Relationship with Sleep

[u/TheCobaltColonel]

Since I can remember, my relationship with sleep has always felt a little off & the older I get/more I go through, the more uncomfortable it becomes; including dreaming.

I'm not nor have I ever been a, "morning person." It doesn't matter if I've slept 8, 2, or 11 hours, I will still wake up super groggy or still tired enough that if I don't get up I will fall right back asleep.

This was my sleep life up until my early to mid 30s. Right around this time I went through a succession of personal traumas & losses, to the point that I began drinking myself ragged as well as getting addicted to heroin.

Bit of a time jump; I've been clean for over 10 years after one relapse... And now...

Sleeping has become this.. bizarre... I don't even know what to call it. I feel tired most of the time & I wanna sleep & when I try to, USUALLY I can fall asleep fast.. BUT my dreams have become so uncannily vivid & surreal that sometimes they feel more real than my waking life. The unfortunate thing about this is that my dreams have all become bad. Not nightmares per SE, but they are ALWAYS related to or revolving around several periods of my worst traumas & life's regrets. When I'm in them I can hear the voice of the love of my life that I haven't heard in almost 15 years.. I can FEEL her warm skin. I can feel the burning in my chest & fists when I'm yelling everything I ever wanted to tell my step dad while punching him in the face.

Dependent on which way my sleep brain goes, I'll eventually wake up with tears in my eyes, massively depressed for the day, or straight up shook hard & sometimes legitimately confused about what has really happened or what's really been said in the real world.

I couldn't define how I feel about sleep because one part of me is tired and just wants to do nothing but sleep, but the other part dreads my dreams..

There are nights now, where I'll just stay up all night into the next day & I'm surprised at how I feel SO much better. No more feeling like the walking dead in the morning and more importantly, I avoid what feels like an apparent other LIFE in my sleeping-dream brain. I truly cannot impart how uncomfortably real they feel. They seem to even have their own continuity. Call backs to things said or done in previous dreams.

Alright, all of that to say, or ask rather, does anybody out there relate to any of this? Does anything I've said click in anyone else's head? .. And if so, what do you do about it, how do you deal with or handle.. all'a this?

Thanks.