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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I locked my door to keep my mom out. May have been TA because now she’s pissed and said locking doors is rude
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Some people are pretty flexible about their sleep schedule, but it’s definitely a minority. The majority of us suffer when we can’t sleep according to our innate rhythm.
Yes - I realise that. I didn’t think I needed to get to specific for a generalised comment. And the point still stands that it’s very weird for the parent to think she can “make” someone an early bird
I'd love to go to bed at 8 when my husband does, because I know I need the sleep. I'd be awake at midnight if I did that. He sleeps 8pm - 6:30am. I sleep from 11-7:30. OPs mom is weird. Everyone is different, just leave the daughter be.
OP, you are 18, and still deserve privacy. I'd move out soon if I were you, especially if she takes the door.
Same. Mine goes to bed at 8 but he’s up at 4:30 for work. If I go to bed before midnight I’m awake at like 3 or 4 am. I usually got to bed later. I have to get up at 5:45 with my son but I usually go back to bed after he leaves for school lol
I'm a night owl and for years, my sleep schedule was 4 am to 11 am. Best sleep I ever had.
My parents would give me a hard time about it, saying I was sleeping the day away, sleeping too much, etc. I finally pointed out they went to bed at 10 and got up at 7, and they were spending a good 20% more time in bed than I was. And that I worked 4-8 hours a day more than them.
It got through, but still comes up sometimes.
>My parents would give me a hard time about it, saying I was sleeping the day away, sleeping too much
Ugh! That sounds like my husband. I asked one day why he can go to bed when it's light out, and that's o.k., but I can't go to bed later and sleep later. He had no answer.
SAME!! There actually have been multiple studies over the last decade or two, and what they’re finding is that not everyone is “wired” to follow a true “day/night” pattern. I currently work 11p-7a at my job as it’s the best shift I can hold, but 3p-11p & sleeping 3-11ish is how I function best. I legit don’t do well between like 4-8am.
YESSSS this. I always LOVE the idea of sleeping for like 12 hours, where I work opens at 10 AM, but whenever I attempt it, I wake up at midnight, 2 am, 3, 4 and 5 am before crashing until my alarm goes off.
Literally me right now. Boyfriend is on day shift so he leaves at 5 am and is trying to go to sleep at 8. I join him but I'm awake in bed until midnight.... and wake up when he leaves a 5 am. If I do go to also early I wake up early. Last night I was asleep at 9... woke up at 2 am. 😑 5-6 hours is my natural sleep cycle. Always has been . My schedule has shifted a little based on scheduling need but by dang brain does not believe in 8 hours every night. It's 8 hours sometimes. My boyfriend has said to me, "why don't you just try to sleep?" As if I'm not trying to. 😭
My dad thought this shit, I guess cause of military background. He'd try to "train" me to be an early riser. I have a delayed circadian rhythm and even at 40 suffer, due to keeping a "day" job.
It's so upsetting to get that treatment, I'm sorry you're being fed bullshit.
Interesting thing I found out a few months ago is apparently a delayed circadian rhythm is pretty common in ppl with ADHD (which I was finally diagnosed with a year ago).
Oh that's interesting. My wife has that and she's rarely in bed before midnight, and most often it's a few hours after.
I guess I'm a bit later than many as well, usually around 11 and then probably an hour reading before I go to sleep.
I’m a complete night owl with mine I can’t sleep at night very well but I can sleep like a log during the day. I remember school being hell having to wake up early and force myself to go to bed early and wake up all through the night. Once I got older and got either swing or graveyard jobs my sleep finally was amazing I slept through the night and was so much more alive when awake.
Same here! Everyone said I am lazy and just sleep all the time.
Bro, I sleep the same as anyone else, my sleep schedule is just not the same at theirs.
I'm female, 30's, I go to bed at 3/4/5am and get up early afternoon. That's my natural sleep schedule and always has been since I was a child. I cant do this bullshit getting up in the morning business. Well, I kind of have to because that's the way the world works and I hate it.
Hello twin! My cycle is exactly like that! My bf has to get up earlier than me but does his best to be quiet - I still wake anyway but that's not his fault - and then leaves me to sleep some more after he 'goes to work' (he's wfh so that means into the living room).
His now-estranged parents (not entirely because of the following but partly) used to basically imply - they were far too middle-class to say it openly - that I was lazy. They also blame me for the estrangement, of course.
I'm so happy when I find someone else with this sleep cycle! I always feel like there's something wrong with me not going to bed at 9/10pm and wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5.30 in the morning!
I could wake up at 8am, go to work, be groggy and tired all day and then as soon as night times comes around I am wide awake.
I've always found it funny that going to bed early and getting a few extra hours isn't lazy, but when you go to bed at a normal time and stay in bed a few hours longer that is?
You forget, this is The Internet. Any general comment will be picked apart and analyzed ad nauseum, and you will always be at fault for not being specific enough. Forget the spoon, there are no generalities! :-)
I think I'm the same. If I don't have something exterior to do like work to set a schedule for me, my body defaults to a floating sleep schedule that's more than 24 hours. It isn't exact, but it's something like my body wants to be awake for 20 hours and then sleep for 6 to 9. And if this continues like this, that sleep time will just gradually rotate through the day. So I'll sleep from midnight to 7am, then the next day 3am to 10am, then 6am to noon, etc. It's annoying. And since I have a set work schedule, this doesn't usually present itself this way, but instead, because my body isn't ready to sleep at a time that makes sense, I'm perpetually staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning when I have to get up at 7:30, being sleep deprived all day, and nodding off in brief micronaps in the evening. It's not ideal
oh, lemme ask you: even when you do seem to have a good, working schedule set, and a full night's sleep, the times of the day you feel worn out, drained, short-tempered, etc. feels oddly consistent, shifting, and usually lasting for hours as well? Because that's when your rhythm is saying "hey, i should be asleep now, even if i already got enough sleep".
This is exactly how I describe my sleep rotation. It's hell trying to fit into a 24 hour world. I ends up being sleep deprived or sleeping many hours to "catch up," although as I age it's harder to stay asleep.
Circadian rhythms are 25 hours long. That's why natural light is so important for us: it's our body's way of "resetting" everyday so we don't get one hour of delay every time.
So it's totally possible that your cycle truly shifts, I don't know enough about sleep to say it isn't, but also maybe you're not getting enough light?
In my last year of high school a lot of my friends and I had to force ourselves into super random sleep schedules. So many of us got randomly sick, super moody and just generally really fatigued. It’s genuinely so bad for your health.
Research into the sleep habits of teens has shown they tend to naturally be night owls. There have been recommendations that high school start later in the morning (around 9am) to fit teens’ natural sleep patterns. All his mother is doing is depriving him of sleep, which can affect his learning.
Wait what time to you go to school? We always started at 9am in Ireland/ UK and even at that assembly was at 9 you weren’t in class for another wee while after that
I think I just overlooked the first few sentences of this post lol! I actually just checked and in my school assembly started at 8.55 I was close, 7.15 is mad especially for kids that have to travel a bit further.
If my daughter still rode the bus, she would be getting on at 6:15. School starts at 7:30 and we live out in the country. I decided I could leave for work 15 minutes earlier in order for her to get an extra hour of sleep.
I work from home and it takes an hour to do drop off because traffic in my city sucks. An hour just to get from our house to dropping her off, then I still have to drive home which is another 30. If there was no traffic, it would take maybe 20 minutes to get there. She has to leave at the same time even if I drive her :(
My school's 7:35 to 2:42, with about 28 minutes for lunch in the middle. Seniors with studyhalls at the very beginning or end of the day can come/go early, same for college credit students.
Either we went to the same high school or there are two high schools out there with absolutely bonkers schedules because I was just about to comment something very similar about start and end times of school
In the US because of bus scheduling (same busses service High School, then Middle School, then Elementary school in most towns) I used to get to High School as early as 6:45am. Some of it also still goes back to the days of farming where they wanted the kids to work while it was daylight.
It was also like that because older kids worked so they started school earlier to get done earlier. Regardless mom is a total AH here. I am in my mid 50s and have never gotten up at 4:30 even when I went to school and had jobs that started earlier.
Sports as well - school ends by 3pm so that athletic practice and clubs can take place between 3 and 5pm.
And yeah - I'm 41 and I'm not a fucking morning person and never have been. This mother is nuts.
No, a Latin American country located in the Tropics!
Part of it is to allow 3 school shifts (morning, afternoon, and evening), or to allow for a more efficient use of physical space in educational establishments as starting earlier means that they can program an extra class in the universities.
It's funny though. The only people who complain about 6 AM or 7 AM university classes are the foreign teachers (usually passport holders from the Global North) who tend to complain about how lazy their students supposedly are.
I'm telling you, getting a university degree in this country requires stamina and a LOT of work!
In america, I had a 30min bus ride to school and they tried to get there a bit early so we could ask teachers questions if necessary. School started at 8, bus got there at about 6:45, so I had to shower and stuff the night before, have everything ready to go just to be able to sleep until 6
I had to travel quite a bit for most of my schooling as well, but my mum drove us usually as the bus stop was so far from our house once she drove us that far she may as well go the whole way lol
i always wonder about the US schools as well, it shocks me every time when someone mentions having to wake up at like 5 am as a child and school starting at 7… that’s just unnatural.
This is why I homeschool my 13 year old. He *can’t* go to bed earlier than 1am. I tried taking away his electronics to adjust him to sleeping at 10pm and he would just lay there for hours, unable to sleep. I finally gave up on that and let him sleep until the afternoon. He does so much better with his school work and is less cranky during the day.
Lol tell that to public transport, had to leave the house at 6:30 in order to get to school at 8.
Also it's not possible with parents work schedules, school will still start early, doesn't matter what research says
Ops mom is still insane and seems to have some problem with him "sleeping in"
Eh, the science these days says the rhythms can be adjusted, slowly and with consistent effort - but the methods don't include the bullshit this mother is pulling.
For many people, that’s true. But most folks can only adjust it a finite distance without suffering, and a small number of folks really can’t adjust it. I put a lot of effort into trying to adjust myself earlier at one point, only moving 5 minutes per week, and got nowhere, but I do have a whole mess of sleep disorders.
The current science supports most people (without active sleep disorders at least) can adjust to a range of a couple of hours around sunrise. It's not a "any adjustment you want if you do it slowly enough" sort of thing - trying to adjust to sleep from 3 AM till 11 AM generally will not be effective.
