Living with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

Hello all, my name is Eric. To cut to the chase I have had major sleeping issues for sometime now. I would say probably going on 8-9 years. I never took it to seriously because I never really had any major responsibilities besides school, which still to this day I go in the evenings due to me not being able to get up in the mornings. I just celebrated my 22nd birthday and am finally going to buckle down and try and find help. I have tried almost everything you can think of to try and rid me of this burden, but to no avail. I was recently prescribed a sleeping aid called Ambien CR. While it did help me sleep, the side effects were too much for me to handle, I was jittery and still staying up later than most people. I would feel dizzy and dis-orderly. So, I decided to not take the drug any longer.

My problem is not sleeping but when I am able to go to sleep, I stay up into the wee hours of the night and sleep till about mid afternoon everyday. I’m talking 5-6am when i fall asleep and wake up about 1-2pm. Sometimes I can’t even wake up for Church and its weighing my self-esteem down. The reason for my sudden cause of concern is I have started a new job that requires me to be there at 8 am, followed by school that evening. I have a wonderful opportunity with this company and don’t want to blow it. For example my first day was yesterday and i fell asleep around 5 am and had to get up at 7 am. giving me a whopping 2 hours of sleep. And even now its already 215 am. I feel tired and sleepy but just can’t fall asleep, then in the morning i will be groggy, un-motivated, and I don’t want my life being effected any longer.

I read about DSPS and never heard of it until now, apparently a common mis-conception is thinking you have insomnia when its something totally different. Which is what I thought I had. Sorry, for rambling but I guess the reason I am here is to seek out any help possible maybe someone will have some tips or methods I can try, since my Dr. couldn’t help and I don’t have the necessary funds to see a specialist being a college student, anything will help. Thank you for your time and any help is appreciated.