My mum cancelled my birthday and gave my sister two birthday parties instead, just to punish me.

This happened in 1998 when I was eight years old and my sister was five.

From a very early age, I knew that my younger sister was the golden child and could do no wrong

in our mother's eyes. Mother dearest was horrible towards me for most of my

childhood until I was 14 and her physical and mental treatment of me turned towards my sister

as well. My parents had separated before my sister was born. They didn't mesh well together

but tolerated each other for the sake of their kids. Part of the reason that my sister was my

mum's favourite child was her love for horse riding, which I was never interested in. The more

hostile our mother got towards me, the less interested I got in anything she was interested in.

And then came my eighth birthday. I was friends with our next-door neighbours kids and a few kids

from school. Although I didn't

have that many, I loved the friends I did have and was excited to share my birthday with them. My birthday was on a

Friday, but my mum told me that she'd arrange my birthday party for the Saturday, which was fine by me.

The day of my birthday party came and I got excited. At that age, I hadn't yet

had my heart crushed by my mother and her blatant favouritism and abuse. But that was the year

I began to hate my birthday. The party was arranged to start at 12 p.m., so I wore my favourite

dress and sat outside to wait for my friends to arrive. This was the point that I realized

something wasn't right. Outside was the mother of one of my sister's friends with a Shetland

pony in tow. My mother knew I wasn't interested in horses, and even if I was, this horse was too

small for an eight-year-old. As more guests started to arrive, my heart broke more and more.

These were my sister's friends, not mine. And for the icing on the cake, out came my five-year-old

sister in a Cinderella costume. None of these people were there for me. This was supposed to be

...