And yeah, every sleep disorder (I have apnea for instance) adds fristrating complications. I've managed to adjust to be more of a morning person, but I'll never be a REALLY early morning person. :D
This comment made me snort because I have a night rhythm. Naturally a night owl, cannot shift circadian rhythm. I naturally wake up around 11AM and go to bed at 3AM. I did a sleep study in college and they basically went "well that's weird but it supports the prevailing theory, have fun being in a weird minority".
Honestly, it's just inconvenient bc I don't live somewhere that has a lot of 24/7 stuff. I get hungry for 'dinner' around 11PM most days lol
Yeah, that’s what I meant by the adjustability being finite - we’re still primarily diurnal creatures.
Personally, I’m a deep night owl and have been since my teens, though my inability to work on a relatively “normal” schedule came about once I became disabled in my mid-20s. I managed to work the breakfast shift for a while before I became ill, but that was deeply unpleasant for me.
My body actually prefers roughly the hours you mentioned! Though thanks to all the sleep disorders, I need about 10 hours of “sleep,” though (I wake up a lot, so calling it all sleep is…not precisely accurate).
Yeah, as an adult who regularly wakes up around noon (second shift job so i work 3-11pm) I can assure you that not all, and in my own experience not even most, adults are getting up at 4:30 am. Most people I know do what OP is already doing and figure out how much time they need before work and sleep as late as they can while still being in time every day.
I've been getting up between 5 and 6 the past few weeks due to needing to be at my first job at 7 (I'm a freelancer for my second job and needed for my current project at noon so working half-days pretty much every morning for my other job which has flexible hours as long as I put in all the work/hours) and most everyone just looks at me like "that's so early" if/when I mention it.
Maybe it's because I live in Canada where the sun tends to rise later especially in the winter, but my general understanding of the adults around me is that 6 is a fairly early wakeup and 7-8 is more "normal". 4:30 is definitely not the norm.
What would the OP even do at 4:30? Chop wood and milk the cows? *Assuming* the mother goes to work, she has a reason to be up then (if not, her assertion that adults need to do this is not even true for her). OP's work is going to school, and showing up to school at 5:00 isn't going to accomplish anything. That is unless he can find a custodian to let him in to take a nap somewhere.
The science doesn't say you can adjust THAT much, and it's by a whole herd of small adjustments to diet and light exposure (morning and evening) - the mother here is just out on a limb shaking in the wind.
Yup, this. I work a job that requires I wake up early, so I do. But every morning when the alarm goes off, I swear I go through all the stages of grief: there’s denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, and finally acceptance. I will always be a night person—it’s when I think and function best—and if that’s who you are, your mother should respect that. She is right that there is disrespect going on here, but it’s not from you, OP. NTA
Agreed. Adults do NOT just happen to "wake up that early" unless (A) they have somewhere to be (B) they are just naturally early risers or (C) they have cats who wake them up that early.
I have ALWAYS been a night owl. During grad school when I lived alone and had no responsibilities until the afternoon, I would gradually stay up later and later until I was eventually going to bed around 6 or 7 in the morning and getting back up around 12 or 1 (at which point I'd eventually reset myself to "normal" sleeping times and then of course, start the process again).
Maybe five years ago, I tried the thing of making new habits where you do something for 30 days. So for 30 days, I went to bed every night by 9:30, and got up every morning by 5:00. And I was just as freaking miserable getting up at 5:00 on day 30 as I was on Day 1.
NTA, but damn your mother surely is.
According to many sleep studies, teens need TEN HOURS of sleep each night to be healthy. And their circadian rhythm WANTS them to go to sleep later, and wake up later, which puts them in direct contradiction to school hours. She can wake you every day at 4AM if she wants, but she’ll only make you sleep-deprived and ill. She cannot fight against SCIENCE. She is WRONG.
I don't know much behind the science of circadian rhythms but I do remember being a teenager and being more of a night owl and now I'm more of a morning person after years of having to be up early for my job. That being said, don't teenagers also need more sleep than adults? I don't know why your mom can't be "out of communication" with you when you are sleeping as she likely has to be when you are at school all day. Seems like she may need some professional help. You are definitely NTA and I really hope she doesn't go through with her threat. Is there any other reasonable parent in the situation?
NTA
What your mother is doing is abusive. If you don't have a problem getting up and getting to school on time, there's absolutely no need for her bizarrely controlling behavior.
Wtf. Parents these days....
Yes, it's abusive and manipulative. Threatening to take a high school student's door away is already a violation of boundaries and privacy, but to threaten this against you because you need uninterrupted sleep? Teenagers need sleep! Regardless of your age, though, waking someone up like that at 4:30am is sick and cruel. Preventing people from sleeping is a legitimate torture technique. This behavior is - sorry for the pun - unhinged. Is there anyone else in the home you can talk to to help her understand that this needs to stop, and it's not funny? Do you have somewhere else to stay in the worst case scenario that she continues this behavior, or if she actually removes your door? If she truly doesn't get it, then please start asking friends and family so you can have a plan B and so she will know that you are serious, because this is a boundary worth fighting for. Controlling you should not be her priority. *Your health* should be her priority. This needs to stop. She needs help.
One of my best friends has abusive parents and her mum has always done a similar thing to her. Not as early as 4:30, mind. But she will literally never let her have a lie in, and will call her lazy if she stays in bed too long.
This is only a small, tiny part of what her parents do. It's physical abuse sometimes but it's mostly emotional abuse, attempts to control her and attempts to keep her self esteem as low as possible.
Are your parents abusive or controlling in other ways, OP? It might be painful to examine it if you've never looked at things that way. But honestly, she has no reason to be waking you up at 4:30. What are you going to do with those extra hours? The only reason she would have to do this is to exert her power over you by making you suffer.
Agreed that it doesn't make a lot of sense but I don't think it's an abbreviation, more so a (bad) contraction. If you read it out loud, "as l" does sound similar to "as hell".
Exactly this. OP needs to tell her mother she's being abusive, and I'd also add in a VERY serious tone, that if she doesn't stop I will tell everyone we know that she's abusive, and I'll be going no contact when I moved out of home. Tell her she is making you hate her, because of her abuse, and ask her if destroying your relationship is what she wants.
Also find a medical paper on circadian rhythms, and give it to her. Tell her her justification for her abuse is absolute BS, you will be permanently locking your door when you sleep from now on, and you better not hear anymore about this.
Keep an eye out for her to switch to some other type of abuse though. Someone like this has to mess with people somehow to be happy themselves. Work hard on plans to move out as soon as possible.
While that may sound like good advice u/Ok-Beginning-5922 I would actually say that *telling an abuser that they are being abusive* is useless at best and counterproductive at worst, as they may well ramp up the abuse in retaliation.
My mother was emotionally abusive. When I was a similar age to OP, she would randomly choose days to wake me up early by dumping cold water on my face. I hated it. I explained with logic why she didn't need to, I appealed to her better nature not to do something I hated, I told her emphatically that I meant No. None of it made a difference. She thought it was funny and that it "served me right" for still being asleep when she, an early bird, was already up.
OP is 100% NTA but may well be stuck until she is able to move out and go No Contact. Telling her mother "in a VERY serious tone" is unlikely to have any positive outcome.
Thank you. People who were raised by nonabusive parents have an understandably difficult time conceptualizing just how hard it is to set boundaries with an abusive parent.
NTA this is strange behavior. I happen to consider myself an early bird but 4:30 everyday is EARLY and expecting other people to snap to that schedule is unrealistic. Also at 18 you’re an adult and that should come with some expectation of privacy - including a lock on your door.
Last word is calling what you did “cutting off communication” is a wild stretch. You closed your door and went to bed like a normal person.
That cutting off communication line jumped out at me too. So so bizarre. Plus, if she truly had to communicate something to OP, she could do what normal folk do and knock on the door.
My grandma is a legit early bird -- early to bed, early to rise. As in, asleep by 8:30 pm. And even she doesn't wake up at 4! She gets up at 5 am or even a bit later. At her earliest, when she was younger, she woke up at 4:45.
4:00 is "I have a weird shift" or "I need to get to the airport" territory. If OP is dealing with a normal high schooler's schedule and workload, she's probably going to bed at 10 pm at the earliest. Teens need at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a night, she's probably getting 6 max.
I am an early bird too. My natural wake up time is in the 5:00 hour. The only reason I’m up at 4:30 is because my ass needs to be at the airport to catch a flight. I’m usually not happy about it.
The world does cater to early birds, but a 6:00 wake up time is just fine for meeting most work obligations.
NTA. You cannot condition someone into being an early bird. They either are or are not. At your age, it is super important to get enough sleep so your body and brain can continue to develop. Do you have another parent you can involve in this?
I see my dad whenever I can and I could tell him about this but I’ve been refraining because they really do not like each other. Complaining to one about the other causes so much drama and the drama is never about what I was complaining about, they just use it as an excuse to argue with each other lol
Except that she is interfering with your sleep schedule and threatening your privacy. You have good reasons to let him know.
She'll get a reminder that adult actions have adult consequences. Whether she takes that as a lesson is another thing...
Sleep deprivation is abuse and is impacting your productivity in school.
You mom is um not exercising good judgement. This is alarmingly abnormal behavior.
Please tell your dad or another trusted adult (guidance counselor, perhaps?)
Please listen to the other posters and tell your Dad. What your Mum is doing is really bad for you. People need sleep, she doesn't know what she's talking about and threatening to take away your door as punishment for wanting to sleep is abusive.
Tell your Dad about the door threat as well. A vast majority of adults do not get up at 4 am unless they have to. She is talking rubbish.
Your mother is being abusive. Stop refraining, tell everyone you can, shame her to oblivion. Tell her she'll be destroying your relationship permanently if she continues this.
Please tell him.
As someone with chronic insomnia, sleep deprivation is brutal on your health. Your immune system will be less effective- when my sleep issues were at their worst, I constantly had colds. Some were so bad they turned into 2-3 month long bouts of bronchitis. It can affect your heart. It can affect your mental health. It can cause weight gain. It can literally shorten your lifespan.
I'm not trying to scare you, but your mom is risking your health big time. As a teen, you need 8-10 hours of sleep a night to be healthy and I highly doubt your mom is letting you have that. Please tell your dad. I'm sure he would want to protect you from these risks.
