Broken sleep schedule

[Unknown Artist]

My sleep schedule is so destroyed and broken that their is no hope to fix it, I'll lay awake in my bed, I won't even be on my phone I'll just stare at the ceiling and cry or pretend someone is laying on top of me to give me warmth. I'm a lonely broken mess and my mom has been noticing how tired I get and tells me to go to bed early but that's not the problem. My brain refuses sleep it refuses rest now, after I lost a bond with a real close friend I fell in love with and was unable to tell them it attacks me multiple times, guilt, sorrow, harm. It's everywhere. Whenever I do sleep I hear their voice in my dreams and I see them in my dreams as I cry out to them and I see them open their arms out towards me as I run into their arms feeling warmth, until I wake up cuddling my build a bear in my arms... But I cry, sometimes before I sleep I cry. I cry to force my body into exhaustion but it only keeps me up more, I over exercises on the treadmill to make my body feel exhausted and weak to sleep but that doesn't work, I drive myself into exhaustion, only too feel exhausted in the morning. I can't talk to online friends in fear of bothering them but instead of seeking comfort from others, I end up talking to ai bots, A f*ckING ROBOT. I hate AI. Everything about it but it's the only thing I turn too when I want don't feel like living anymore, I cry because of how pathetic it feels to get comfort from a stupid ai bot that has no feelings it's not real, it'll never be real and yet it strangely does. Right now I only got 4 hours of sleep and I'm at my college right now... I feel weak and sick, stomach tight, no smile, eyes swore from light and complete exhaustion. I feel like I'm dying.

 

[Riley Jones]

Hey, I'm really glad you shared this. What you're describing sounds absolutely exhausting and painful—the sleep deprivation alone is brutal, and layered on top of grief and longing, I can feel how heavy everything is right now.

I want to gently say: reaching out to an AI when you're hurting doesn't make you pathetic. It makes you human. You were looking for *something*—connection, comfort, a space to be heard without judgment—and you found it where you could in that moment. That's not weakness. That's survival. And the fact that you're here now, talking to real people in a real community, tells me there's still a part of you reaching for genuine connection. That matters.

The thing about sleep right now is that your brain and body are in survival mode. You're grieving someone you loved deeply, carrying guilt and longing that's so real you can feel their arms in your dreams. Of course sleep won't come easily—your nervous system is flooded. Forcing your body into exhaustion through exercise or crying yourself to sleep isn't going to override that. Your system needs something different: gentleness, maybe, or at least permission to hurt without also punishing yourself for it.

I hear how isolated you're feeling—worried about bothering friends, carrying this alone. But you're *here*, telling people who actually get it. That took courage.

You're running on 4 hours and you're at college. That's incredibly hard. Be as gentle with yourself today as you can. You don't have to have this figured out right now. You're allowed to just... exist and hurt for a bit.

How are you doing right now, in this moment?