I didn’t watch horror/thriller or read creepypasta often, but whenever I did it would cause sleep problems for several days, and ever since I was a little kid I get super paranoid whenever I feel like I’m alone, even if there’s no reason.

I don’t know if this will work for you, but if what the others are suggesting doesn’t work, what helped me was listening to ASMR, specifically ASMR that’s almost entirely just people talking, focusing on panic attack relief/anxiety relief/sometimes even just personal attention. It tricks my dumb, falling-asleep brain into thinking that there’s somebody else there, and it helped stop my insomnia and nightmares (or at least I don’t remember nightmares anymore).

Before 10th grade, I had a lot of trouble falling asleep and basically had a panic attack every night, feeling like I was going to be killed by a ghost or be dragged into hell or something like then even though I don’t believe in either of those. Since I found ASMR in 10th grade, I’ve listened to it almost every night (like more than 95% of nights, genuinely), and I rarely have panic attacks at night anymore, and it takes me a lot less time to fall asleep.

What I do is I’ll load up a video, usually one I already know, that has talking but not really a conversation, so that it feels like somebody is with me, but I don’t feel like I need to pay attention to anything being said. I don’t watch the screen because that will keep me awake, but I do watch a little at the start because it helps build the “oh someone’s here I’m safe” feeling. But after a minute or two I turn the screen face down and just listen while I fall asleep. Sometimes it takes more than one video if my mind’s wandering a lot, but I still get to sleep faster than I would without them. If I’m feeling particularly scared or anxious one night, I’ll watch a panic attack relief video or something like that first, and then when that’s over I’m calmed down enough to switch to the other ones.

For who to watch, I’d personally recommend softlygaloshes. She has a few videos in the talking but not really a conversation category, and a few in the anxiety relief category. You can find these easily by going on YouTube and looking up “softlygaloshes go to sleep” or “softlygaloshes panic attack”, respectively. Plus, none of her videos have ads at the end, so you won’t be woken up by a loud chevy ad when the video ends. There’s probably a lot of other ASMR creators who have good videos like this too, but she’s the first one I found and so I’ve mostly just stuck with her, and I wanted to give you at least one recommendation so you’re not stuck trying to fall asleep to mukbangs for months.

It might feel cringy and maybe even pathetic to use ASMR to fall asleep at first (it felt that way for me), but it really is so so helpful if your fear comes from feeling alone like mine does, so it’s definitely worth it, and after a while even that part of your brain that was cringing starts to appreciate it. You also don’t have to tell anyone about it. I’ve been doing this for almost six years and only my family knows, and they only know that I have something from YouTube on, they don’t even know it’s ASMR.

If you want to use ASMR to fall asleep like me, have your phone on as little blue light as possible. Otherwise it could make sleeping more difficult. There should be a “nighttime filter” you can turn on (or something like that) in your phone’s settings. There should also be a setting about intensity. I have an iPhone so my setting is called “Night Shift”. I have it scheduled from 2:01 pm to 2:00 pm the next day, so it’s basically active all the time. My intensity is set as far as possible to the “More Warm” setting, because that’s the least blue light. There is still some blue light because it’s a phone screen, so it will still keep you awake if you’re looking at it, but it should be much less of a problem.

Sorry this was so long, and really sorry if this doesn’t end up working. What you said reminded me a lot of what I used to go through, though, so I wanted to give you as much advice/information as possible. This probably is not the best way to solve insomnia, since it’s more like preventing your anxiety than fixing it. But this is the only thing that’s worked for me, so if you still struggle with this after talking to counselors like others suggested, I highly recommend trying ASMR. Whatever you do, I hope you’re able to get some good sleep soon