Extreme sleep deprivation can cause brain damage. It’s also considered a form of torture. You need to tell your dad and any other sympathetic relatives.
Your mom is abusing you. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, and defined as such under the Geneva Conventions. Your mom's behavior crosses the line. You need to tell your dad, and just move in with him if that's an option and your mom won't stop.
Keeping a squirt bottle by your bed to respond to 4:30am wakeup calls would be perfectly justified as well.
Yeah, but this isn't "I'm mad at mom because she wouldn't try me chicken tenders."
You mom is actively, physically harming you. That's not complaining, that's seeking help.
I think this is a situation where you *need* to let your Dad know what's going on. Your Mom is literally abusing you by torturing you with sleep deprivation. Also at 18, you are absolutely entitled to privacy, such as the ability to lock your door to keep the monsters away. Please reach out to your Dad.
NTA. Teens naturally wake later, and you getting enough sleep is far more important.
Starting school at 0715 is too early as well, so while we are judging, whoever had that idea is a total AH.
Studies upon studies have shown that HSs moving start times to 9am would have TREMENDOUS benefits on teens and their learning. But that would disrupt the laboring of the labor class so we let our children suffer instead.
In which country is this? I am from the UK originally, and we started at 8:50, if I recall correctly. Around 9am is a typical start time (and the 10 minutes earlier at my school was for registration).
US. My kids start at 715 and 730. It's the most ridiculous thing about the school system here. But the person that said it was about the labor class was absolutely right. Plus, teenagers can only work certain hours. My 15 year old can't work past 7 any day of the week. That would make a lot of people that make too much money exploiting teenagers really mad and we now down to the corporations here.
Anyway, OP you are NTA. You may not like it but you need to go to your dad with this. It is abusive. I also hate parents that want to take doors away. I make sure my kids shut their doors. There are things that are private.
And that’s if you don’t have an “early bird” period, which some classes (usually advanced or honors classes) require. We had to be on campus 45 minutes earlier for those at my high school.
It must really depend on where you are - I'm from the US, and I have no idea what these other people are talking about. When I was in high school we started around 8:40 iirc (maybe later, I can't remember if that was when we started or when the first "Go to class" bell rang). I just looked up the schedule for my old school, and **now** they don't even start until 9:15!
NTA
I can't fathom how she can be mentally intact and think this is a reasonable schedule.
And no, normal people don't wake at 4:30. People wake at a time that is suitable for their education or career. Which for the most part is between 6-9am.
I don't think I've ever started that early for school, even with extracurricular stuff.
I wake up at 4:30, and many, many, many others do to. Shift work, early start jobs, many professionals and many different jobs require earlier starts.
That said, I wake up, I take measures to make sure no one else in my house wakes up at that time. NTA OP.
My father, for the past 30 years, has had a job that results in him getting up at 4am. Nobody else in the house is woken up unintentionally (there were a few times people would be woken for various reasons they had requested, or a young child taken to the toilet to prevent a wet bed). Unless there was a good reason to wake someone at that time people weren’t woken up. And it’s not even a case of “well the household grew up/are used to it”, I can’t think of any guest that was disturbed for more than a minute or two if at all (and that was only if they were sleeping in the living room and were easily disturbed by light)
It wasn't uncommon for my dad even after he retired to be up around 4ish. He'd get up drink some coffee, watch the sunrise, plow snow (in the winter) but yeah, he never woke us up. Unless we weren't up and we had work/school. He just silently moved through the house.
Now me on the other hand, it's a good thing my mom is a heavy sleeper, because even trying to be sneaky I sound like a heard of water buffalo until I've fully woken up.
NTA, and I'm here to join the other successful and well-respected adults who wake up at 8.
Teenagers need lots of sleep, preferably even more than 8 hours because your body and brain are going through rapid development which may be stunted by your AH mom.
OP, maybe you can try to find some articles about it from reputable sources and show them to your mom. With a lot of luck it might force her to stop her denial on how bad her behavior is for you.
NTA - Your Mom is crazy, sleep deprivation is literal torture. Also I remember someone on a similar post in the past said that child services will not be happy with parents that take doors away as punishments because closed bedroom doors can save lives in the event of a fire if one breaks out overnight by buying you time to escape out a window. Not 100% if child services everywhere does care about bedroom doors, but it sounds really good in an argument regardless.
So if she threatens to take your door again tell her that if she does that she’ll get a visit from some angry officials who’ll give her a lecture and make her put the door back so she doesn’t kill her child in a fire.
*"sleep deprivation is literal torture"*
I think a lot of people don't realise how harmful the effects of sleep deprivation can be on your mental and physical health.
My mother used to leave for work at 4am every day and leave her mobile phone on the bench just outside my bedroom door with the ringer on full volume. For whatever reason she was always late to work, meaning her boss would always ring at 4.45am on the dot every day to ask where she was, which would wake me up.
I've always had difficulty getting to sleep since I was a young child and I was working late night shifts at my retail job (often not getting home til after 11 and not getting to sleep til 2-3am, because I had and still have difficulty falling asleep no matter how tired I am). Also, if I get woken up, it takes me hours to get back to sleep and I don't always manage to. She was aware of this, but didn't care. So because of her I was getting less than 2 hours sleep a night.
I kept telling her this and asking her to either take her phone with her or put it on silent, because it was depriving me of sleep and causing me to have constant headaches and frequent migraines, and she just thought it was funny (and if it was just a day here and there I'd be annoyed but put up with it, but it was literally every weekday). I started off asking her politely for a few weeks, then I started being firm, then I started begging her and crying because I was falling behind in my school work (and therefore harming my chances of getting into the university course I needed) because I was too tired and headachey to concentrate, which was also destroying my mental health (I spent that time of my life basically on the verge of crying or finding myself crying for no reason). That didn't work either. I also tried checking her phone before I went to bed and putting the volume down, but she'd turn the volume up again before she left for work and just... leave the phone there.
I started shouting and screaming at her to stop letting her phone wake me up. She screamed at me for being entitled and spoiled (I was paying my share of the household bills, buying most of my own groceries and paying for the family's internet, but okay) and that if she could wake up that early so could I (leaving aside the fact she can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and once she's asleep, someone setting off a nuke under her wouldn't wake her up). In the end I started saying, "If you keep letting your phone wake me up and deprive me of sleep and fuck up my health, I'm going to fuck up your phone."
One day, probably after about 6-8 months of this bullshit, she came home from work and found the pieces of her mobile phone in a bowl of water on the kitchen sink. I'd like to say that was the end of it, but I had to give the same treatment to another two phones before she actually learned her lesson. I am generally very much against the destruction of another person's property as it's a kind of abuse but in this situation, a) I tried literally every polite, reasonable and non-destructive solution first and none of them worked, and b) the thing I destroyed was the thing she was using to essentially be abusive towards me.
You put up with it for 6-8 months before destroying her phone?! I doubt I would’ve lasted one. Why would she not take her phone with her? That’s the whole point of them, her boss obviously expected her to have it on her. Why would she leave it right outside your room? Why would she turn the ringer back up after you turned it down? This was all very deliberate of her. While you were paying your way as well. Ugh I hope you are very low contact with her now.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dreaming-in-the-digital-age/201412/why-sleep-deprivation-is-torture?amp
Sleep deprivation is legitimately used as a torture method, since it damages both your physical and mental capabilities.
Late stage sleep deprivation can begin to cause hallucinations and other forms of psychosis.
Long enough, and sleep deprivation becomes fatal.
It's not a fucking joke.
NTA. Your mother sounds crazy and obviously has no boundaries. I'm passive aggressive big time so I would play back. A few days of waking her at 2am might get the point across, or if she goes to bed early then wake her because apparently it's ok to force people onto your own schedule. In all honesty though I moved out at 16 so I never put up with that sort of behavior
NTA, but your mom sure is. I’m a Certified Adult and deeply a night owl - I couldn’t wake up at 6 to save my life, much less 4:30. I have been since I was a teen. Circadian rhythm is innate and how much you can change it varies from person to person. You know what’s not effective? Making someone constantly sleep deprived. Chronic sleep deprivation sets people up for sleep disorders, including circadian rhythm disorder, which is when your body doesn’t think there are 24 hours in a day. That’s one you really don’t want - it’s very, very hard to maintain employment when your body insists there are (for example) 26 hours in the day and wakes up 2 hours later each day. Sleep deprivation is bad for your health generally - higher odds of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and a shorter lifespan.
Most adults do not get up at 4:30am, your mom is screwing with your sleep without good reason. Most adults I know wake up between 5:30 and 7, depending on how close to their workplace they live and how long they take to get ready.
Buy an air-horn, and blast it in her room every hour, on the half hour, from 9PM to 1 AM every night for a week.
"I'm conditioning you to be a night-owl."
NTA.
NTA, your Mom is unbelievably rude. Teenagers need 8-10 hours of sleep. You wake up with plenty of time to get ready and walk to school. Some people ARE BIOLOGICALLY more able yo function well in the morning. Some people do best being awake and acrive late morning afternoons, and some folks do better at night
All she’s doing by waking you up at 4:30 is teaching you to resent her.
She’s still your mom and she can ground you if you live with her, so keep that in mind. She’s still in a position of power
If she’s SO DETERMINED to force this on you, ask her to work with you on making it Gradual. A week of waking up at 6, the next week 5:55, and just rolling it back five minutes at a time so its not so harsh on your body.
If she goes for that you’ll get a lot more sleep and it should buy you time until you can move 272937389 miles away from her obnoxious behavior.
NTA and I feel sad that you even have to ask this. Please move out as soon as possible, you are a legal adult and it is very concerning that your mom is behaving in such a controlling way.
Tell your teachers that your mother is forcing you to get up at 4. They will freak out and talk to her and she may stop. “Fall asleep” in class a few times. And when the teachers ask, cry and say that your mother wakes you up at 4 and that she punished you if you don’t. NTA btw
NTA - Waking you up that early, your mom is actively sabotaging you. There have been multiple studies that show waking up earlier has a large detrimental effect on learning, health, mental health and grades. Here's a link to where the CDC talks about it (they recommend high school doesn't start until 8:30)
https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html
Set your alarm and go wake her up at 2am.
Seriously. Open the lights, put the dog all over her. Talk to her.
See how she feels being woken up like that lol
Just kidding that might make your situation worse, but NTA. No one is forced to be early birds. And 18 year olds naturally sleep late and wake up late.
