Insomnia Unknown

Hi, my name is Liz and I am 28 years old. I have absolutely no idea if this is the correct place to be asking this question, but I'm hoping if it's not that at least someone can point me in the right direction.

I barely sleep, as is the case with a lot of people here I would imagine but I literally barely sleep. I go through these strange "waves" where I'll almost feel like a normal person, where I'm sleeping 6-7 hours a night and those are fantastic, but short lived usually about one week in roughly 3-6 months. On average I manage between 1-4 hours of sleep a night, and can usually expect 1-3 nights a week where I just never sleep at all. I am perpetually exhausted and my body will just stay in that cycle until it completely crashes and I end up falling asleep for roughly 18-24 hours and no amount of effort or noise can wake me up.

There is no consistency with this cycle, it is sporadic and inconveniently unpredictable. I've seen "sleep specialists" and neurologists for this problem which usually, after making me jump through the same hoops on repeat, leads to one of two results. Either they completely disregard me as a liar, or they give me a vacant stare and a "I don't know what's wrong with you." I've tried multiple avenues of treatment for this issue, light exposure, breathing exercises, meditation, medication (both over the counter and prescription), natural remedies, more energy expulsion throughout a day, less energy exerted throughout a day, staying awake to "reset" myself, cutting out caffeine, trying to drink more caffeine earlier in the day in attempts of crashing later in the day, I have attempted to change my diet. Every little thing that has been recommended to me throughout my life to try to sleep I have tried.

It doesn't matter how exhausted, or tired I am. I can be physically and mentally exhausted beyond a modicum of doubt and be so tired that I am in tears, and I still will not fall asleep. The longest I have ever stayed awake was a week and a half, I realize that most of you will probably think I'm lying but I don't know how to convince you otherwise. I was about fifteen years old at the time and did not go insane, or start hallucinating as is apparently supposed to happen. I did however experience blackouts, I wasn't falling asleep necessarily, at least, not in the conventional sense. I would simply be existing one moment and then not existing the next, when I would finally "exist" again it would be several minutes, or sometimes hours later. I finally broke down and told my mother how long it had been since I had slept and she made me an appointment to be seen by our family physician, which is what spurred my descent into the demoralizing medical ride that has led me to this point.

Another oddity about my "condition" is one that I realize doesn't sound good and for this one, yet again you'll just have to take my word for it. I adjust to medications insanely fast. I take a medication exactly one time and my body adjusts to it and it almost immediately starts to lose effectiveness, so all of those fancy pills that doctors like to give out to "fix" your problems don't work.

I could probably write a mini-book on the nightly hell that I go through, and the only people who really can verify my stories legitimacy are the people who have lived with me and experienced the odd hours of my being awake, catching me staring at walls because I've just been awake for too many days, or drinking various relaxing teas in hopes of a reprieve.

I'm not seeking treatment anymore, I gave up on that pipe dream a long time ago. I am however, imploring the medical community for answers. I can't be the only person who experiences insomnia on such a deeply debilitating level and someone somewhere has to have an idea of what is happening. I just want to know what the hell is wrong with me, because unsurprisingly so, I am tired.

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