My insomnia recovery story

I always considered myself to be a good sleeper. Being an anxious type in general, I could always rely on one thing: if I faced a problem or worry in life, I could always “sleep on it.”

In January 2020, it all changed.

I was going through antibiotic treatment for a skin condition when, on the third day, I had my first sleepless night. I was moving from bed to sofa and back, very puzzled. It had never happened to me. At that time, I hadn’t yet panicked; I was just bewildered.

I remember telling my colleagues the next morning like it was some wacky story: “Can you imagine I didn’t sleep at all last night? Not a wink!”

Thinking it was just a weird minor blip, I went to bed the next evening… and the same thing happened again – zero sleep. Now I got worried.

The first thing I did was Google. Pretty quickly, I stumbled upon sleep disruption as a possible side effect of the antibiotic treatment I was going through. It was a rare side effect, and apparently I was the “lucky one.”

But at least it made sense. I calmed down, and the next day I went back to my doctor and asked for a replacement medication. After that, I started sleeping normally again.

Until my business trip a couple of weeks later.

That night at the hotel, I started remembering those two weird nights, and I thought to myself: “I wonder if I can still lose my sleep?” And lo and behold, I had another sleepless night.

Going down the rabbit hole

Now that didn’t make sense. I was no longer taking the antibiotics – what was the problem?

“Could the pills have altered something in my brain, making me unable to sleep?” That’s when I started panicking and spiraled down pretty quickly.

I started having frequent all-nighters and often couldn’t sleep several nights in a row. My brain was on high alert and often would wake me just as I was about to fall asleep. I was desperate and thought I would never sleep again.

First, I went to my GP to see if something was physically wrong. After a general screening, my doctor didn’t find anything wrong, and in the notes she wrote: panic disorder. I didn’t take that label seriously.

So I went to a neurologist. She also examined me, finding nothing. She started asking me about my mood and appetite and eventually concluded: your insomnia is a symptom of an underlying depression – here’s a six-month course of antidepressants.

I was skeptical about that conclusion and prescription. Yes, I was anxious and depressed, but it was because I couldn’t sleep, not vice versa! So the idea that my insomnia was caused by depression didn’t sit right with me.

And so I went to my psychotherapist, whom I had been working with even before I started struggling with sleep. Even though the therapist didn’t actually help with my sleep problem, there’s one thing I’m grateful for – she doubted that depression was the source of it and carefully expressed that she wouldn’t begin antidepressant treatment, at least not yet.

So I was left with the mystery: nothing was physically wrong, but I was still unable to sleep.

That was maddening.

One day, after many nights when my brain didn’t want to let me sleep, I went to my GP again and asked for any prescription that would knock me down. She gave me sleeping pills and a benzo drug for severe anxiety. Wow… that’s my life now… I sadly thought. But I didn’t know what else I could do.

When I came home, I popped the pill while sitting on the couch, and the next thing I remember is waking up a few hours later in my bed – with no idea how I got there.

The search and the first glimmers of hope

I kept searching for solutions. We did EMDR with my therapist, I did some acupuncture, used blackout curtains, listened to sleep meditations, tried different breathing techniques, counted sheep, got myself drunk, used CBD, prayed, journalled, kept my bedroom cool and dark, stopped drinking coffee, avoided blue light, used melatonin, valerian root, chamomile tea, magnesium… and the list went on and on. Nothing worked.

I was on Google all the time, trying to find answers and feeling more desperate as time went by.

A couple of months later, my search somehow led me to the area of anxiety and panic disorders. As I read the descriptions, they named pretty much everything I had.

It started making sense. When we perceive danger, wouldn’t it be natural not to sleep at that time? I felt like I was onto something.

Learning more about my brain and anxiety started to make things a bit less mysterious. I started seeing a lot of resemblance between my insomnia and panic disorders (that’s when I remembered why my GP initially wrote “panic disorder”), phobias, PTSD and other forms of trauma.

As I felt a bit less scared, sleep also started changing, a tiny bit.

I was still dreadful around bedtime, thought about sleep 24/7, experienced all-nighters, had 4 a.m. meltdowns, and all the “beauty” of the insomnia experience.

My search led me to exposure therapies and CBT-I – and these were the first glimmers of hope.

Even though exposure alone and CBT-I weren’t what ultimately got me where I am today, they were stepping stones in my journey, and I’m grateful for that.

Around that time, I discovered The Sleep Coach School on YouTube, and I couldn’t believe that everything I had been gradually realizing in the previous weeks had already been summarized so nicely.

Changes begin

I started binge-watching the School’s YouTube channel and making the first changes. I reduced the amount of effort to protect sleep, and one of the first things was starting drinking coffee again. I was doing the opposite of what my anxious brain wanted me to do.

The education about insomnia and sleep anxiety was one of the missing pieces, and it contributed to my recovery process.

However, I must say: finding the resources alone didn’t rid me of insomnia. I still had to deal with that visceral fear that was there. Education and intellectual understanding were a big step, but they weren’t enough.

Sometimes I would slip back into panic and despair. I still had all-nighters from time to time.

But something was changing a little: how I reacted to them.

Even though I still experienced sleep anxiety and wakefulness, my attitude toward them was changing. I started becoming more engaged in life — doing things I thought I could no longer do normally: drinking coffee, making plans, meeting people, working.