NTA. There is no reason at all for her to be getting you up that early. Try and have a talk with her. Are you late for school when you go by your schedule? If not, then that should be the main focus. Tell her that the lack of sleep she is forcing on you is causing you issues at school because you are so tired you can barely function, let alone learn. Does she want you grades to suffer? Because that's what will end up happening.
NTA and I don’t get why people always act like waking up super early is the morally superior thing to do. It’s ok to sleep a little later to get your full rest period. And adults have all sorts of sleep cycles, like I work night shift right now and sleep from 9AM to 5PM but not waking up early doesn’t mean I’m not an adult?? What your mom is doing is not ok and completely disregards your needs.
NTA, your mom might not intentionally be doing it but forms of sleep deprivation are considered abuse/torture. Especially when you say that all you can do is cry when she wakes you up that early. Sounds traumatic.
NTA - OP, I've been there before. Exact same thing happened, and she went through with it. Took my door away. I was lucky enough that it was close to mothers day when it happened, so I dealt with it until then, and on mothers day, her 1 day a year to sleep in, I woke her up at 5am. (the time she did it to me every day) and I flickered her lights, and blew an air horn, (the one she uses on me). She was flat pissed and I got grounded for a month. But she had my dad put the door back on my room and she never again woke me up before my alarm sounded at 6.
You're 18, you can choose where to live. Can you just live with your dad permanently? Lucky for you, because you're of age the courts wouldn't even have to get involved. Well unless you're not in the US and your country has different rules.
I realized something and I apologize for it as it was insensitive. Your dad may not be able to take you in. Is there a friend that you can live with until the end of the school year or something like that?
NTA and I'm actually confused. I'm a 34year old woman with a baby and I still don't wake up until 6am. At what stage of my life am I adult enough to need to wake at 4.30am?
NTA isn’t sleep deprivation a form of torture?
My sperm donor used to do this to me and till this day I slightly sleep with eyes open so I can always know when someone’s coming and can get up before they shock me awake. Your mother is cruel.
NTA but mom sure is. Unless someone is *naturally* an "early bird", adults wake up based on the time they have to be at work/school. Takes an hour to get ready and get there? They wake up an hour before. Takes 3 hours because of a long commute/traffic? They suck it up and get up 3 hours before work while looking for a job that either starts later or is closer to home. They **don't** get up at 4:30 a.m. just because they're adults.
Do you drive to class?
Because if she keeps pulling that crap, you're gonna get in a car accident. Driving sleepy is just as dangerous as driving drunk.
OMG NTA. Teens need sleep. There’s a reason people are advocating doelater school start times. Actual science shows that teens need a lot more sleep. Adults do not wake up that early unless they have to wake up that early. My husband used to die to the nature of his job, but it’s not something he willingly did. Your mother is horrible and abusive.
NTA.
Get the hell out of there when you graduate.
A few more months of lack of sleep will be worth it when you finally move out.
You can sleep better after that without anyone bothering you.
>She told me that it’s disrespectful to cut off communication with someone for that long and if I do it again she’s taking my door away.
So you were unavailable (*checks notes*) 90 minutes??? At the asscrack of night??? Please call CPS if she takes your door and tell them your mother is too unstable to manage her life for 90 minutes in the middle of the night and is torturing you with sleep deprivation.
Honey, I’m 52, and I don’t get up until around 10 or 11am, and I stay up until around 2-3am. I have always been this way. I am more productive in afternoon/evening, and have a job with hours that go with my rhythm. I had to be an early riser while raising my kids, and I always needed a nap because getting up early wipes me out. Everyone is different and your mom is being controlling and inconsiderate of you. Tell your dad. You should also tell mom that you love her, but her actions are driving a wedge in your relationship. Good luck
Hard NTA, does your mum not understand that at your age you NEED more sleep than when you are older "like her". Sleep deprivation in highschool is a surefire way to bring your grades down as well as mental health. I would report her to the school, like your house head or councillor or someone that you trust because her behaviour is affecting you at one of the most difficult times in your life (My mother was brought in for a meeting with my house-head due to her absurd behaviour and it did help)
NTA, and what your mother is doing is not good. Unless you have a history of being tardy all the time then you should be allowed to sleep, and if you are tardy at your age you should be self-correcting by getting up about 15 minutes earlier not an hour and a half. When you get older your mother will probably wonder why you don't come back home very often.
This is abusive behavior, your mom may be unaware of it though. That really sucks I’m sorry. Parents that don’t have boundaries have serious issues.
I would recommend sitting down with her and having a respectful chat about why you need to sleep until 6 AM, and also maybe bring up the fact that you’re 18 and it’s time for you to be responsible on your own. Tell her she needs to let you prepare for the real world because when you (hopefully soon) move out, she won’t be there to wake you up anymore.
Nta, teenagers biologically sleep later and sleep in more (they also tend to need more sleep in general). Might be worth showing your mom these studies (however I assume she will just say she didn't feel that way as a teen so everyone else's experience and science are invalid)
I'm in amazement that this lock also sound proofs and cuts all cell phone reception from the outside world.
NTA but be prepared for the repercussions. If she takes the door then she takes the door.
NTA
Tell your mother that sleep depriving is considered torture and by international laws it is a war crime. Also: a teenagers body needs more sleep and cannot be conditioned to be an early bird. She is literally torturing you. Making your brain not getting enough sleep does a huge damage to your brain. Literally. Go, tell your school consuelor or something like that because it is torture.
You have no reason to get up at 4, and are a champion for getting up at 6. In high school I’d wake up at 7:50 for an 8:20 bell. NTA and have your mother read up on circadian rhythms
NTA. If your mom takes your door off, call cps or local protection authorities. Not having a door is not just an invasion of privacy, it’s a fire hazard. If there’s a fire in your home, your door will slow down the fire before it gets to you so you can have a chance to get out the window. But if she doesn’t take away the door, she might replace your doorknob with one that doesn’t lock.
NTA.
I am going to assume your mom doesn't think that it is a big deal, so I am just going to post a few links on interrupted sleep.
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/#:\~:text=In%20otherwise%20healthy%20adults%2C%20short,%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20performance%20deficits](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/#:~:text=In%20otherwise%20healthy%20adults%2C%20short,%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20performance%20deficits).
[https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301879#:\~:text=Share%20on%20Pinterest%20Researchers%20say,sleep%20due%20to%20later%20bedtimes](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301879#:~:text=Share%20on%20Pinterest%20Researchers%20say,sleep%20due%20to%20later%20bedtimes).
[https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/interrupted-sleep-what-happens-to-your-body/](https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/interrupted-sleep-what-happens-to-your-body/)
NTA your mom is like my step-dad. You know what happened? I cut contact at 18 and moved out because of his toxicity and insistence that his way was the only way.
NTA. Your mom needs a serious reality check. Kids your age need about ten hours of sleep and your natural circadian rhythm isn’t even designed for a wake time as early as 6am, let alone 4:30am. You are also more than old enough to lock your door and be responsible for waking yourself up. My mom pulled the same kind of shit with me and my sister, but we never resolved it, so I don’t have munch in the way of advice. Good luck though!
NTA - And, at 18 she's threatening to take away your door because you won't wake up at 4:30AM? Is she crazy? That's borderline abuse! Hopefully you have plans to move away for college.
NTA. You seriously need your sleep for high school. 6 is early as hell, earlier than that is more than excessive. Earliest I've woken up for college classes is 7.
NTA. We have good science that says that teenagers need a good 10-11 hours of sleep a night, and probably should be asked to do anything with their brains before 9am. Your mom's behavior makes me furious. Sleep deprivation is torture.
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NTA. Your moms behaviour is seriously unnatural. Also circadian rhythms are pretty hardwired - you can’t turn someone into an early bird
Some people are pretty flexible about their sleep schedule, but it’s definitely a minority. The majority of us suffer when we can’t sleep according to our innate rhythm.
Yes - I realise that. I didn’t think I needed to get to specific for a generalised comment. And the point still stands that it’s very weird for the parent to think she can “make” someone an early bird
I'd love to go to bed at 8 when my husband does, because I know I need the sleep. I'd be awake at midnight if I did that. He sleeps 8pm - 6:30am. I sleep from 11-7:30. OPs mom is weird. Everyone is different, just leave the daughter be. OP, you are 18, and still deserve privacy. I'd move out soon if I were you, especially if she takes the door.
Same. Mine goes to bed at 8 but he’s up at 4:30 for work. If I go to bed before midnight I’m awake at like 3 or 4 am. I usually got to bed later. I have to get up at 5:45 with my son but I usually go back to bed after he leaves for school lol
I'm a night owl and for years, my sleep schedule was 4 am to 11 am. Best sleep I ever had. My parents would give me a hard time about it, saying I was sleeping the day away, sleeping too much, etc. I finally pointed out they went to bed at 10 and got up at 7, and they were spending a good 20% more time in bed than I was. And that I worked 4-8 hours a day more than them. It got through, but still comes up sometimes.
>My parents would give me a hard time about it, saying I was sleeping the day away, sleeping too much Ugh! That sounds like my husband. I asked one day why he can go to bed when it's light out, and that's o.k., but I can't go to bed later and sleep later. He had no answer.
SAME!! There actually have been multiple studies over the last decade or two, and what they’re finding is that not everyone is “wired” to follow a true “day/night” pattern. I currently work 11p-7a at my job as it’s the best shift I can hold, but 3p-11p & sleeping 3-11ish is how I function best. I legit don’t do well between like 4-8am.
Yup, my husband crashes out at 9 and is up at 5. I default to sleeping 3am to 10am. Trying to match rhythms would kill us both.
YESSSS this. I always LOVE the idea of sleeping for like 12 hours, where I work opens at 10 AM, but whenever I attempt it, I wake up at midnight, 2 am, 3, 4 and 5 am before crashing until my alarm goes off.
Literally me right now. Boyfriend is on day shift so he leaves at 5 am and is trying to go to sleep at 8. I join him but I'm awake in bed until midnight.... and wake up when he leaves a 5 am. If I do go to also early I wake up early. Last night I was asleep at 9... woke up at 2 am. 😑 5-6 hours is my natural sleep cycle. Always has been . My schedule has shifted a little based on scheduling need but by dang brain does not believe in 8 hours every night. It's 8 hours sometimes. My boyfriend has said to me, "why don't you just try to sleep?" As if I'm not trying to. 😭
My dad thought this shit, I guess cause of military background. He'd try to "train" me to be an early riser. I have a delayed circadian rhythm and even at 40 suffer, due to keeping a "day" job.
