I read that most insomniacs are people who go to bed when they aren’t sleepy.
When I began reading I assumed this was coming from a person who has not really suffered insomnia. Real insomnia (chronic sleep deprivation) is very hard to deal with. It's not like trying to go to sleep when you're not tired. It's like being so tired that your brain is "buzzed" and your body cannot fall sleep... you just continually get more and more tired stretching you thinner and thinner. It is absolute torture.
Exactly. I don't suffer from chronic insomnia, but I occasionally go through bouts of difficulty sleeping, and my experience is exactly like you describe. I am completely exhausted, my brain "hurts" (by which I mean any form of input, whether that be reading, computer/tv, music, audio books, etc are all too much to handle), I'm uncomfortable and restless but also too tired to get up, etc. Not to mention that after an hour or two of this, the anxiety starts to kick in (especially if you have anything important the next day), which if uncontrolled makes things much worse in a hurry.
Describing it as going to bed when you aren't sleepy is almost insulting. Thankfully in my case it's relatively rare, but I've seen enough to know that chronic insomnia can't be far from living hell.
When I began reading I assumed this was coming from a person who has not really suffered insomnia. Real insomnia (chronic sleep deprivation) is very hard to deal with. It's not like trying to go to sleep when you're not tired. It's like being so tired that your brain is "buzzed" and your body cannot fall sleep... you just continually get more and more tired stretching you thinner and thinner. It is absolute torture.