It’s My Party
My therapist just asked me what my earliest memory of my mom is, so I started telling her about my 5th birthday party. My mom—who was single, 24, and with a three-year-old son also—was throwing me a party for my birthday.
It was going to be at my house with all my friends from kindergarten and my family. I was very excited and had been looking forward to it for a good long while. And then my mother ruined everything.
About two hours before the party started, my mom took me to my room and told me that if I couldn’t clean my room up in time for the party, she was going to cancel it. It was dirty, messy, and disorganized, like me.
Of course, as a five-year-old, I couldn’t clean what she had allowed to become a disaster area, especially with no support from my parent who had never shown me how to clean up after myself (because she also never cleans up after herself).
I was heartbroken about my party being canceled because even from the start I knew I couldn’t clean it in time.
I don’t know why, but it took my therapist saying the words out loud to me: your mother would not have been able to cancel the party in two hours, especially over a room that she could have closed the door on. The truth was much darker.
She probably never even sent the invitations, made any plans, buy any supplies, etc. Instead, she allowed her five-year-old daughter to think that she didn’t deserve a party because she was dirty, messy, and disorganized.
And unfortunately for me, I really believed her. What kind of person does that to their child? A narcissist. I hate that she disgusts me over and over again, but I still have to fight wanting her approval.