May 18, 2020:

She denied sleep disruption altogether.

There was a public episode in front of a condescending sales girl. At Sears, of all possibilities not one where I'd predict encountering condescending sales girls. I think, to the extent I can summon my inner adult to suss this experience, the sales girl was condescending because she and my mother were bonding through that shared conspiracy in which grownups reassure each other and therefore themselves of their ontological superiority to their children. For example by speaking to one another about the children in front of the children as though the children were not present. I believe the most likely likelihood is that her condescension implied a shared wink between the two of them.

Which added fuel to my explosion. Somehow I'd said, "I slept badly last night." My mother responded, and I quote exactly, "Oh poo". Calling me a liar in front of the patronizing sales girl, a further moment in their shared bonding conspiracy which this time caused me to lose my shit.

I remember staring at my mother in shocked disbelief. Then spitting at them both, "Cancel the sale. I'll buy my own fucking shirts." Then walking out to wait in the parking lot beside our car.

She arrived in tears, said, again quoting exactly, "Rotten kid." I was in no frame to accept that quietly. "You called me a liar in front of that awful woman." I don't remember what she made of that. My guess now would be it failed to register, even a little.

Sleep disruption was never again a topic of conversation between us. Not even once, to the end of her life. I continued to sleep on a hair trigger, "one eye open" as the saying goes, all through early adulthood. It wasn't until after my breakdown and a period of addiction that I was ever able to sleep somewhat properly. To this day I still typically sleep around six hours a night, but now it's true sleep, exhausted sleep, not guarded or restless or partial.