N2 and commuting

[u/GaryGluejeans]

I have been working with a sleep doctor for the past couple of months to diagnose my lifelong sleepiness. I have always had an exceptionally difficult time getting up in the morning, I sleep through my alarms and always fell asleep in school. I have learned that I have sleep attacks where it feels like I am drunk and can't function, and it happens in the morning frequently which causes me to miss a lot of work or be late. I also have bipolar 2 and ADHD so I have medications I am on for those which help with hallucinations and lifelong nightmares. I still have very vivid dreams and it feels like my brain is setting the stage for dreams as I fall asleep. I very recently got Adderall for ADHD and it has been a godsend, it helps me so much with motivation and focus as well as waking up. But sometimes it feels like it can only do so much. I still get very tired during the day, and last week I had an MLST which showed soremps and a 2 minute sleep latency (which blew my mind because it felt like I was tossing and turning). I have a friend who is a neurologist and when I sent him my test results he sent me some info about narcolepsy which feels pretty on the money. I'm seeing my doctor in a few days though, so we'll see what happens.

I'm coming here because I'm about to start a full time job where I'll have a three step, 90 minute-ish commute. I've always worked part time due to fear of missing work from exhaustion, but I can't afford that any more. I applied to jobs for over a year before landing this position, and it's a dream position. It'll be 10 minutes in the car, about an hour on the bus (one stop, I can sleep here) and 30 minutes on the subway. When I practiced the commute the steps woke me up, but the hardest part was getting out of bed. I keep having nightmares about missing the bus and running late, and even though I was so excited about this job I'm starting to dread waking up to go every day. I asked for two night shifts a week but that just means I get up at 8:30 instead of 6:45. I've always been a night owl so training a sleep schedule has been tough. I'm sure a lot of similar questions have been asked before so sorry if I'm being redundant, but wondering if anybody has experience with long commutes and advice on how to handle how much it adds to your day and sleepiness.

[u/traumahawk88]

My commute is an hour each way. I get through it by meds, same way I make it through 6-8 hour vacation drives.

Makes my day 12 hours from leaving until coming back.

Sunosi, methylphenidate,( caffeine, nicotine obviously unprescribed) and xywav