Posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 19:04:37
In reply to Re: Brain damage from a family meeting?, posted by alexandra_k on September 13, 2018, at 18:53:10
so, it probably depends on what they did for you, last birthday. or birthdays over the years.
i think it was just once, that he forgot. but i've never let that go. i don't want to ever feel the way i felt that day. the disappointment. and the thought of celebrating my own birthday, now, or of letting people know it's my birthday, just feels like setting things up for that. and also i genuinely don't like being the centre of attention. i mean, it is nice when people do nice things for you... but it doesn't have to be about a particular day.
i don't know.
and then my mother went out with a guy over quite a few years, and he didn't believe in celebrating birthdays so that added to another layer of it. actually. so, yeah. my mother didn't really, either. even now... she will say 'hey, your birthday is coming up here's some money to buy yourself something' which is nice, yeah. but there isn't a thing about saying happy birthday on the day.
and i never got raised, for example, going out with mum to buy dad a birthday present. or even making or drawing him a card or a picture or even helping cook a special meal. so that was never part of my upbringing.
i remember going to a couple peoples birthday parties. i remember having a couple birthday parties when i was a kid. relatively early on.
i think i started out quite normal and things got more and more bizarre the older i got. a lot of my earliest memories are of quite normal and happy and actually relatively wealthy things. we used to have the biggest swimming pool in the neighbourhood. a large section... a unit to rent out... but my mother got crazier and crazier and my father got more and more distant and then he went away. so. there you go.
i haven't told anybody that. about my father forgetting my birthday.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1100851
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20180816/msgs/1100867.html