Some nights, mental illness wreaks havoc on my sleep. Tonight is one of those nights.

I’m writing this at 2.53am, absolutely wide awake and totally unable to get to sleep.

My mind is racing with intrusive thoughts. It’s frustrating because I know that I’m happy – I recently met and fell in love with my soulmate and I’ve been a loved-up, blithering idiot for a while now – but mental illness is no respecter of happiness.

Tonight, as I sit here knowing very well that my life is more stable than it has been in years, I’m still plagued by scary thoughts that won’t leave me alone.

So I thought I’d write about it. I don’t really have much to say, apart from that mental illness is a bitch, and it doesn’t matter how happy you are or how well things are going, it can still strike.

It probably doesn’t help that I’m trying to quit smoking. Normally when I feel like this, I’ll chain-smoke and it will calm me down in a way that vaping just doesn’t.

I know everything is going to be okay – I just have to get through tonight. There are great things ahead of me, even if my mind doesn’t want to accept that right now.

My brilliant, sweet, wonderful man has been encouraging me to get back into writing poetry, so maybe I’ll try to do some of that tonight. I might as well make use of the time.

It’s 3.08am. Only a few hours until the sun comes up and it’s a whole new day. I can do this.

Do you suffer from poor sleep due to mental illness? What helps you get through sleepless nights? Let me know in the comments.

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