[johnchandos]

I'm new to this forum, and the whole DSPS thing. New as in I've just come to the realization that this is what I've been suffering from all this time. I am 29 years old now, and I've had all the symptoms of DSPS since my childhood. Unable to sleep on time, extreme difficulty waking up in the mornings, and all other stuff. In the last week, I've read lots of articles on the subject and I've been surprised to find out how well they all describe my life.

It is a surprisingly relieving discovery. As I told a friend of mine who expressed her being sorry to hear that I had DSPS; it's not like learning you have the cancer and realizing that you are screwed. I always knew that I was screwed, I just never knew why. And now that I know, I feel better already.

So through all those years, despite all the disruption, I managed to get myself an engineering degree, led a successful career in IT business for about 3 years, and I am now working to get my MBA degree. I hope this will tell the younger people among you that your life needs not be ruined altogether because of DSPS. Unfortunately I could not escape being chained to inexplicable, perpetual mediocrity in terms of academic performance in all this time. Absenteeism always beats brilliance, it seems. As for my professional experience, I must admit that I was lucky to have a wonderful person as a boss who was very understanding, supportive and sharp enough not to use absenteeism reports as primary filter for performance evaluations.

As for the specifics of my predicament, I suspect I swing back and forth between DSPS and ASPS. These days I feel sleepy between 6-11 am, and wake up at about 2-7 pm. But there are periods of time when I can change it to sleeping in the early evening and waking up at about 2-4 am. Needless to say this is less disruptive compared to the night-owl cycle, yet it still does have an impact on one's social life (my sympathies to the guy talking about girlfriends who won't understand).

One thing that struck me as funny in the articles I read was the mention of a link between DSPS and depression. The funny part is that most of them show depression as a possible reason for the syndrome. In my case it has always been the other way. And I thought it would be pretty obvious why a DSPS patient would suffer from depression as well: living with permanent jetlag, trying to get along with a cycle that does not come natural to you, being wrongfully accused of laziness and having a weak-will, being unable to reach your true potential, seeing tons of productivity trickle away to waste... If suffering from all these all through your life is not enough to make you depressed, I don't know what is.

Finally, now that I know what my problem is, I'm wondering how to explain it to other people. Friends and family are not a problem, but I'm particularly concerned about job interviews. I don't want my potential employers to think I'm a lazy person, yet I'm also afraid that telling them about DSPS might bring discrimination upon myself. Any thoughts/advice/experiences on this one?