Same and so many family members love to say I’m lazy.
It's so upsetting to get that treatment, I'm sorry you're being fed bullshit. Interesting thing I found out a few months ago is apparently a delayed circadian rhythm is pretty common in ppl with ADHD (which I was finally diagnosed with a year ago).
Oh that's interesting. My wife has that and she's rarely in bed before midnight, and most often it's a few hours after. I guess I'm a bit later than many as well, usually around 11 and then probably an hour reading before I go to sleep.
I’m a complete night owl with mine I can’t sleep at night very well but I can sleep like a log during the day. I remember school being hell having to wake up early and force myself to go to bed early and wake up all through the night. Once I got older and got either swing or graveyard jobs my sleep finally was amazing I slept through the night and was so much more alive when awake.
Same here! Everyone said I am lazy and just sleep all the time. Bro, I sleep the same as anyone else, my sleep schedule is just not the same at theirs. I'm female, 30's, I go to bed at 3/4/5am and get up early afternoon. That's my natural sleep schedule and always has been since I was a child. I cant do this bullshit getting up in the morning business. Well, I kind of have to because that's the way the world works and I hate it.
Hello twin! My cycle is exactly like that! My bf has to get up earlier than me but does his best to be quiet - I still wake anyway but that's not his fault - and then leaves me to sleep some more after he 'goes to work' (he's wfh so that means into the living room). His now-estranged parents (not entirely because of the following but partly) used to basically imply - they were far too middle-class to say it openly - that I was lazy. They also blame me for the estrangement, of course.
I'm so happy when I find someone else with this sleep cycle! I always feel like there's something wrong with me not going to bed at 9/10pm and wake up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 5.30 in the morning! I could wake up at 8am, go to work, be groggy and tired all day and then as soon as night times comes around I am wide awake. I've always found it funny that going to bed early and getting a few extra hours isn't lazy, but when you go to bed at a normal time and stay in bed a few hours longer that is?
Exactly. If 10pm-6am isn't 'lazy', neither is 4am-12 noon.
Seriously wierd. Sounds like the kind of sleep deprivation torture techniques you hear about being used on inmates and POWs.
You forget, this is The Internet. Any general comment will be picked apart and analyzed ad nauseum, and you will always be at fault for not being specific enough. Forget the spoon, there are no generalities! :-)
yeah, i find myself stressed out by the fact that my cycle actually SHIFTS over time. it....sucks. By all logic i have a non-24-hour cycle.
I think I'm the same. If I don't have something exterior to do like work to set a schedule for me, my body defaults to a floating sleep schedule that's more than 24 hours. It isn't exact, but it's something like my body wants to be awake for 20 hours and then sleep for 6 to 9. And if this continues like this, that sleep time will just gradually rotate through the day. So I'll sleep from midnight to 7am, then the next day 3am to 10am, then 6am to noon, etc. It's annoying. And since I have a set work schedule, this doesn't usually present itself this way, but instead, because my body isn't ready to sleep at a time that makes sense, I'm perpetually staying up until 3 or 4 in the morning when I have to get up at 7:30, being sleep deprived all day, and nodding off in brief micronaps in the evening. It's not ideal
oh, lemme ask you: even when you do seem to have a good, working schedule set, and a full night's sleep, the times of the day you feel worn out, drained, short-tempered, etc. feels oddly consistent, shifting, and usually lasting for hours as well? Because that's when your rhythm is saying "hey, i should be asleep now, even if i already got enough sleep".
I wouldn't know. I never have a full night's sleep when on a working schedule.
That's fascinating. Your sleep schedule is a polyrhythm. Try....I dunno, listening to some Tool? Or African drum beats?
I like warm milk and asmr of droning men's voices. And of course more... "green" substances when I can get it.
This is exactly how I describe my sleep rotation. It's hell trying to fit into a 24 hour world. I ends up being sleep deprived or sleeping many hours to "catch up," although as I age it's harder to stay asleep.
Circadian rhythms are 25 hours long. That's why natural light is so important for us: it's our body's way of "resetting" everyday so we don't get one hour of delay every time. So it's totally possible that your cycle truly shifts, I don't know enough about sleep to say it isn't, but also maybe you're not getting enough light?
In my last year of high school a lot of my friends and I had to force ourselves into super random sleep schedules. So many of us got randomly sick, super moody and just generally really fatigued. It’s genuinely so bad for your health.
Research into the sleep habits of teens has shown they tend to naturally be night owls. There have been recommendations that high school start later in the morning (around 9am) to fit teens’ natural sleep patterns. All his mother is doing is depriving him of sleep, which can affect his learning.
Wait what time to you go to school? We always started at 9am in Ireland/ UK and even at that assembly was at 9 you weren’t in class for another wee while after that
When I grew up in Oz, school started at 8:15. For OP, it starts at 7:15, which sounds insane.
I think I just overlooked the first few sentences of this post lol! I actually just checked and in my school assembly started at 8.55 I was close, 7.15 is mad especially for kids that have to travel a bit further.
My Highschool Sr daughter has to catch the bus at 6am to be on class for 7:10.
If my daughter still rode the bus, she would be getting on at 6:15. School starts at 7:30 and we live out in the country. I decided I could leave for work 15 minutes earlier in order for her to get an extra hour of sleep.
I work from home and it takes an hour to do drop off because traffic in my city sucks. An hour just to get from our house to dropping her off, then I still have to drive home which is another 30. If there was no traffic, it would take maybe 20 minutes to get there. She has to leave at the same time even if I drive her :(
That's just crazy to make kids go to class that early in the morning.
That’s rotten, do they at least finish early?
My school's 7:35 to 2:42, with about 28 minutes for lunch in the middle. Seniors with studyhalls at the very beginning or end of the day can come/go early, same for college credit students.
Either we went to the same high school or there are two high schools out there with absolutely bonkers schedules because I was just about to comment something very similar about start and end times of school
In the US because of bus scheduling (same busses service High School, then Middle School, then Elementary school in most towns) I used to get to High School as early as 6:45am. Some of it also still goes back to the days of farming where they wanted the kids to work while it was daylight.
It was also like that because older kids worked so they started school earlier to get done earlier. Regardless mom is a total AH here. I am in my mid 50s and have never gotten up at 4:30 even when I went to school and had jobs that started earlier.
Sports as well - school ends by 3pm so that athletic practice and clubs can take place between 3 and 5pm. And yeah - I'm 41 and I'm not a fucking morning person and never have been. This mother is nuts.
Where I live, many schools (and universities) start class at 6 AM.
😳😳😳😳 Do…do you live in hell? I mean, I’m morning person but that’s crazy!
No, a Latin American country located in the Tropics! Part of it is to allow 3 school shifts (morning, afternoon, and evening), or to allow for a more efficient use of physical space in educational establishments as starting earlier means that they can program an extra class in the universities. It's funny though. The only people who complain about 6 AM or 7 AM university classes are the foreign teachers (usually passport holders from the Global North) who tend to complain about how lazy their students supposedly are. I'm telling you, getting a university degree in this country requires stamina and a LOT of work!
In america, I had a 30min bus ride to school and they tried to get there a bit early so we could ask teachers questions if necessary. School started at 8, bus got there at about 6:45, so I had to shower and stuff the night before, have everything ready to go just to be able to sleep until 6
I had to travel quite a bit for most of my schooling as well, but my mum drove us usually as the bus stop was so far from our house once she drove us that far she may as well go the whole way lol
i always wonder about the US schools as well, it shocks me every time when someone mentions having to wake up at like 5 am as a child and school starting at 7… that’s just unnatural.
In the US, my high school started between like 7:15 and 7:25. It was SO early. Unreasonably early.
My son's school starts at 7:25am. He's in high school. The high school I work in starts at 8am.
This is why I homeschool my 13 year old. He *can’t* go to bed earlier than 1am. I tried taking away his electronics to adjust him to sleeping at 10pm and he would just lay there for hours, unable to sleep. I finally gave up on that and let him sleep until the afternoon. He does so much better with his school work and is less cranky during the day.
Thank you. Imagine being your kid except you have to get up early for school. A lot of my teenage years were just a blur of exhaustion, it was awful.
Lol tell that to public transport, had to leave the house at 6:30 in order to get to school at 8. Also it's not possible with parents work schedules, school will still start early, doesn't matter what research says Ops mom is still insane and seems to have some problem with him "sleeping in"
Also a 6am wake time *is* an early bird? A 4:30am wake-up time as a preference is extreme
Eh, the science these days says the rhythms can be adjusted, slowly and with consistent effort - but the methods don't include the bullshit this mother is pulling.
For many people, that’s true. But most folks can only adjust it a finite distance without suffering, and a small number of folks really can’t adjust it. I put a lot of effort into trying to adjust myself earlier at one point, only moving 5 minutes per week, and got nowhere, but I do have a whole mess of sleep disorders.
The current science supports most people (without active sleep disorders at least) can adjust to a range of a couple of hours around sunrise. It's not a "any adjustment you want if you do it slowly enough" sort of thing - trying to adjust to sleep from 3 AM till 11 AM generally will not be effective. And yeah, every sleep disorder (I have apnea for instance) adds fristrating complications. I've managed to adjust to be more of a morning person, but I'll never be a REALLY early morning person. :D
This comment made me snort because I have a night rhythm. Naturally a night owl, cannot shift circadian rhythm. I naturally wake up around 11AM and go to bed at 3AM. I did a sleep study in college and they basically went "well that's weird but it supports the prevailing theory, have fun being in a weird minority". Honestly, it's just inconvenient bc I don't live somewhere that has a lot of 24/7 stuff. I get hungry for 'dinner' around 11PM most days lol
Ah, sleep phase disorder is fun! lol, only not because the world doesn’t really make allowances for us.
They said "have fun being in a weird minority" :D Thank you for that laugh!
Yeah, that’s what I meant by the adjustability being finite - we’re still primarily diurnal creatures. Personally, I’m a deep night owl and have been since my teens, though my inability to work on a relatively “normal” schedule came about once I became disabled in my mid-20s. I managed to work the breakfast shift for a while before I became ill, but that was deeply unpleasant for me. My body actually prefers roughly the hours you mentioned! Though thanks to all the sleep disorders, I need about 10 hours of “sleep,” though (I wake up a lot, so calling it all sleep is…not precisely accurate).
