The other night, or maybe it was in the morning, or maybe it was while I was awake in a kind of

netherworld between night and morning, whenever it was, I had a thought.

I've been sleeping nearly every night of my entire life.

So why, with all this experience I have, doing this particular thing for several hours every night,

why do I seem to be getting worse at it?

What other skill in life can you practice for hours every day or night where you start to suck more?

And it was a depressive response, of course, blaming myself. Clinical depression,

the old Clinny D finds an opportunity for me to beat myself up, turning a complex thing,

and sleep is pretty complex, into a self-flagellation exercise. Now, I've dealt with insomnia on and off my whole life.

Even though I've never had it as bad as some people do, I hate it. It makes me feel powerless,

ashamed, scared, nervous, agitated. A lot of mental health symptoms there, really.

Thinking about insomnia gets me thinking, and that's part of the problem,

the constant thinking, but it gets me thinking about mental health conditions like anxiety,

depression, OCD, panic disorders. I see all sorts of overlap between what a sleepless brain

does and what happens with those conditions.

I hope this topic doesn't keep you up at night.

It's Depression Mode.

I'm John Moe.

I'm glad you're here.

Jen Sr. is a staff writer at The Atlantic.

She won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for feature writing,

the 2022 National Magazine Award for Feature Writing,

...