as TSH and T4 was only slightly high so my doctor said I should be fine. I am so confused and frustrated. I want to be able to sleep people don't understand and I always feel like people are judging me over it. What is wrong with me? Is my therapist right could it be insomnia? or is it something else?