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« on: February 23, 2010, 09:57:40 PM »
I believe I have a sleep disorder, 26 y/o male, still can't hold down a job for more than 6-12 months without inevitably sleeping in despite having up to five alarm clocks.
I've been this way since I was a young child (7 or 8 years old), never truly able to reliably wake up before 11 am... I have used everything, including schedule II medications, to combat this...
The only thing I haven't done is get a sleep study, but I'm skeptical about it, especially considering I seem to sleep for somewhat normal hours, and have no trouble falling asleep (at around 3-4 am that is) and no insomnia (except for a brief period when I quit smoking). So I think my actual sleep, is fine, just that my circadian clock, is off. And I think in a sleep study situation, I would probably never truly sleep as I normally do, for example, when I have a "guest" stay in the same room with me, I don't really sleep normally, it takes me a lot longer than normal to fall asleep and I sleep very lightly, so I awake usually whenever the sun comes up or I hear a noise or the other person wakes up, rolls over, etc... far before my alarm does.
I do believe that I have a very strong power of will, but it seems that I often wake up and fall back asleep if I get up before 10 am, without even knowing it... As if I'm sleepwalking. Sometimes I will "wake up" turn off all of the alarms, and fall back to sleep with absolutely no recollection of the event (at least I assume that's what happened as they are all turned off when I wake up) or I will sleep straight through them, and awake several hours later to at least three of them blaring. (I use a combination of buzzers, beeps, radios, etc)
I'm often in a daze for an hour or two after I wake up so I have to set my alarm for several hours before I have to do something, maybe hit the snooze button once (more than once and it's doubtful I'll make it anywhere before noon).
It's also interesting to note that no matter how sleep deprived I am, or how exhausted I am from my daily activities, I cannot sleep before 3-4am... EVER. If I do happen to fall asleep at say 9 or 10pm, I will awake about 1 to 1.5 hours later unable to sleep until about 6-7 am.
I've done some research and there is some mentioning something called Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder/Syndrome, does anyone know anything about this, is it legitimate? If anyone has had any kind of similar experience, please relate it, as well as what you did/are doing to overcome it, I was recently fired from an important job and it has sent me into despair about the situation.
I thought I had actually overcome it a few months ago, but eventually, it seems that my biology, or neurology, or psychology, wins.