I wake up really confused for a second when I accidentally sleep with my contacts in. I can’t help but think how weird it is that Regular People experience seeing everything clearly first thing, every morning.

There is something really terrifying to me about the moments right before you fall asleep and I wonder if Regular People feel that way too. I have never liked those moments. When I was really young, my parents used to always find me asleep with all the lights on in my bedroom and my glasses falling off my face and the book I had obviously fallen asleep reading underneath my pillow. I am very scared of waiting alone in the dark for sleep to come.

I’ve had bouts of insomnia that have lasted for months where I’d have to experience those horrible last moments for hours and multiple times throughout the night. I would call friends in California before going to bed, hoping their energy in a time zone three hours behind would exhaust me in some way, but I never wanted those conversations to end.

Anytime I told anyone about the insomnia they would ask me if I was feeling stressed. I got really impatient with that question because I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t stressed. My natural state is just pure hysteria. I think everyone should be more concerned if I’m ever calm.

The other day I woke up and felt that dreaded Loneliness. I was more irritated that I was experiencing it than I was sad. I think I even said “ugh I feel lonely” out loud to be dramatic, even though I was alone in my room and my sheets were twisted around my legs and when I checked the time it was 2:51am—and I know the exact time because I wrote a note to myself in my phone that said “I feel like I’m messing up in every possible way?????” and the timestamp is there as proof.

But I think my period is coming (every month it’s a surprise!) and that’s when I get the most moody, so I think I just really admitted it out loud (the feeling lonely) so that it would get out of my head and then once I heard myself say it, I could blame it all on hormones.

But also I haven’t seen a therapist since I graduated college, so I also think I might’ve admitted it out loud so that it would get out of my head and then once I heard myself say it, I could blame it all on a lack of dopamine in my brain.

But also someone recently told me that I should be drinking more water, so I spent some time lying in bed and wondering if maybe that was it.

I’m now sleeping for 10 hours a night. At least. Not as, like, part of some health kick. Suddenly my brain became ready to sleep and now enjoys two hour naps again—so sometimes I am literally unconscious for half a day exactly. And although I’ve been told I look healthier and I seem more alert and I’m not falling asleep at my desk and I don’t feel like screaming when I wake up, I’m still feeling things I don’t like.