I caught myself – it was only a split second – but I caught myself thinking- or was it a feeling?- yes almost a feeling. It was such an internalized thought that it was almost a feeling…I caught myself feel-thinking, somewhere in the back of my head, almost unnoticeable but I did notice it because I have a trained muscle for that.

So I caught myself having a sort of pondering that “Maybe, after all, one day, I will be OK and able to live up the requirements.”
Whose requirements?
It didn’t clarify that question.
It said: “One day, through all my hard work and self improvement, I might be able to actually sleep through the night and function like a normal person and be no burden to anybody.”

I can see it now. Here the circle closes: I do not sleep because I have to be OK, better than I am, much better.
How to be that much better and therefore OK?
By sleeping through the night. Be done with the insomnia; be done with other unwanted behavior and be perfect.
But I don’t sleep because I am scared I can’t live up to that requirement.
Whose requirement again? Oh, not my own. It is ingrained in me, it is an issue from the past.
Who again made me think I had to be so much better as a person?
What do I actually think of it myself? If I use my own grey-cells what then is my own personal conclusion?

I am working hard – I am trying to take others into account – I try to not let everything be about me but we all have a lot on our plates these days – I am doing my utmost best, so I actually am very much OK right now.

I do not have to aim at the future for being OK. I am good enough!!!

Let this sink in slowly into your tortured self-esteem.
Stop working your butt off until you feel-good-about-yourself. Stop “feeling-ABOUT-yourself.”
Sense your self, be your body, be and think with your own mind and embrace your own emotions and know that
“You are OK at this very moment.”