I have lived with insomnia for eight years now. I was diagnosed my freshman year of high school, and have lived through eight years of classes, extra-curriculars, jobs and managing a social life, most days on four hours of sleep or less.

All of my close friends understand my situation and are as helpful and supportive as they can be with my insane sleeping (or not sleeping) schedule, but introducing acquaintances to the real life struggles of insomnia sometimes feels near to impossible.

Yes, I have tried melatonin.

Yes, I have tried exercise before bed.

Yes, I have tried giving up screens an hour before sleep.

Yes, I have even tried acupuncture.

It's frustrating to sit through this repetitive round of questions while people try to fix my insomnia. Activities that make a normal person tired do not make me tired, that's the point. Trust me, I have tried everything. I have been on seven different sleeping medications in the past eight years. As an insomniac, my body gets used to each medication after about a month or two and then stops working all together. I go from taking one pill, to two pills, to three and then I'm up to 100 mg and still up until six in the morning.

Insomnia is not, "I pulled an all-nighter last night."

Insomnia is not, "I haven't been sleeping well this week."

Insomnia is not, "I was up until like three in the morning last night."

Insomnia is something that I have been diagnosed with. It is not, "sometimes I have trouble sleeping." Please realize that your friends with insomnia live with it every day. Imagine "I was up until like three in the morning last night" every single night. Then getting up at seven am. Then pulling a fourteen hour day between school and work. Every day. For years.

In addition to the lack of sleeping schedule, if you add anxiety, depression or eating disorders to this diagnoses, things can get even more insane. When you have a particularly anxious spell, this can mean being up for forty eight hours +. Instead of just the horror that already is being awake for hours, now you're worried and anxious about a trillion different things. Insomnia gives you a lot of time to be alone with yourself. With depression many people find comfort in sleep because it takes away from that alone time. With insomnia, all you get is alone time, and this can lead to some pretty rough times for someone with depression. That alone time also gives you time to get hungry when other people aren't. If you eat at six pm and are still awake at three am, you're going to be hungry again. This can lead to over eating, binging, and purging for someone with and ED.

I have lived with this condition and made it work. There are definitely times where it dies down and I get a schedule underway. The really bad times come and go. But please, be sensitive to your insomniac friends. You can still express to me that it was hard to sleep last night, I feel you. But don't call it insomnia.

I have a wonderful support system of friends and family that will make me tea at night even though they know it probably won't help, that bring me coffee in the middle of a long day at work, and understand that if I sleep during the day it is not because I am lazy.

Educate yourself and be there for your insomniac friends! Be there for them as best as you can, and forgive them for being grumpy or exhausted, including me!