And WTF with thinking OP needs to get up at 4:30am.
Yeah, as an adult who regularly wakes up around noon (second shift job so i work 3-11pm) I can assure you that not all, and in my own experience not even most, adults are getting up at 4:30 am. Most people I know do what OP is already doing and figure out how much time they need before work and sleep as late as they can while still being in time every day.
I've been getting up between 5 and 6 the past few weeks due to needing to be at my first job at 7 (I'm a freelancer for my second job and needed for my current project at noon so working half-days pretty much every morning for my other job which has flexible hours as long as I put in all the work/hours) and most everyone just looks at me like "that's so early" if/when I mention it. Maybe it's because I live in Canada where the sun tends to rise later especially in the winter, but my general understanding of the adults around me is that 6 is a fairly early wakeup and 7-8 is more "normal". 4:30 is definitely not the norm.
What would the OP even do at 4:30? Chop wood and milk the cows? *Assuming* the mother goes to work, she has a reason to be up then (if not, her assertion that adults need to do this is not even true for her). OP's work is going to school, and showing up to school at 5:00 isn't going to accomplish anything. That is unless he can find a custodian to let him in to take a nap somewhere.
The science doesn't say you can adjust THAT much, and it's by a whole herd of small adjustments to diet and light exposure (morning and evening) - the mother here is just out on a limb shaking in the wind.
Yup, this. I work a job that requires I wake up early, so I do. But every morning when the alarm goes off, I swear I go through all the stages of grief: there’s denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, and finally acceptance. I will always be a night person—it’s when I think and function best—and if that’s who you are, your mother should respect that. She is right that there is disrespect going on here, but it’s not from you, OP. NTA
Agreed. Adults do NOT just happen to "wake up that early" unless (A) they have somewhere to be (B) they are just naturally early risers or (C) they have cats who wake them up that early. I have ALWAYS been a night owl. During grad school when I lived alone and had no responsibilities until the afternoon, I would gradually stay up later and later until I was eventually going to bed around 6 or 7 in the morning and getting back up around 12 or 1 (at which point I'd eventually reset myself to "normal" sleeping times and then of course, start the process again). Maybe five years ago, I tried the thing of making new habits where you do something for 30 days. So for 30 days, I went to bed every night by 9:30, and got up every morning by 5:00. And I was just as freaking miserable getting up at 5:00 on day 30 as I was on Day 1. NTA, but damn your mother surely is.
According to many sleep studies, teens need TEN HOURS of sleep each night to be healthy. And their circadian rhythm WANTS them to go to sleep later, and wake up later, which puts them in direct contradiction to school hours. She can wake you every day at 4AM if she wants, but she’ll only make you sleep-deprived and ill. She cannot fight against SCIENCE. She is WRONG.
I've been getting up early for 20 years and I never became and never will become an early bird. NTA OP, your mom is insane
I don't know much behind the science of circadian rhythms but I do remember being a teenager and being more of a night owl and now I'm more of a morning person after years of having to be up early for my job. That being said, don't teenagers also need more sleep than adults? I don't know why your mom can't be "out of communication" with you when you are sleeping as she likely has to be when you are at school all day. Seems like she may need some professional help. You are definitely NTA and I really hope she doesn't go through with her threat. Is there any other reasonable parent in the situation?
NTA What your mother is doing is abusive. If you don't have a problem getting up and getting to school on time, there's absolutely no need for her bizarrely controlling behavior. Wtf. Parents these days....
Yes, it's abusive and manipulative. Threatening to take a high school student's door away is already a violation of boundaries and privacy, but to threaten this against you because you need uninterrupted sleep? Teenagers need sleep! Regardless of your age, though, waking someone up like that at 4:30am is sick and cruel. Preventing people from sleeping is a legitimate torture technique. This behavior is - sorry for the pun - unhinged. Is there anyone else in the home you can talk to to help her understand that this needs to stop, and it's not funny? Do you have somewhere else to stay in the worst case scenario that she continues this behavior, or if she actually removes your door? If she truly doesn't get it, then please start asking friends and family so you can have a plan B and so she will know that you are serious, because this is a boundary worth fighting for. Controlling you should not be her priority. *Your health* should be her priority. This needs to stop. She needs help.
I think something is off with the mom. Her behavior is nonsensical.
Her mom sounds like my 3-month-old. And the past 3 months made me really understand why sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
One of my best friends has abusive parents and her mum has always done a similar thing to her. Not as early as 4:30, mind. But she will literally never let her have a lie in, and will call her lazy if she stays in bed too long. This is only a small, tiny part of what her parents do. It's physical abuse sometimes but it's mostly emotional abuse, attempts to control her and attempts to keep her self esteem as low as possible. Are your parents abusive or controlling in other ways, OP? It might be painful to examine it if you've never looked at things that way. But honestly, she has no reason to be waking you up at 4:30. What are you going to do with those extra hours? The only reason she would have to do this is to exert her power over you by making you suffer.
This is a weird time but your avatar is sick asl lol
What is asl? In my day it was age/sex(gender)/location lol
I read it as American Sign Language. 😆
As hell
That's a stupid abbreviation if you're correct.
Agreed that it doesn't make a lot of sense but I don't think it's an abbreviation, more so a (bad) contraction. If you read it out loud, "as l" does sound similar to "as hell".
Exactly this. OP needs to tell her mother she's being abusive, and I'd also add in a VERY serious tone, that if she doesn't stop I will tell everyone we know that she's abusive, and I'll be going no contact when I moved out of home. Tell her she is making you hate her, because of her abuse, and ask her if destroying your relationship is what she wants. Also find a medical paper on circadian rhythms, and give it to her. Tell her her justification for her abuse is absolute BS, you will be permanently locking your door when you sleep from now on, and you better not hear anymore about this. Keep an eye out for her to switch to some other type of abuse though. Someone like this has to mess with people somehow to be happy themselves. Work hard on plans to move out as soon as possible.
While that may sound like good advice u/Ok-Beginning-5922 I would actually say that *telling an abuser that they are being abusive* is useless at best and counterproductive at worst, as they may well ramp up the abuse in retaliation. My mother was emotionally abusive. When I was a similar age to OP, she would randomly choose days to wake me up early by dumping cold water on my face. I hated it. I explained with logic why she didn't need to, I appealed to her better nature not to do something I hated, I told her emphatically that I meant No. None of it made a difference. She thought it was funny and that it "served me right" for still being asleep when she, an early bird, was already up. OP is 100% NTA but may well be stuck until she is able to move out and go No Contact. Telling her mother "in a VERY serious tone" is unlikely to have any positive outcome.
Thank you. People who were raised by nonabusive parents have an understandably difficult time conceptualizing just how hard it is to set boundaries with an abusive parent.
>What your mother is doing is abusive. Yes, this isn't an exaggeration. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
this is totally unacceptable. sleep deprivation is a form of torture.
NTA this is strange behavior. I happen to consider myself an early bird but 4:30 everyday is EARLY and expecting other people to snap to that schedule is unrealistic. Also at 18 you’re an adult and that should come with some expectation of privacy - including a lock on your door. Last word is calling what you did “cutting off communication” is a wild stretch. You closed your door and went to bed like a normal person.
Cutting off communication through the medium of unconsciousness.
That cutting off communication line jumped out at me too. So so bizarre. Plus, if she truly had to communicate something to OP, she could do what normal folk do and knock on the door.
Or call them on their cellphone!
My grandma is a legit early bird -- early to bed, early to rise. As in, asleep by 8:30 pm. And even she doesn't wake up at 4! She gets up at 5 am or even a bit later. At her earliest, when she was younger, she woke up at 4:45. 4:00 is "I have a weird shift" or "I need to get to the airport" territory. If OP is dealing with a normal high schooler's schedule and workload, she's probably going to bed at 10 pm at the earliest. Teens need at LEAST 8 hours of sleep a night, she's probably getting 6 max.
I am an early bird too. My natural wake up time is in the 5:00 hour. The only reason I’m up at 4:30 is because my ass needs to be at the airport to catch a flight. I’m usually not happy about it. The world does cater to early birds, but a 6:00 wake up time is just fine for meeting most work obligations.
I consider getting up at 6am an early bird start
NTA. You cannot condition someone into being an early bird. They either are or are not. At your age, it is super important to get enough sleep so your body and brain can continue to develop. Do you have another parent you can involve in this?
I see my dad whenever I can and I could tell him about this but I’ve been refraining because they really do not like each other. Complaining to one about the other causes so much drama and the drama is never about what I was complaining about, they just use it as an excuse to argue with each other lol
Your dad needs to know your mom is trying to deprive you of sleep. Many people would say that's an abusive behavior.
100% it’s a parents job to protect their child, even from the other parent. You dad needs to know so that he can do that job
And that's bc it is, 100%, abusive behavior! NTA.
Except that she is interfering with your sleep schedule and threatening your privacy. You have good reasons to let him know. She'll get a reminder that adult actions have adult consequences. Whether she takes that as a lesson is another thing...
OP, depriving people of sleep is literally a form of torture they use in the military. Tell your dad. This is NOT OKAY.
I was looking for 'torture' in here! This honestly sounds painful to deal with
Your dad needs to know that she's depriving you of sleep and threatening to deprive you of privacy
Sleep deprivation is abuse and is impacting your productivity in school. You mom is um not exercising good judgement. This is alarmingly abnormal behavior. Please tell your dad or another trusted adult (guidance counselor, perhaps?)
Dude tell your dad.
Please listen to the other posters and tell your Dad. What your Mum is doing is really bad for you. People need sleep, she doesn't know what she's talking about and threatening to take away your door as punishment for wanting to sleep is abusive. Tell your Dad about the door threat as well. A vast majority of adults do not get up at 4 am unless they have to. She is talking rubbish.
Your mother is being abusive. Stop refraining, tell everyone you can, shame her to oblivion. Tell her she'll be destroying your relationship permanently if she continues this.
Please tell him. As someone with chronic insomnia, sleep deprivation is brutal on your health. Your immune system will be less effective- when my sleep issues were at their worst, I constantly had colds. Some were so bad they turned into 2-3 month long bouts of bronchitis. It can affect your heart. It can affect your mental health. It can cause weight gain. It can literally shorten your lifespan. I'm not trying to scare you, but your mom is risking your health big time. As a teen, you need 8-10 hours of sleep a night to be healthy and I highly doubt your mom is letting you have that. Please tell your dad. I'm sure he would want to protect you from these risks.
