For me I once had a span of 5-7 days or so where I would to go sleep really early (around 8 pm) take a few hours to be able to fall asleep (despite extreme tiredness), finally manage to, wake up half an hour later, be up for half an hour, go to sleep, wake up in half an hour, repeat a couple more times, and usually get up at around 4 am because I couldn’t sleep anymore. All throughout my eyes would hurt so badly and I was so insanely tired, especially a few days into it all. 10/10 wouldn’t recommend.
Tuesday, or Wednesday morning technically, I took a break and was listening to an audiobook with my eyes closed at around midnight and for some reason, I decided to pause the book and continue with my eyes closed ... I don't know how I didn't expect to fall asleep, but I woke up at 3 (am) something and was like oh no, and stayed awake from then till over 4:30 am Thursday morning.
I was tired before, but at night, I wasn't, I had too much energy. I had too much energy, and my brain wouldn't turn off either, so I couldn't sleep. (This is normal for me bc of ADHD, often I can't sleep at all bc I have too much energy). So I'm stuck being awake and can't focus or sit still either, my brain feels like it doesn't work (again normal bc of ADHD when I'm not on my meds or hyperfocusing) so I can neither be productive, nor sleep, and it's 1 in the morning. And when I go to sleep when I'm not tired and manage to sleep, I end up sleeping through EVERYTHING, and couldn't afford that. Anyways, at around 4:30 am (I was awake for 25 hours plus straight in a row) I was really tired so I went to sleep. Note: at this point, I was kinda worried about sleeping, because I would have to wake up early anyways, I had a meeting to go over my resume 9:30 - 10, couldn't sleep thru it, also wanted to shower and everything before obv, and had a ton to do besides that as well. I ended up waking up panicking at 5:05 am bc I was worried about how I would get into the meeting or how to register or if there was a portal and stuff like that, so I ended up sleeping less than half an hour. It was just a zoom call, there was nothing to worry about. I couldn't sleep again after than, and I felt fine (happy, high energy) like normal around 7 anyways, this usually happens, even if I'm tired, I get back to high energy anyway after a while.
Anyway I don't know when I went to sleep Thursday night, I think around 9 or 10, but I know for a fact for at least 40 hours straight (since 3 smth am Wednesday) I had only had prob less than half an hour of sleep
Idk if that's the worst, days with not being to sleep at all bc of too much energy, and weeks with multiple all-nighters, weeks sleeping only 3 - 4 hours everyday have happened too. I used to not be able to sleep bc I didn't know what to do with my arms I had to move them, but now I sleep with a blanket even when it's hot so I can hug it and with an extra pillow to hug, because otherwise I can't sleep bc I don't know what to do with my arms. Weirdly I don't need to hug smth to sleep anymore, but that problem I had since elementary school