My cultural awakening: Ratatouille helped me overcome my insomnia

My difficulties with sleep stretched back to childhood, when I would put on a movie to pass the time – until I watched the children’s animated film and it made me drop off straight away

I have never been good at silence. When it’s quiet, my brain fills the gap with racing thoughts. It wasn’t until lockdown, when I was 27, that I was diagnosed with ADHD and autism, but looking back it made sense: the fidgety teenage nights, the late-night TV marathons, the constant need for background noise.

As a kid, my insomnia was brutal. When I couldn’t sleep, all I wanted to do was get up and do something, but I shared a room with my sister so I just had to lie there, still and frustrated. I found our workaround: TV. My sister and I would put films on at night to soften the atmosphere and fill the silence.