awake in the early hours

I rarely go to sleep before 2 AM most nights. I usually just read, or write, or use my laptop until I get so exhausted I go straight to sleep when I let myself. I do this because otherwise, I lie awake in bed for hours and hours thinking dark, sad, terrifying thoughts and everything gets worse. And I can’t tell my parents that that’s the reason I’m always so exhausted in the mornings, because they tell me to just go to bed earlier, but they don’t get that the longer I lie in silence, the more time I have to think. And thinking too hard hurts. And I’m trying to get better, to mend myself a little; so lying and waiting for sleep is never an option, because it breaks me and hurts me more than lack  of sleep does. But if I told them this, I’d have to say why my thoughts were so bad. And I can’t do that, to myself or to them. Because I’m fine, or I will be fine, I really am; just as long as I’m not thinking in the silence for too long. Because it’s thinking in the silent darkness that brings on the dark, dark thoughts. And I see no other way to avoid them.