I (22M) already have massive problems with insomnia and my sleep in general. But lately I just don’t want to go to sleep. I have nightmares all the time, horrible shit about being powerless, getting chased, being a kid again and reliving past traumas or equally believable traumas that never actually happened, I’ve died multiple times in dreams, I even had a dream about Freddy fucking Krueger once, although admittedly that one scared me more after I woke up and thought about the implications of that.

It’s just fucking horrible though, every time I close my eyes to try to rest, my brain can just cook up any number of horrific experiences and there’s literally nothing I can do about it. 

Even when I don’t have nightmares, I have dreams about shit that just leaves me empty and depressed when I wake up the next day. 

Last night I had a dream about I girl, used to be my best friend but she saw me at my worst, most unstable points which probably took a toll on the friendship, add to that the fact that I fell in love with her and she didn’t feel the same way and you can probably guess that we don’t talk anymore. It’s been 2 years. I still can’t get her out of my head, but I’m doing everything I can to move on. But last night I dreamt that she reached out to me. She told me she wanted to visit me and I was confused by it so I asked her why? She was being kinda flirty and I stopped her and asked her what the fuck? She said she always liked me but she didn’t want to start a relationship with me until I fixed some of my shit. She said she saw photos on my social media that showed my gym progress and seeing how I’d worked on my body and hearing I’d improved other things too made her want to come back to me. I was so fucking happy. I can’t even fucking remember the last time I was so ecstatic in real life. And then I woke up.

Why the fuck does my brain feel the need to put me through that? Remind me of a girl I’ve been working so fucking hard to let go? Give me exactly what I want only to tear it away? And that’s on the nights where it’s not just straight up trying to terrify the fuck outta me.

Does this ever go away? Or is my brain just cursed to continue torturing me in my sleep as well as when I’m awake?