Living with Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome

I have this, I’m 41 and have had it since my earliest memories. My grandmother had narcolepsy, and while this is not that, I wonder if it is somehow related through genetics?

I get sleepy when the sun comes up, and the hours after dawn I am the most useless. I manage, but it’s difficult to get my son up and ready for school. I have fallen asleep while taking a shower getting ready for work and almost knocked myself out when I fell and hit my head. I can take unisom or some sleep aid drug and yawn for several hours but can’t really sleep. When I worked 8-5 it was miserable, I was napping at lunch everyday and hated that people thought I was out drinking the night before or something when I was really cleaning my kitchen, reading, paying bills…People have called me lazy and suspected some kind of drug use but it’s just the natural way that I am. If I were Catholic, I’d go to midnight mass.

There are others in my family who are like this and we were all raised in the normal workaday world, which again makes me wonder if it’s some kind of genetic thing. I’ve worked second shift before and had much more success, I tend to be much more alert than most others working that shift.

I’ve never been to a sleep clinic, would love to go but can’t afford it. I also sleep very, very deeply, have literally slept unaware when they were drilling through the concrete under my bedroom.