My difficulties with sleep stretched back to childhood, when I would put on a movie to pass the time – until I watched the children’s animated film and it made me drop off straight away
I
have never been good at silence. When it’s quiet, my brain fills the gap with racing thoughts. It wasn’t until lockdown, when I was 27, that I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism, but looking back it made sense: the fidgety teenage nights, the late-night TV marathons, the constant need for background noise.
As a kid, my insomnia was brutal. When I couldn’t sleep, all I wanted to do was get up and do something, but I shared a room with my sister so I just had to lie there, still and frustrated. I found our workaround: TV. My sister and I would put films on at night to soften the atmosphere and fill the silence.
Our childhood home was quite unstable and we were left alone a lot, so TV became our bedtime white noise. By my teens, it had become routine: I would pick a film, then watch it night after night for a week or two until a new one took over. Films such as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and The Breakfast Club were particular favourites. But they weren’t a fail-safe solution, and my sleeping issues persisted.
