Living with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

It’s 5:25 AM. I have to be somewhere at 4 PM tomorrow for work. I have a dental condition that must be attended to during ‘normal” working hours. I try and try and try to make myself a life where I can live on my own clock but I can’t escape having to interact with the daytime schedule. Trying to fit myself into it.

There are so few opportunities to have a serious job that doesn’t require early hours. When I was in high school, the only way I got to my 8:30 class was to stay up all night and sleep from 3:30 pm to around 3-5.. recently, I have acknowledged that my drinking has gotten a bit heavier than I am comfortable with. Drinking to passing out is the ONLY surefire way to get myself to sleep before 12:30. I also usually naturally wake up earlier when I’ve imbibed a lot at night. I am not looking for pity, (or to incite others to drink, but I did see in the Alcoholics anonymous handbook that a lot of alcoholics begin drinking for the same reason as I did.

I want my story to join the others here. I have experience battling disorders and overcoming them. I know when something is a problem. I don’t like the idea of trying to scale my hours back. I think that the fault is not in me, but in society. I truly feel that the world going to evolve to a place where “night shift” isn’t synonymous with “graveyard shift.” The night would be a safer time for everyone if there were many people up and working instead of barren desolate streets. What if split shifts turns out to be a solution for a totally overpopulated world? (ok i know that now i sound like a sci fi writer, but it’s logical!)

But, back to the here and now, I am up later than I’d intended, and I know that when I get my 4-5 hours of sleep today others will continue to think of me as lazy. Just because I enjoy waking up in the afternoon.. it’s a bummer.