Life started returning while the fear was still there.

It amazed me that almost no one knew what insomnia was. I’m sure my therapist worked with anxiety disorders on a daily basis, but it never occurred to her that the same principles could help me as well – and I don’t blame her or anyone else.

That’s why, a few months into recovery, I decided to write down everything I’d learned.

I started my Instagram page. It had a different name and the texts weren’t that good, but I just wanted to share what I was learning with others in case it helped someone.

And weirdly, some people started finding me and sharing their feedback. Apparently, the things I shared made sense to them, and they also started creating changes in their lives.

Pretty soon, I entered what I’d call a honeymoon period. Insomnia was gone completely.

I felt so confident, so happy that it was no longer a part of my life. I was traveling, meeting friends in the evening – with no traces of fear or sleeplessness.

And I thought: I finally figured it out! I beat my insomnia. I’m never going back there again.

Insomnia is back, recovery continues

Four months of pure bliss went by, and I truly thought that was the end of my recovery journey. But as you can sense, things were about to change.

One evening in September 2020, I started thinking about my recovery, feeling proud and a little bit cocky, and that was the first night when it took me longer to fall asleep.

At first, I told myself: Pfff, not a big deal! I will neutralize this in a few days – watch me!

The second night was similar, but I was still confident. Then the third night came. Now I got concerned – what’s taking me so long?

I started digging in more, and the anxiety kept growing.

And then I had an all-nighter – again. I thought I overcame those! What’s happening?

Other symptoms from the earlier days started to come back – my brain waking me up as I was falling asleep, racing heart, adrenaline rushes, rumination, hyperfixation and self-monitoring. It was all back.

I was devastated… and embarrassed. How could I go from thinking I was fully recovered to being back in the struggle?

This was the second chapter of my recovery process. I wasn’t done with the fear. Not yet.

There was still, apparently, lots of work to do. And that was a long period of navigating recovery.

In some ways, things were easier – I was not as panicked as I had been before, having already gone through those experiences. But in other ways, it was harder. The education used to put my mind at ease, so why doesn’t it work this time?

That was the most meaningful part of the recovery process, but it was slow, boring, often uneventful. I kept changing how I was responding to sleeplessness, to anxiety, and the way I treated myself.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the phase that was making my recovery more and more robust. It really taught me to release control over the outcome – and I had to fall on my knees many times. Every time I thought, I finally got it, I’d have the next sleepless night.

I started to realize: recovery isn’t about getting control over the nights, but being able to handle whatever the night may be. The more sleep confidence I thought I had, the stronger the fall felt.

So I started becoming more and more humble – slowly realizing there was nothing to “get”. Because sleep always comes on its own terms. And it’s only insomnia that makes us believe that we have some control over it.

The synonyms of insomnia became: control, pressure, perfectionism, rigidity, resistance.

The synonyms of recovery became: acceptance, letting go of control, imperfection, courage and flexibility.

That’s what I’d been learning.

A quiet ending

And here’s the interesting part: my insomnia ended with no big aha moment, no catharsis, no finish line. It ended quietly, boringly, as I simply started to outgrow the problem.

I no longer saw a point in chasing sleep and trying to control every aspect of the day and night – even if I did everything perfectly, insomnia would still checkmate me!

Insomnia became the game I couldn’t win by playing. The only way was to stop participating in the game.

It’s hard to do that. Because who doesn’t want to feel good and sleep well?

Releasing control at first felt risky to me, but eventually it was the sanest thing to do. And that’s how insomnia continued to lose its grip, and sleep started figuring itself out.

I didn’t bother with whatever night I had. On average, sleep was pretty much normal and ordinary, but even when it wasn’t, I was fine with that. I became more interested in living life than figuring insomnia out.

When I felt more grounded in my new humble, accepting attitude, I decided to share it with others. I wrote to Daniel Erichsen – the creator of The Sleep Coach School – with my story, and he offered me the chance to be a guest on his channel.

If you’re interested, you can watch my story here.

When I was sharing it, my recovery was pretty solid, but it wasn’t completely symptom-free. I would still at times get an anxious thought, an imperfect night, a bit of self-doubt.

But I kept remembering: fighting with that makes absolutely no sense.

So I kept embracing it. And the symptoms kept fading as I was no longer feeding the cycle.

Where I am today

As of now, 5 years later, my life has gone back to normal. In some ways, it’s better, because insomnia showed my other areas of life that worked on a similar principle.

I no longer experience sleep anxiety, and my nights look pretty much like they did before insomnia started. And I’m not talking about perfect, cookie-cutter nights. Perfect sleep simply doesn’t exist. Even before insomnia I used to experience choppy nights from time to time – I was just not obsessing over it.

There are zero strategies I deploy. I don’t have to maintain my recovery. Recovery became a philosophy I live by now.

I don’t worry about “losing the progress” – because truly, what am I going to lose if I never had control over my sleep in the first place?

I could write on and on about every detail of my story, but I hope this gives you a good idea of what I’ve been through.

And I hope my story and my work inspires others in a similar situation to keep going and not give up on themselves, because change is possible.

It’s not an easy journey and it’s not quick, but in my experience, it’s totally worth it.

If you’re just getting started, begin with the Recovery Essentials Guide.