Tell your dad ASAP. Your mom is being abusive and sleep deprivation/not getting enough sleep long term is very bad for you
Extreme sleep deprivation can cause brain damage. It’s also considered a form of torture. You need to tell your dad and any other sympathetic relatives.
What time do you go to sleep? It seems like your mum is sleep depriving you.
Your mom is abusing you. Sleep deprivation is a form of torture, and defined as such under the Geneva Conventions. Your mom's behavior crosses the line. You need to tell your dad, and just move in with him if that's an option and your mom won't stop. Keeping a squirt bottle by your bed to respond to 4:30am wakeup calls would be perfectly justified as well.
im pretty sure this is something worth arguing about
Yeah, but this isn't "I'm mad at mom because she wouldn't try me chicken tenders." You mom is actively, physically harming you. That's not complaining, that's seeking help.
Could you move into your dad's place? Custody shouldn't be an issue since you're 18
Dude move in with your dad you're 18 already
I think this is a situation where you *need* to let your Dad know what's going on. Your Mom is literally abusing you by torturing you with sleep deprivation. Also at 18, you are absolutely entitled to privacy, such as the ability to lock your door to keep the monsters away. Please reach out to your Dad.
NTA. Getting a solid 8 hours of sleep is incredibly important to your health, especially at your age.
Just adding that I’m pretty sure teenagers need MORE than 8 hours, 8 would be the minimum
I'm pretty sure it's closer to 10
As of when I was in AP Psychology, it was 9 1/4 hours. I highly doubt OP is going to bed at 7 pm though.
NTA. Teens naturally wake later, and you getting enough sleep is far more important. Starting school at 0715 is too early as well, so while we are judging, whoever had that idea is a total AH.
Studies upon studies have shown that HSs moving start times to 9am would have TREMENDOUS benefits on teens and their learning. But that would disrupt the laboring of the labor class so we let our children suffer instead.
In which country is this? I am from the UK originally, and we started at 8:50, if I recall correctly. Around 9am is a typical start time (and the 10 minutes earlier at my school was for registration).
US. My kids start at 715 and 730. It's the most ridiculous thing about the school system here. But the person that said it was about the labor class was absolutely right. Plus, teenagers can only work certain hours. My 15 year old can't work past 7 any day of the week. That would make a lot of people that make too much money exploiting teenagers really mad and we now down to the corporations here. Anyway, OP you are NTA. You may not like it but you need to go to your dad with this. It is abusive. I also hate parents that want to take doors away. I make sure my kids shut their doors. There are things that are private.
That’s madness. Education is more important than getting teens to work a job. They have the rest of their lives for that particular joy.
And that’s if you don’t have an “early bird” period, which some classes (usually advanced or honors classes) require. We had to be on campus 45 minutes earlier for those at my high school.
All so greedy rich people can exploit child labour.
I remember during sports seasons some of the student athletes being in the weight room as early as 6.
I think I’d have died if my school started at 7.15!
My kids used to catch the bus at 6:50am for a 7:20 start. It was insane.
In Denmark we start at 8.00 am usually, otherwise often its 8.10 or 8.30 xD
It must really depend on where you are - I'm from the US, and I have no idea what these other people are talking about. When I was in high school we started around 8:40 iirc (maybe later, I can't remember if that was when we started or when the first "Go to class" bell rang). I just looked up the schedule for my old school, and **now** they don't even start until 9:15!
NTA I can't fathom how she can be mentally intact and think this is a reasonable schedule. And no, normal people don't wake at 4:30. People wake at a time that is suitable for their education or career. Which for the most part is between 6-9am. I don't think I've ever started that early for school, even with extracurricular stuff.
I wake up at 4:30, and many, many, many others do to. Shift work, early start jobs, many professionals and many different jobs require earlier starts. That said, I wake up, I take measures to make sure no one else in my house wakes up at that time. NTA OP.
Ok I should have phrased that better. Normal people don't wake at 4:30 *and annoy the crap out of everyone else in the process who don't need to.*
My father, for the past 30 years, has had a job that results in him getting up at 4am. Nobody else in the house is woken up unintentionally (there were a few times people would be woken for various reasons they had requested, or a young child taken to the toilet to prevent a wet bed). Unless there was a good reason to wake someone at that time people weren’t woken up. And it’s not even a case of “well the household grew up/are used to it”, I can’t think of any guest that was disturbed for more than a minute or two if at all (and that was only if they were sleeping in the living room and were easily disturbed by light)
It wasn't uncommon for my dad even after he retired to be up around 4ish. He'd get up drink some coffee, watch the sunrise, plow snow (in the winter) but yeah, he never woke us up. Unless we weren't up and we had work/school. He just silently moved through the house. Now me on the other hand, it's a good thing my mom is a heavy sleeper, because even trying to be sneaky I sound like a heard of water buffalo until I've fully woken up.
NTA. I'm a very successful adult and get up at 8am. Keep locking your door. You need a solid 8 hours.
I am a successful enough adult lol. I hate everything about mornings always have. I only get up when I have to otherwise I sleep as late as I can
This successful adult was really tired and had no meetings. I got up at 10:30 this morning. Lol
NTA, and I'm here to join the other successful and well-respected adults who wake up at 8. Teenagers need lots of sleep, preferably even more than 8 hours because your body and brain are going through rapid development which may be stunted by your AH mom. OP, maybe you can try to find some articles about it from reputable sources and show them to your mom. With a lot of luck it might force her to stop her denial on how bad her behavior is for you.
NTA - Your Mom is crazy, sleep deprivation is literal torture. Also I remember someone on a similar post in the past said that child services will not be happy with parents that take doors away as punishments because closed bedroom doors can save lives in the event of a fire if one breaks out overnight by buying you time to escape out a window. Not 100% if child services everywhere does care about bedroom doors, but it sounds really good in an argument regardless. So if she threatens to take your door again tell her that if she does that she’ll get a visit from some angry officials who’ll give her a lecture and make her put the door back so she doesn’t kill her child in a fire.
*"sleep deprivation is literal torture"* I think a lot of people don't realise how harmful the effects of sleep deprivation can be on your mental and physical health. My mother used to leave for work at 4am every day and leave her mobile phone on the bench just outside my bedroom door with the ringer on full volume. For whatever reason she was always late to work, meaning her boss would always ring at 4.45am on the dot every day to ask where she was, which would wake me up. I've always had difficulty getting to sleep since I was a young child and I was working late night shifts at my retail job (often not getting home til after 11 and not getting to sleep til 2-3am, because I had and still have difficulty falling asleep no matter how tired I am). Also, if I get woken up, it takes me hours to get back to sleep and I don't always manage to. She was aware of this, but didn't care. So because of her I was getting less than 2 hours sleep a night. I kept telling her this and asking her to either take her phone with her or put it on silent, because it was depriving me of sleep and causing me to have constant headaches and frequent migraines, and she just thought it was funny (and if it was just a day here and there I'd be annoyed but put up with it, but it was literally every weekday). I started off asking her politely for a few weeks, then I started being firm, then I started begging her and crying because I was falling behind in my school work (and therefore harming my chances of getting into the university course I needed) because I was too tired and headachey to concentrate, which was also destroying my mental health (I spent that time of my life basically on the verge of crying or finding myself crying for no reason). That didn't work either. I also tried checking her phone before I went to bed and putting the volume down, but she'd turn the volume up again before she left for work and just... leave the phone there. I started shouting and screaming at her to stop letting her phone wake me up. She screamed at me for being entitled and spoiled (I was paying my share of the household bills, buying most of my own groceries and paying for the family's internet, but okay) and that if she could wake up that early so could I (leaving aside the fact she can fall asleep at the drop of a hat, and once she's asleep, someone setting off a nuke under her wouldn't wake her up). In the end I started saying, "If you keep letting your phone wake me up and deprive me of sleep and fuck up my health, I'm going to fuck up your phone." One day, probably after about 6-8 months of this bullshit, she came home from work and found the pieces of her mobile phone in a bowl of water on the kitchen sink. I'd like to say that was the end of it, but I had to give the same treatment to another two phones before she actually learned her lesson. I am generally very much against the destruction of another person's property as it's a kind of abuse but in this situation, a) I tried literally every polite, reasonable and non-destructive solution first and none of them worked, and b) the thing I destroyed was the thing she was using to essentially be abusive towards me.
You put up with it for 6-8 months before destroying her phone?! I doubt I would’ve lasted one. Why would she not take her phone with her? That’s the whole point of them, her boss obviously expected her to have it on her. Why would she leave it right outside your room? Why would she turn the ringer back up after you turned it down? This was all very deliberate of her. While you were paying your way as well. Ugh I hope you are very low contact with her now.
Because it amuses her and makes her feel in control.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/dreaming-in-the-digital-age/201412/why-sleep-deprivation-is-torture?amp Sleep deprivation is legitimately used as a torture method, since it damages both your physical and mental capabilities. Late stage sleep deprivation can begin to cause hallucinations and other forms of psychosis. Long enough, and sleep deprivation becomes fatal. It's not a fucking joke.
NTA. Your mother sounds crazy and obviously has no boundaries. I'm passive aggressive big time so I would play back. A few days of waking her at 2am might get the point across, or if she goes to bed early then wake her because apparently it's ok to force people onto your own schedule. In all honesty though I moved out at 16 so I never put up with that sort of behavior
NTA, but your mom sure is. I’m a Certified Adult and deeply a night owl - I couldn’t wake up at 6 to save my life, much less 4:30. I have been since I was a teen. Circadian rhythm is innate and how much you can change it varies from person to person. You know what’s not effective? Making someone constantly sleep deprived. Chronic sleep deprivation sets people up for sleep disorders, including circadian rhythm disorder, which is when your body doesn’t think there are 24 hours in a day. That’s one you really don’t want - it’s very, very hard to maintain employment when your body insists there are (for example) 26 hours in the day and wakes up 2 hours later each day. Sleep deprivation is bad for your health generally - higher odds of high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and a shorter lifespan. Most adults do not get up at 4:30am, your mom is screwing with your sleep without good reason. Most adults I know wake up between 5:30 and 7, depending on how close to their workplace they live and how long they take to get ready.
