Yippee! What I’m going through has a name.
Going to sleep at 4:00 in the morning, sometimes 5:00, and waking up just a few minutes before noon—or thereabouts—is not plain laziness!
It’s called delayed sleep phase disorder and the New York Times’ Dr. Harris and Dr. Thorpy has this to say:
“Patients with delayed sleep phase disorder, or D.S.P.D., usually have difficulty falling asleep, but once they fall asleep they have no difficulty obtaining a full night’s sleep and typically sleep until late morning or early afternoon.”
Since I went into a bluesy dive last June, I’ve been conscious of getting the zzzzs only ‘til before dawn. Sometimes, I’d hear the first chirps outside the window before Hypnos claimed my attention for the next 7 or 8 hours.
Working the 9-to-5 day job was truly hell. Good thing my previous bosses for the last 10 years allowed me flexible hours or I wouldn’t have been able to rack up a sane résumé along the way. Before these understanding employers though, I would always be asked during job interviews why I couldn’t hold down a job for at least a month.
To this day, though—exactly this hour—I’d never would’ve been able to explain why I was always late for work and why my time sheets were peppered with half days.
Now that this ‘condition’, this aberration that I’ve been having since childhood, has a name, I have hope. I’m going to do what I know best to do to lick this…or at least manage it. I’m gonna research, read, and report on my progress. And I’m going to network with other sufferers so I won’t feel so alone.
Hopefully, also, I can explain this to my husband in as painless a way as possible. (He’s been griping about my abnormal sleeping hours a lot louder these days.)
Yep, it is a revelation when one learns it has a name, isn’t it? Being in touch with others helps a lot in the self-worth department. (It’s no wonder that around half of us have, or have had, depression.) Good luck!
Thanks delayed2sleep. I’ve been reading your blog, btw, and discovering lots of helpful things that I’m experimenting with now to improve on the sleeping time.