Not sleeping is horrible, and if someone has not experienced it chronically, they do not get it. My sleep doctor feels that aided sleep is better for your body and mind than no sleep and I concur. I had insomnia long before I ever took any medication for it - since childhood - physical and emotional abuse, mother giving me sweet strong iced tea at dinner every night, and so many other factors. I just don't think my developing brain learned how to sleep normally.

I also do all the behavioral hacks. I have tried all the natural supplements ad nauseam and they just don't help me. What did help was Klonopin, but it messed up my brain and I didn't even know this until 12 years later and they took it away. I did a 9 month taper, followed by 9 months of severe insomnia. I have just been given Lunesta, which I KNOW is a sleep med that may not be good for me, but I am sleeping now. It might be on and off, but is much better than NO sleep all night or exhausting myself into a few hours. I am finally dreaming again and feel like a normal person during the day instead of a zombie, avoiding people and any interactions. I have energy again - especially mental energy - to plan and execute tasks like grocery shopping and cooking, hobbies like birding and puzzling and what little "work" I do for my own business, I'm on it, instead of avoiding. If you need meds, you do. Doctors make me take my statin 3x a week, make me take my blood pressure meds - so why deprive me of sleep meds if my brain needs them to be a functioning human? When I was not sleeping at all, I would get out of bed in the am and say, "I cannot live like this" and I meant it. Now I live life.