Long term chronic fatigue hypersomnia and narcolepsy

Hi

30m here, 6'4" 187 lb.

I think I'm one of these people with brain problems. Since I was a teenager, I needed way more sleep than other people. Other people would need 8 hours and I would need 12 hours to really feel ok. Or I would just feel tired all the time. Also, I have constantly struggled with depression from the same age. I thought that maybe this sleepiness was just my own laziness, but it started to come to a head when I started nodding off regularly at the wheel of my car. I would This was 10 years ago when I was 20. At that point in my life I refused to use caffeine because I didn't want to become reliant on drugs. I was very fit at that time by the way, I would exercise a lot and I ate super clean. I had a lot of will power in those days so I would push through the sleepiness and laziness and train my body thinking somehow this will help with my energy issues. But after (sometimes before) workouts I would need to take a nap.

Eventually, I gave in and started drinking coffee like everyone else. Lo and behold, most of my depression went away and my grades at school went up by an entire grade point. I could more or less function in society, even if I needed to tank out on the weekends. But then I had a caffeine addiction.

Steadily over the years things developed to the point that my caffeine addiction became more severe. I would need 2 or 3 cups of strong French press coffee every morning just to function. But the side effects of the coffee were becoming much more problematic: GERD, and really strong anxiety. Many times I have tried to get off the coffee but if I try, then the hypersomnia and excessive sleepiness and fatigue come back.

So, this sucks. And I would be grateful for some suggestions.

Oh, by the way, I've tried every dietary approach including vegetarianism, blood sugar approaches like keto & fasting, eating more, eating less, etc. Nothing really seems to help much and I keep circling back around to the same old problem.