u/Important-School-266

Recently I turned 18th.

How did my parents celebrated it ? Well my mom wished me but my dad thought text was sufficient. I felt like shit. I didn't get out of the bed. I didn't take a shower. I was trying to distract myself so i don't cry. I don't know why do I even cry because I should be used to this by now - a shitty birthday. My parents didn't celebrate my birthday until I was aware of the concept because according to their logic why waste money even when I won't remember the day. Absolutely brilliant.

when i found out what that a birthday should be celebrated or is celebrated by attending my friends' birthday parties , i asked my parents to organise the same in my birthday. they didn't want to. they thought it was too much work. so i had to beg them to buy me a cake and make food for days. then i had to decorate the room myself. i would make list of what we need to buy for decoration - colourful paper rolls and balloons. basically i was organising the whole birthday party. after a few years i got tired and stopped celebrating.

i feel like i am the one who was supposed to feel special but it felt like i was just performing happiness. so i stopped. and no one cared enough to say i should celebrate or organise something. i think it feels worse because everyone around me like my friends' parents always made their birthday special. so i felt left out. my brothers are just like my parents. they didn't want to celebrate the birthday too. they are emotionally absent. so in this house i feel like i am just the one asking for something unnecessary .

So my parents biggest worry of my life is that I will elope with my secret boyfriend ( i don't have a boyfriend. Never had. I never even talked to a guy without a practical reason. Partly because of the fear that if my parents found out then they will put on more restrictions and partly because I have not simply met a man in my life who uses their brain or a man with brain who was interested in talking with me.) . Yeah so I have been a perfectly obedient daughter. A grade - check . Obedience - check. It's not just about the guys of my age. My parents , especially my father thinks I am so - i don't know the word- thatt I will elope with any person having an x and y chromosome . I don't know which knowledge or experience is backing this fear or paranoia because I had been a perfectly obedient daughter. For example i would be singing softly in my room and suddenly my mom or dad would barge in , scanning the room for a secret boyfriend that might have magically appeared in my bedroom and was hidden currently. And when they don't find any boy , they walk out, disappointed. Now I make a game of it. Whenever I call them normally for talking to them they don't hear. My throat will go raw screaming mom and dad but they wouldn't hear. So i use the technique. I start pretending to talk to a man. Softly. I say - ohh, yeah. How are you ? ....yeah I am good. And how is - thuuud ! My dad would be in the doorway. It's kind of funny but sometimes it gets depressing like wherever I go outside my home , I have to click a picture of me as proof that I was there and not with my secret boyfriend.