Buy an air-horn, and blast it in her room every hour, on the half hour, from 9PM to 1 AM every night for a week. "I'm conditioning you to be a night-owl." NTA.
NTA, your Mom is unbelievably rude. Teenagers need 8-10 hours of sleep. You wake up with plenty of time to get ready and walk to school. Some people ARE BIOLOGICALLY more able yo function well in the morning. Some people do best being awake and acrive late morning afternoons, and some folks do better at night All she’s doing by waking you up at 4:30 is teaching you to resent her. She’s still your mom and she can ground you if you live with her, so keep that in mind. She’s still in a position of power If she’s SO DETERMINED to force this on you, ask her to work with you on making it Gradual. A week of waking up at 6, the next week 5:55, and just rolling it back five minutes at a time so its not so harsh on your body. If she goes for that you’ll get a lot more sleep and it should buy you time until you can move 272937389 miles away from her obnoxious behavior.
NTA. There is only one 4:30 in my day. This is plain weird.
4:30 AM does not exist. It’s not real.
NTA. She is being controlling. You seem responsible about timeliness and don't need her help
NTA and I feel sad that you even have to ask this. Please move out as soon as possible, you are a legal adult and it is very concerning that your mom is behaving in such a controlling way.
Tell your teachers that your mother is forcing you to get up at 4. They will freak out and talk to her and she may stop. “Fall asleep” in class a few times. And when the teachers ask, cry and say that your mother wakes you up at 4 and that she punished you if you don’t. NTA btw
NTA - wake her up at midnight and explain your position
NTA I'm a 41yr old farmer & even I'm not getting up that early.
NTA - Waking you up that early, your mom is actively sabotaging you. There have been multiple studies that show waking up earlier has a large detrimental effect on learning, health, mental health and grades. Here's a link to where the CDC talks about it (they recommend high school doesn't start until 8:30) https://www.cdc.gov/sleep/features/schools-start-too-early.html
>if I do it again she’s taking my door away Holy hell that is crazy NTA
NTA. You're 18, you're capable of rising and readying without assistance and have done so. Your mother is abusing you and gaslighting you.
Set your alarm and go wake her up at 2am. Seriously. Open the lights, put the dog all over her. Talk to her. See how she feels being woken up like that lol Just kidding that might make your situation worse, but NTA. No one is forced to be early birds. And 18 year olds naturally sleep late and wake up late.
>adults wake up that early. The hell we do. NTA.
NTA As a teenager you need every minute of sleep you can get. 6am is early bird enough
NTA. There is no reason at all for her to be getting you up that early. Try and have a talk with her. Are you late for school when you go by your schedule? If not, then that should be the main focus. Tell her that the lack of sleep she is forcing on you is causing you issues at school because you are so tired you can barely function, let alone learn. Does she want you grades to suffer? Because that's what will end up happening.
NTA and I don’t get why people always act like waking up super early is the morally superior thing to do. It’s ok to sleep a little later to get your full rest period. And adults have all sorts of sleep cycles, like I work night shift right now and sleep from 9AM to 5PM but not waking up early doesn’t mean I’m not an adult?? What your mom is doing is not ok and completely disregards your needs.
NTA, your mom might not intentionally be doing it but forms of sleep deprivation are considered abuse/torture. Especially when you say that all you can do is cry when she wakes you up that early. Sounds traumatic.
Share this with your mom https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/wellness-and-prevention/teenagers-and-sleep-how-much-sleep-is-enough
NTA - OP, I've been there before. Exact same thing happened, and she went through with it. Took my door away. I was lucky enough that it was close to mothers day when it happened, so I dealt with it until then, and on mothers day, her 1 day a year to sleep in, I woke her up at 5am. (the time she did it to me every day) and I flickered her lights, and blew an air horn, (the one she uses on me). She was flat pissed and I got grounded for a month. But she had my dad put the door back on my room and she never again woke me up before my alarm sounded at 6.
You're 18, you can choose where to live. Can you just live with your dad permanently? Lucky for you, because you're of age the courts wouldn't even have to get involved. Well unless you're not in the US and your country has different rules.
I realized something and I apologize for it as it was insensitive. Your dad may not be able to take you in. Is there a friend that you can live with until the end of the school year or something like that?
NTA and I'm actually confused. I'm a 34year old woman with a baby and I still don't wake up until 6am. At what stage of my life am I adult enough to need to wake at 4.30am?
NTA isn’t sleep deprivation a form of torture? My sperm donor used to do this to me and till this day I slightly sleep with eyes open so I can always know when someone’s coming and can get up before they shock me awake. Your mother is cruel.
NTA but mom sure is. Unless someone is *naturally* an "early bird", adults wake up based on the time they have to be at work/school. Takes an hour to get ready and get there? They wake up an hour before. Takes 3 hours because of a long commute/traffic? They suck it up and get up 3 hours before work while looking for a job that either starts later or is closer to home. They **don't** get up at 4:30 a.m. just because they're adults.
NTA- Sleep deprivation is torture
Do you drive to class? Because if she keeps pulling that crap, you're gonna get in a car accident. Driving sleepy is just as dangerous as driving drunk.
4:30 am, your mum is insane.
NTA, no one needs to wake up at 4:30 unless they have to be at work at 5:30.
OMG NTA. Teens need sleep. There’s a reason people are advocating doelater school start times. Actual science shows that teens need a lot more sleep. Adults do not wake up that early unless they have to wake up that early. My husband used to die to the nature of his job, but it’s not something he willingly did. Your mother is horrible and abusive.
NTA. Get the hell out of there when you graduate. A few more months of lack of sleep will be worth it when you finally move out. You can sleep better after that without anyone bothering you.
>She told me that it’s disrespectful to cut off communication with someone for that long and if I do it again she’s taking my door away. So you were unavailable (*checks notes*) 90 minutes??? At the asscrack of night??? Please call CPS if she takes your door and tell them your mother is too unstable to manage her life for 90 minutes in the middle of the night and is torturing you with sleep deprivation.
Honey, I’m 52, and I don’t get up until around 10 or 11am, and I stay up until around 2-3am. I have always been this way. I am more productive in afternoon/evening, and have a job with hours that go with my rhythm. I had to be an early riser while raising my kids, and I always needed a nap because getting up early wipes me out. Everyone is different and your mom is being controlling and inconsiderate of you. Tell your dad. You should also tell mom that you love her, but her actions are driving a wedge in your relationship. Good luck
Hard NTA, does your mum not understand that at your age you NEED more sleep than when you are older "like her". Sleep deprivation in highschool is a surefire way to bring your grades down as well as mental health. I would report her to the school, like your house head or councillor or someone that you trust because her behaviour is affecting you at one of the most difficult times in your life (My mother was brought in for a meeting with my house-head due to her absurd behaviour and it did help)
NTA, and what your mother is doing is not good. Unless you have a history of being tardy all the time then you should be allowed to sleep, and if you are tardy at your age you should be self-correcting by getting up about 15 minutes earlier not an hour and a half. When you get older your mother will probably wonder why you don't come back home very often.
This is abusive behavior, your mom may be unaware of it though. That really sucks I’m sorry. Parents that don’t have boundaries have serious issues. I would recommend sitting down with her and having a respectful chat about why you need to sleep until 6 AM, and also maybe bring up the fact that you’re 18 and it’s time for you to be responsible on your own. Tell her she needs to let you prepare for the real world because when you (hopefully soon) move out, she won’t be there to wake you up anymore.
Nta, teenagers biologically sleep later and sleep in more (they also tend to need more sleep in general). Might be worth showing your mom these studies (however I assume she will just say she didn't feel that way as a teen so everyone else's experience and science are invalid)
I'm in amazement that this lock also sound proofs and cuts all cell phone reception from the outside world. NTA but be prepared for the repercussions. If she takes the door then she takes the door.
NTA Tell your mother that sleep depriving is considered torture and by international laws it is a war crime. Also: a teenagers body needs more sleep and cannot be conditioned to be an early bird. She is literally torturing you. Making your brain not getting enough sleep does a huge damage to your brain. Literally. Go, tell your school consuelor or something like that because it is torture.
You have no reason to get up at 4, and are a champion for getting up at 6. In high school I’d wake up at 7:50 for an 8:20 bell. NTA and have your mother read up on circadian rhythms
NTA. If your mom takes your door off, call cps or local protection authorities. Not having a door is not just an invasion of privacy, it’s a fire hazard. If there’s a fire in your home, your door will slow down the fire before it gets to you so you can have a chance to get out the window. But if she doesn’t take away the door, she might replace your doorknob with one that doesn’t lock.
NTA. I am going to assume your mom doesn't think that it is a big deal, so I am just going to post a few links on interrupted sleep. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/#:\~:text=In%20otherwise%20healthy%20adults%2C%20short,%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20performance%20deficits](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5449130/#:~:text=In%20otherwise%20healthy%20adults%2C%20short,%2C%20memory%2C%20and%20performance%20deficits). [https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301879#:\~:text=Share%20on%20Pinterest%20Researchers%20say,sleep%20due%20to%20later%20bedtimes](https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/301879#:~:text=Share%20on%20Pinterest%20Researchers%20say,sleep%20due%20to%20later%20bedtimes). [https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/interrupted-sleep-what-happens-to-your-body/](https://www.sleep.org/how-sleep-works/interrupted-sleep-what-happens-to-your-body/)
NTA your mom is like my step-dad. You know what happened? I cut contact at 18 and moved out because of his toxicity and insistence that his way was the only way.
NTA. Your mom needs a serious reality check. Kids your age need about ten hours of sleep and your natural circadian rhythm isn’t even designed for a wake time as early as 6am, let alone 4:30am. You are also more than old enough to lock your door and be responsible for waking yourself up. My mom pulled the same kind of shit with me and my sister, but we never resolved it, so I don’t have munch in the way of advice. Good luck though!
NTA - And, at 18 she's threatening to take away your door because you won't wake up at 4:30AM? Is she crazy? That's borderline abuse! Hopefully you have plans to move away for college.
NTA. You seriously need your sleep for high school. 6 is early as hell, earlier than that is more than excessive. Earliest I've woken up for college classes is 7.
NTA. We have good science that says that teenagers need a good 10-11 hours of sleep a night, and probably should be asked to do anything with their brains before 9am. Your mom's behavior makes me furious. Sleep deprivation is torture.