Hi Tammie,
I almost didn't reply to this thread because there are major differences between you and me. I have never (with one exception) slept for days at a time. That exception was an ultra-low dose of an SSRI which knocked me out for four days, and it took another three days to really wake up.
I have major circadian disruption. In its middle stage it resembles what you describe. I haven't taken the drug route (mostly) but I have come to terms with it, but i don't know if my answer fits you at all. I used to fight the problem: try to stay awake, or go to sleep, or what ever I though I
should do. Once I stopped fighting it, but let my need to sleep or be awake come naturally, I felt much better. Sure, I can't plan to go shopping just because I need to as I might have to sleep, but my sleep quality and waking functionality are much improved. Whenever I fought my sleep cycle, I was much worse, especially my orthostatic intolerance and brain fog.
While I typically don't sleep for days at a time (not much beyond 14 hours in fact) I used to have periods where I was awake for more than three days at a time, then slept for 16 hours. So there are some similarities between us in a strange way.
The only real problem I have with not fighting my sleep pattern is what to do when my body is energised and my mind is crashing, or vice versa. Usually I go with whatever is worse, but not always.
I just thought of one more exception: deep sleep verging on coma when I had measles encephalitis when I was a child. I was out of it for a week.
I hope this is of some help to you.
Bye
Alex
it is one of the VERY few I have not tried, but considering that it works on epinephrine (which my body cannot handle at all) and serotonin (every drug I have tried with this has made me seriously suicidal) and considering that remeron also seems to knock people out longer than just at night and it also makes people gain a ton of weight, I don't think it is worth trying at this point