Why Can’t I Sleep—Even After Trying Everything?

Shaina was 29 when she reached out to me.

I could hear it in her voice before she even finished her first sentence—the desperation, the exhaustion, the quiet panic of someone who hasn’t slept in a very long time. We booked a discovery call for later that same day.

When she came on the screen, she looked put together. Makeup done. Hair styled. Wearing that Alo sweatshirt—you know the one everyone seems to own. If you didn’t know her story, you’d never guess anything was wrong.

But within minutes, the truth came out.

She hadn’t slept properly in three years.

Not “bad sleep.”

Not “on and off.”

Two years of barely a couple of hours a night. Most mornings, she watched the sun come up.

Shaina works in finance. She told me she does the bare minimum just to get through the day. Her memory feels nonexistent. Her focus is shot. She’s not living—she’s surviving. Barely.

Her social life has shrunk to almost nothing because she has no energy. Trips get postponed with the promise of, “when I get better… when I finally sleep.”

And then I asked her the question that changed everything:

“What have you tried?”

I wasn’t prepared for the answer.

Everything. Literally Everything.

By the time Shaina found me, this was her list:

1. Two separate CBT-I programs (three months each) – one online from Toronto, another in Miami. Minimal improvement.

2. Talk therapy – made her anxiety worse. Six months later, she gave up.

3. Acupuncture – slight relief, no lasting change.

4. Weekly massage – temporary relaxation, nothing more.

5. Osteopath – small physical benefits, insomnia remained.

6. Sleeping pills – worked for a few weeks, then nothing.

7. Top Manhattan psychiatrist – prescribed a “brain-resetting” pill. Thousands of dollars later, she became a walking zombie.

8. Hypnosis – five sessions at $450 each. Minimal effect.

9. EFT therapy – three times a week, $1,800 per week, for months. Still no sleep.

   
   

This is usually the moment people conclude: "Nothing works."

But that wasn’t the truth.

Why CBT-I Isn’t Enough for Chronic Insomnia

“Isn’t CBT-I the gold standard for insomnia?

”Yes. It is. For insomnia.

CBT-I is excellent at addressing sleep behaviors: routines, schedules, sleep hygiene, stimulus control, and challenging surface-level sleep thoughts.

What it doesn’t touch—especially in cases like Shaina’s—is what happens when sleep itself has become the source of fear.

Shaina didn’t stay awake because she didn’t know the rules of good sleep. She stayed awake because her brain no longer felt safe at night.

You can follow perfect sleep hygiene forever and still go to bed terrified. It’s a bit like going to the dentist for strep throat. Both are doctors. Both are skilled. But they treat different systems.

The Problem with “Stronger Solutions”

Didn’t the fancy Manhattan doctor know what he was doing?

I’m sure he did. But here’s what Shaina’s nervous system heard instead:

• “You need something stronger.”

• “You’re more broken than we thought.”

• “If even this doesn’t work, something is really wrong with you.”

  
  

Every escalation—stronger pills, bigger names, higher price tags—reinforced the same belief: "I can’t sleep unless someone fixes me."

And when those fixes failed, that belief hardened. That belief is fuel for chronic insomnia.

Why Other Therapies Didn’t Work

Why didn’t hypnosis, EFT, acupuncture work?

Not because they’re useless.

Not because they’re fake.

They didn’t work because Shaina’s problem was never just insomnia. The inability to sleep was the outcome—not the cause.

Two significant periods of emotional stress earlier in her life (nothing dramatic on paper, but challenging enough) left a mark. Her nervous system learned vigilance. Her body learned to stay alert.

Then came exhaustion.

Then came fear of nighttime.

Then came the belief that she was broken.

And eventually, sleep itself became the threat.

You can tap, meditate, or relax all you want—but if the system underneath doesn’t feel safe, it will stay awake.

The Raw, Honest Truth

Shaina’s insomnia was more than insomnia. It was:

• Unprocessed emotional experiences

• Ongoing internal pressure

• A nervous system stuck in survival mode

• Exhaustion layered on top of fear

• A brain that truly believed sleep was dangerous

  
  

Her thoughts, feelings, and experiences didn’t disappear just because no one talked about them. They were absorbed into her subconscious, quietly shaping her nights.

Nothing she tried helped her organize, acknowledge, or integrate what her system had been carrying.

How Sleep Coaching is Different

This is where my work is different.

I’m not a fancy doctor.

I’m not a therapist.

What I do is look at the entire person.

I don’t use one modality because humans aren’t one-dimensional. No single method does the trick—not because the methods are bad, but because we aren’t cookies in a package.

We’re humans with messy emotions, habits, beliefs, histories, and nervous systems that remember. My toolbox is intentionally broad. I don’t force people into a single framework. I meet them where they are and work with the body, the mind, and the emotional layers together.

Shaina didn’t need another technique. She needed space to understand:

• What her mind had been holding

• How her past experiences were still active

• Why nighttime felt so threatening

• And—most importantly—that she wasn’t broken

  
  

Sleep Doesn’t Come from Trying Harder

When Shaina and I started working together, the goal wasn’t to “knock her out.” It was to help her body feel safe again.

Because sleep isn’t something you force.

It’s something that happens when the system finally believes it can let go.

If this story feels familiar, you might want to read this as well: Why Can’t I Just Sleep—Even When I Try Everything Right?

And if you’re at the point where you’ve tried everything and still feel stuck, you don’t need another rule or routine.

You may just need a different way of looking at what’s really keeping you awake.

👉 You can book a free 30-minute call here:https://calendly.com/chevymermelstein/30min

No pressure. No promises. Just a real conversation.