Anyone else struggle with sleep?

I am a very light sleeper and even the slightest of noise can wake me up. I have moved out three years ago. But I can still hear my mom coming in and sweeping the house. I try to tell her to be more quiet, but she gets all snotty about it and says “I have to do everything around here, and I want to get it all done!”

I replied that she is disturbing my sleep and it’s the reason why I can’t go back to sleep and I end up feeling so tired all the time. She replied “I am NOT going to come here and clean this place at midnight!”. I told her she is being very unsympathetic toward my problems. She replied “I did not say a word about any of your problems!”. I recalled “yes you did, you did about the other day when you expect me to ignore people when I have trouble with that”.

That is what it always is with my mother. She acts like her needs are more important than mine, for example she thinks it’s better to have a clean house than to have a good rest. And according to her if I am getting poor sleep, it is always my fault because I don’t get “on schedule”. I am a full-fledged night owl, I get up a couple of hours before sunset and try to go to sleep by sunrise.

I was thinking about getting a “do not disturb” sign but I’ve told her about this and she is upset about it. She acts like she has no choice but to clean the house, but anything involving me is somehow MY choice.

For more detail, for those of you who are going to say “why don’t YOU clean your house so your mom won’t have to do it for you?”, that is not an option as a lot of heavy duty work is extremely difficult for me as I have very little energy and pushing myself to work to the standards of work-obsessed people just makes me want to faint. For those of you who think “why don’t you just meet up to their time standards and be an early bird?”, I cannot do that either. I tried to sleep more in the night but I feel restless and it seems as if the more sunlight I get, the more exhausted I feel. To neurotypicals, people like me are lazy and always making “excuses”.

I don’t know what else to say here. So I’ll just leave it there.

You moved out three years ago... I would tell my mom I moved out to my own apartment so I will take care of my apartment myself. Nicely let her know that it is no longer her responsibility to do your chores. Thank her for all she has done and occasionally and invite her for supper. If you do a little bit every day with just yourself to take care of you should be fine

It sounds like the mother ''cares'' but not in the way you want (or need).

Obvs, not all mothers care.

Some here could confirm that some mothers/''family'' of origin ''just leave us to get in with it'' when too young, not caring or mattering to them how much distress is felt by the person they chose to give birth to - to fulfil some of their needs and wants.

It's that ''school of hard knocks'' which either turns the offspring into someone who is ''too sensitive'' or.... someone with little concern for others.

I struggle with sleep too.

I sleep a few hours at a time.

I can't get enough sleep. Sometimes I want to go straight to bed when I get home from work. I've done that a couple of times, and I sleep 10 to 12 hours and still feel tired.

Anyway, I do wake up a few times because of sleep apnea, not because of noise.

I keep a very loud air purifier running all the time. This "white noise" masks sudden unexpected noises that tend to wake folks.

Try some sort of white noise or use ear plugs.

sometimes meds knock me out to sleep so depends

@Cantholdmyrage, I don't think anyone mentioned this, but I think your mother's cleaning is just an excuse to check up on you. Perhaps she's worried about you; perhaps thinks you're doing drugs.

I wonder if you were to sleep as long as you could, would you really not be tired?

And finally, light therapy might reset your circadian rhythm (if that's what you want). A sleep doctor could help you with that.

My mom knows I never did drugs in all my life. Both my parents know that. That’s not the reason she comes over.

I find one of my antidepressants which I take in the evening/night helps me sleep. It's mirtazepine (Remeron).

I’ve tried taking sleep medicine, but my parents discouraged me to, they thought I was going to get heart disease if I overdosed.

Maybe discuss it with your doctor?

My current doctor goes against stuff like that, but thank you for the suggestion anyway.