Photo taken by contributor Danielle, a woman who suffers from clinical depression and insomnia.

About this photo: “The nights are the hardest. I lie in the dark praying for an end. An end to the thoughts. An end to the pain. An end to the night. Anything. I try to keep my eyes shut, but I can’t escape the thoughts banging around the padded cell of my mind. On for hours and hours. I feel like I’m losing it. Losing touch with my one toe left submerged in the waters of reality. 

I can’t lie still no matter what I try. My body, revved and agitated, feels like it’s exploding beneath my skin. So I get up. I take photos. Hundreds of photos, of just one thing. This time it’s a clock’s irritatingly bright light. A light that’s screaming at me through the darkness of an endless night. 12:33? 2:33? It’s all a blur. An overwhelming blur. But somehow my lens has taken it’s power away. My lens has taken something evil, something that feels like it’s controlling me, and has broken it down to light and dark, and turned it into art. The clock is just a picture now. The clock is just a clock.

My eyes close. A few hours of spotty sleep and nightmares later, light spills across my room. Photography once again has gotten me through the night, and allowed me to live to see another day. I am grateful and disappointed at the same time.”