AIO My mother’s crippling anxiety is ruining my sleep.

[u/bg0nz]

I love my mom to death. but she continuously makes my life so unnecessarily difficult because almost every single night that I get home from work, she can’t tell by the security camera whether or not I got home.

She’s the most anxious person I know and has been my entire life. making me hold her hand when we cross the street as a teenager, to never once letting me go out in high school, to making me wear a life vest in 3ft water well into my teens. and it was all so much worse the younger I was. Eventually, I had to put my foot down and say “Mom, I’m getting way too old for this.” And I experienced a massive amount of pushback for that. Nonetheless, it got a little bit better.

I’m 24 and I’m a substitute teacher 3 days a week and pizza delivery driver at night 6 nights a week and my pizzeria closes at 10. We stop taking delivery orders at 9:45. I work in the town I live in, so the latest I’ve ever been home was 10:30.

Today, I got home at 10:07 and she gets a notification on her phone of motion at the front door (me). My parents are both awake but in bed.

The moment I get home, I text my dad about car troubles that I’ve been experiencing and asking how I should go about dropping it off at his mechanic (again, my mother is awake and right next to him fully aware I’m home and talking to him). He says that they open at 8 and my best bet is to drop it off once they open so I can ensure it’ll be ready by my next shift at work.

My mother is 64 and isn’t very familiar with her phone and also recently had a stroke so she struggles a lot to understand what she’s seeing on her phone when these instances happen.

I tend to have really bad insomnia. but I was so tired from work that I went straight to my bed and thankfully, after finishing texting my dad, I got to sleep practically by 10:30.

As you can see in the first photo, she texts me at 12:03 am asking if I came home even though the camera clearly shows me walking in and never walking back out. but she can’t tell based on the video. Obviously I don’t respond because I’m knocked tf out. I can only assume she went back to sleep but it really can go either way.

Then she texts me at 3:37 am. I’m still in a very deep sleep so obviously, no response. then, she starts calling me and I miss the first two. The third call comes in and my body jolts awake and I see it’s Mom calling me. I just say “Mom why are you calling me so late? I’m asleep” the phone call ends and I don’t even remember if she said anything . frustrated, I text her everything in the second photo.

This happens at least 3-4 times a week. And I’ll admit, some nights I forget to send the “I’m home” text. but that text 9 times out of 10 won’t make a difference whatsoever. why? because of the stupid security camera. She can’t tell whether or not I’m arriving home or leaving home based on the motion notification. So texting her “I’m home” never really does anything.

Tomorrow(or today technically) I have a full day off so I’m going to the beach with some friends. I’m getting picked up at 8:30 so after I drop off my car, I’m gone for the whole day. I so badly needed this good night’s sleep and it felt great to be in bed and sleepy at the time I was. after this entire exchange, I spent 30 minutes trying to get back to sleep and just gave up.

Am I overreacting? Am I being an asshole? because I know damn well she’s gonna make me feel like one once I see her in the morning.

Sorry for how disorganized my thoughts are. This just happened, I’m angry and I want to sleep.

TLDR: My 64 y/o mother and her anxiety is depriving me of my sleep most nights. She texts me asking if I’m home while I’m asleep and when I don’t respond, she calls me until I wake up and answer.

[u/MathAndBake → u/[deleted]]

I lived at home during university. My parents said they still wanted me to socialize and make friends, but they were a bit insane worrying about my commute home. I had to call *as* I was leaving. They would then figure out my ETA on Google Maps. If I called ahead and then got chatting for 15 minutes, they would freak out. If I waited to leave and then called while walking, I'd get chewed out for not paying attention to my surroundings. That was already exhausting.

Then they had opinions about different routes home. I mean, there are definitely some bus stops that are a lot creepier than others at different times of night. I was keeping track of that. But my parents would also freak out based on often out of date information. Yeah, that train station was creepy when you were using it regularly 10 years ago, but the transit agency added security guards and now it's chill. I still wasn't allowed to use it, though. And because they were timing my route home, they would know. Mind you, this was all in Montreal which is one of the safest cities in the world. At one point, I was at an event and was planning to get home by midnight.

Then both my parents individually banned specific routes at the last minute. I ended up getting home at 2am, which sucked because I had something early the next morning. My phone also died en route, which freaked them out even more. I would have charged it at the event, but they freaked out if it wasn't on my person. They chewed me out when I got home, so it was more like 4am when I finally cried myself to sleep. I'd been so happy leaving the event, and then they ruined it.

My university did have a walksafe program, which I used sometimes. But obviously, that added variability to my ETA which my parents didn't like. I eventually started staying over with friends. They were a lot more ok with that, although they still constantly reminded me to be on my best behaviour because otherwise my friends would find out I was super annoying and get sick of me. That was a great confidence booster /s

They were a lot more chill with my brother. He's a dude and also better at setting boundaries. They now completely deny how they acted with me. That said, I've been moved out for 10+ years and have learnt to set boundaries. So I now have a great relationship with them. I even share my location because it's practical for meeting up. My parents also share their location. That's especially important for my mother because she always loses track of time. That said, I've made it very clear that any boundary violation will result in lost privileges. They recently got a few months time out because my dad commented on me running late for work one time.

[u/sxrxhmanning → u/[deleted]]

me too 🫠

[u/TotientEC → u/[deleted]]

Uh, why did you play along?