[101N]

So two days ago it was my birthday. I am currently living at home as a favor to my mother to help out with my three younger siblings while I go to school and my father works abroad (also the economy sucks and finding work is near impossible). However, I am currently trying to find a job that pays enough for me to move out because living at home is destroying my mental health.

Anyway, here's how my birthday went. I get up and naturally my mother is the only one who remembers. She then feels compelled to remind my father despite the fact that he resents the very air I breathe and every year finds a way to ruin it.

The morning passes pretty slowly and I make plans with a friend to go out and do something to celebrate around two that afternoon (yes my friends cared more than my family that it was my birthday and made more of an effort to make it special).

At around 1 pm I get a phone call from my father who has disappeared to god knows where the entire morning. He has decided that we all have to go out to lunch (Coincidence number one. He had been trying to bully everyone into going out to eat for the past couple of days and my siblings kept putting him off)(Coincidence number two. I hate going out to eat, a fact which my family is well aware of). I politely inform him that I have already eaten and remind him that I have plans with my friend in less than an hour but I remember to politely thank him for thinking of me since I know failing to do so will result in massive sulking and/or a violent rage filled outburst.

His response is to order the entire rest of the family out to lunch while making it painfully clear that I am being excluded. Then, in order to sabotage the traditional birthday dinner we always have, he "graciously" takes my siblings to go see The Hobbit (a movie he kept mentioning that he wanted to see) ensuring that they don't get home before ten that night after I've already had to eat my birthday dinner and cake by myself.

Fast forward to today. I'm scheduled to go see my therapist tomorrow. I've been seeing him due to severe depression and suicidal impulses. My mother comes into my room and I remind her that I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. This somehow turns into a discussion about my birthday.

According to my mother it's my fault that my father sabotaged my birthday. By her logic I provoked him and so therefore his crappy behavior is my fault. BUT, if that's not true then she also firmly stands by the belief that he didn't ruin my birthday on purpose and that it was all subconscious and/or a coincidence and if so then this excuses what happened. OR, if none of that is true than it is me who is reading into things that aren't there. Therefore, I am petty for being upset by it OR I'm the crazy one. My mother will let you decide.

This logic is of course nothing new. I heard it after being punched in the face, I heard it after being suffocated, and I heard it directed at my sister after my father may/or may not have broken her finger (she wasn't allowed to go to the hospital for an x-ray because "how would we explain it to the doctors?").

Anyway, so irritated right now. This incident wasn't particularly violent or frightening but it was so freaking spiteful and petty and my mother is such a classic battered wife and it's infuriating. But I need to let it go for my own sanity. Their issues are not my issues no matter how much they try to make them my issues.

Thank you for listening to my rant.

[A Red Panda]

I'm so sorry that he did that to you. I try to not celebrate my birthday anymore as it has nothing but bad memories attached to it for the most part. You aren't petty and you aren't crazy - he was in fact being an a**hole to you. If he had been in any way decent and found out that you had lunch plans already - he would have brought up the movie and suggested going out for supper instead. If nothing else, the movie should have included you.

I'm sorry that no one else in your family gave a damn either.