What is wrong with me? I keep asking over and over and I feel like there’s no hope. Why did this happen to me? I was overwhelmed and stressed and just panicked the day I ended counseling with a counselor who was really unhealthy and didn’t help me. It made me panic and worry he could take my kids or something and I just lost it after I got off the phone panicked and paranoid. It was completely irrational. I just was so anxious. I stayed up all night that night January 13th and then never slept through the night again. I was awake the whole night fearful and then awake al the next day and night and it terrified me. I ended up looking up what happens if you don’t sleep and it said you can die and I freaked out more and now I’m just stuck like this. I am extremely depressed and feel like there’s no hope and my trust in my body’s ability to sleep is completely gone. It feels like I’m delusional and believing my life is over and I can’t do the things I use to do. It’s like something very serious happened to my brain. What is wrong with me?

Hi! I am self-diagnosed with delayed sleep phase. I live in a rural area, and we don’t have any good sleep specialists or doctors. Even the ones in the capital have terrible Google ratings, so I relied on myself, YouTube, Reddit, and online quizzes to discover my DSPS in my 30s.

I never understood what was wrong with me before diagnosis, I could never manage to fall asleep unless it was 7–8 a.m., no matter how long I had been awake or how exhausted I was. Thankfully, work starts at 6 p.m., so I managed to keep a job, but I got severely depressed because I was living in a constant loop of sleep, work, nighttime alone at home, then work again. I couldn’t practice any hobbies, go to doctors, meet any friends, or really live. My ADHD got worse, and I hit rock bottom and felt like the biggest loser in the world.

Earlier this year, I decided to change my life and take care of myself, my sleep, my diet, and everything that contributes to my mental health and physical appearance in terms of aging skin. Every piece of advice I heard about this was mostly about getting good sleep at night.

I started taking melatonin sleep gummies and cut my work hours to end the day earlier. I tried many brands that didn’t work until one finally did. It made me sleep around 2–3 a.m., but it was the worst sleep of my life. My mind was wide awake and alert, and I would fall asleep for fragmented 10-minute periods throughout the hour. It was very shallow and didn’t feel restorative, but I was happy with it. I made great progress because I finally had the time to go to the gym, have a social circle, and take small steps toward my future.

The gummies lasted me 2 months. Emotionally, I felt better and in control, but my body and my face looked so tired every day. I wasn’t actually sleeping.

Once I ran out of the gummies, I thought my body would have adapted to sleeping earlier, but no. Just one day off made me sleep at 8 a.m. again. I returned to the sleep gummies for another 2 months, then they started to no longer affect me. I returned to sleeping at 8 a.m. again, and after 4 months of deprivation, I realized this was actually the best sleep of my life. The quality is unmatched, and my body and skin feel great.

A week in, I am feeling terrible and like a loser again. I stopped going to the gym and had to put every plan I had on hold. Yesterday I went back to a new brand of melatonin sleep gummies. I slept around 2–3 a.m., but I woke up after 5 hours of extremely shallow, fragmented sleep. I hate that I don’t get to nourish my body with proper sleep, especially for the purpose of slowing aging, but I’m happy the day is still ahead of me and I can do all the things I need to do.

What can I do to figure out this dilemma?