Hi, for context: I am a twenty-five, almost twenty-six, year old female who is deathly terrified of my mother (and confrontation in general.) I want to throw a birthday party with some of my family members but specifically want to exclude her.

My origins are rather complicated but this is only important to set the scene for the kind of relationship my mother and I have. My mother has always been an abusive alcoholic but, even before I was born, she was quite bad. Both of my sisters have experienced some form of physical abuse directly from her. However, before I was born, my mother had an affair and slept with her husband's best friend. Seven months into her pregnancy with me, her husband drank himself to death. My mother completely spiraled and my grandparents ended up with custody of me and both of my sisters once I was born.

From the very second I could form memory, I have always had to be there to parent my mother. I was five and having to talk my mother down from her manic-depressive episodes (mostly because I was afraid if I did not make my mother feel better, something awful was going to happen to me.) Anyway, all of this culminates as my mother always feeling entitled to me: to her, I am the last shred of her husband (even though there is no actual proof I am his child. I call it Schrödinger's Dad), whom she harbors intense regret for cheating on, and I am the one "good thing" she has in her life. This is made x10 worse because my mother specifically chose to have me born on her dead husband's birthday and every single birthday I had as a child was spent going to his grave (until she decided to open up to me about her affair on my 18th birthday in a Texas Roadhouse parking lot...)

I love singing. It is one of the greatest pleasure I have ever known. I have struggled with self-harm and have attempted suicide in the past and more than a few times singing was the only way I was able to talk myself down.

I decided for my birthday I was going to have a few of my friends and my family over and play guitar for them. Now, my family knows I love singing. I was actively in my school choir for decades and I was performing feature solos for school when I was in kindergarten. My mother, however, has felt especially entitled to my singing. She frames it like, "Isn't my daughter so talented?" She is not actually proud of me. She makes my skill about her and I am terrified of the outcome of her finding out about this party.

I can't avoid her if I want to make this happen, I know but I guess what is some advice for actually being able to stand up for yourself and your happiness when someone is screaming in your face about how ungrateful you are? I have tried similar things in the past that have ended with my mother immediately playing the victim and turning me against myself. I don't trust myself to be strong enough when the time comes to put my foot down...