I have never been a huge birthday person and this year was no exception. To say the past month has been hard is an understatement of epic proportions. The only thing I really wanted for my birthday was to start feeling better. Thanks to lots of extra therapy, time, effort, patience, and medication, I was happy that by my birthday I was starting to feel like myself again. The panic attacks I was having seem to have tapered down and my anxiety has been more manageable.
My sister always makes me feel really special on my birthday- we always go all out for each other. Because my boyfriend’s birthday is the day after mine, we celebrated together with pizza and cake at my sister’s house with her, my nieces, his two sons, and my parents. It was a laid back day and I was glad to be with everyone.
My boyfriend and his kids left to go pick up the pizza right around the time my sister got home with the ice cream cake. I was hanging out in her living room with my parents and my sister made a comment about my dad paying for the cake. I already knew this because he not only mentioned it several times throughout the day, but also commented more than once about how expensive it was. I took it with a grain of salt because I don’t think my dad always gets how much things cost now and I knew the cake was expensive because I had purchased the same one for my sister’s 40th birthday.
I jokingly said to my sister, “yeah dad mentioned it about six times”, kind of laughing and he FREAKED OUT. He sat straight up on the couch across from me, pointed his finger at me, and through gritted teeth yelled “you are a LIAR. YOU ARE A FUCKING LIAR.” In that moment, I honestly get like if he was physically able to get up and attack me he would have. He became so immediately, irrationally irate. My sister and my mom and I were all just shocked and I muttered that I was just kidding and that I appreciated the cake.
For the next few minutes, I just silently stared down at my phone because I had tears welling up in my eyes and I was so shocked and embarrassed and uncomfortable. Thank god my boyfriend and his kids and my nieces were not in the room when it happened.
So, I’m hindsight, perhaps my joke was not funny, even though I had thanked him every time he mentioned the cake and it was said in a very lightheaded manner. But, I was so taken aback by his reaction, I felt so awkward the rest of the night. I can tell he did, too, because he was really quiet.
Later that night, once everyone was home, my mom called me to talk about it. I was surprised by this because she normally kind of sweeps things under the rug. She was really upset and upset that I was upset. My family obviously knows that I have been having a really difficult time, so I think she just felt very badly about his behavior. My mom and sister and I have been having more conversations lately about the possibility of him developing the onset symptoms of dementia or something like that and I know anger and agitation are some of the first signs.
Regardless of what it was, my sister summed it up best afterwards. She texted me saying, “It shocked me too and it made me upset and instantly brought me back to childhood when he used to scream like a psychopath at the top of his lungs about us being liars.” I swear we both have some form of PTSD from how he acted during our childhood days.
The most important things are that I am feeling better and I was with all the people I love and I’m trying to focus on that, but it was a reminder how delicate the boundary is between the old way of life for my family and the currently status quo. My dad is one drink away from turning back into that monster again and I think seeing that glimpse of him reminded me that no matter how good things seem now, there is still always the threat of that looming under the surface.
Anxious ACOA 