I'm not sure whether I'm suffering from IH, narcolepsy, or some other sleep disorder--perhaps even a shift work related disorder (I deliver newspapers 3 days a week, so those days I get up very early in the morning and my sleep is split [a few hours of sleep before work, and then sleep in the middle of the day]). 

My experience certainly doesn't match the few stories that I've read about people with severe IH or narcolepsy, but I still feel like there is something abnormal going on with me.  I feel tired or fatigued much of the time, even if I sleep enough hours.  Especially if I got fewer than 8 hours of sleep total the day before [or for sure if I got fewer than 8 hours of sleep 2-3 days in a row], I will abruptly fall asleep. 

For example, the majority of the time I will fall asleep in my car after I deliver newspapers.  I manage to stay awake driving home [which is only about a mile drive], but as soon as I pull into the driveway and turn off the car I will fall asleep.  Depending on how tired I am and other factors, I may be asleep in my car between 20 and 90 minutes.  One time, my next door neighbor knocked on the car window because he thought I might be having a medical problem.  Getting up to go to work is occassionally a problem as well.  If I am at all sleep deprived and I sit down to put my shoes on, I could end up dozing off for 20 minutes.  If I am significantly sleep deprived, I will have great difficulty staying awake while I'm delivering papers.  I will have microsleeps when I have parked the car in a newspaper customer's driveway, or after I throw the paper and get back in the car.  It becomes very difficult to concentrate. 

When I talk about being sleep deprived, I am not shortchanged on sleep that much--not enough to warrant being so tired and drowsy that I can't stay awake and concentrate for a few hours delivering newspapers.  My roommate and I also were passing out these advertising papers that we primarily threw out of our cars onto the foot of people's driveways.  The company at first allowed us to throw it Fridays, Saturdays and Sunday morning, but eventually they required it be done on Saturday.  I got up Saturday morning to take foster dogs to adoption shows, so this would make for a long day where I would not get quite enough sleep.  I had to give up throwing these ads and left it for my roommate to do it, because--between the long day Saturday and getting up early Sunday morning to deliver the Sunday paper, I was too drowsy or tired to safely finish delivering papers and drive home on Sunday.  One Sunday after I was done delivering the newspapers and driving home [which at that time was 4-5 mile drive from a different paper route], I started to doze off pulling up to a red light [in the process of stopping the car] and rear ended another car.  I was almost stopped, so it was only a fender bender, but it made me feel that I had to quit delivering those ads Saturday evening, as I would be too drowsy by the end of the Sunday paper route, otherwise.

I don't know if any of this makes sense to the couple of people on this group, and I'm sorry for the length.  I was just wondering if any of this sounded familiar or if I could possibly have IH or even narcolepsy.  In the past, I have suffered from moderate or severe insomnia, but that really isn't a serious issue anymore.  As an aside, I suffer from irritable bowel syndrome, and it will prematurely end my mid day sleep on the days I deliver papers, so this makes drowsiness issues worse.  Do you have any thoughts or advice for me?  I am not doing well financially, but I am afraid that I couldn't handle working a bunch more hours with these issues.