One very important thing I forgot is my wind down routine. At first it may not seem like it helps but eventually you Pavlov's dog yourself and it works great. I start by turning the lights off then watching 1 video that isn't sleepy but is calm. Then I watch an ASMR video, Baumgartner's art restoration (can also work as the calm video), listening to a soundscape audio, or there is a podcast called "Nothing Much Happens". With the podcast, if you use spotify you can set it to stop at a certain time (I usually pick end of episode). With anything youtube I would suggest turning autoplay off.

Forgot to add; if you do watch/listen keep light setting low and soft ofc; I find my tablet never gets dark enough so I use an app to increase it.

Just wanted to add real fast that I am also scared of what lurks in the dark. I have a night light with a remote that I used (still do on bad nights) and eventually I was able to wear a sleep mask with the light on. Now I just wear a sleep mask. It wasn't a fast process by any means but it has helped my quality of sleep tremendously and lowered the time needed to fall asleep