AITA (30sM) for not attending Easter with my parents and extended family?

Here’s the backstory (it is long I know):

I moved out of my parents’ house young.  Needed my independence.  We had a strained relationship, but I visited them. 

Then I got sick.  I could not turn to them for years.  Something is wrong with them.  For all the good in them – and there is a lot – there is something wrong too.  But I do finally turn to them many years later when I'm in my late 20s.  I could no longer afford to fund my medical issue and I needed a big treatment.  All I needed was a medical bill paid.

Instead of helping, they took the chance to get leverage over me to coerce me.  They used deception, extortion, coercion, threats, etc.

Yes, we’ll help pay the doctor bill, but you have to move in with us first.  That was not required to pay a doctor.  But they have a manipulative way about them and I was desperate. It seemed like okay jump through some of their hoops but I get to have this needed operation.  And also, they say, spend all your money first (they didn’t say it like that, it was more like crying and oh but you have to help too, after all we did or are going to do – or no, we won’t pay until you’re under our roof, but they know I have doctor appointments right then and there and so I have to pay, but I start to think differently.  I think okay now they know, now they agreed to help, now they are going to support me in this, so the money I had budgeted for other things I can spend on medical now.  Here is my chance to fix this health issue after so many years.  I think they have my back so it’s safe to spend my money on medical).  So I move back in with them with no money.

After the biggest medical treatment, they assault me.  I am cut up and drugged up and I can’t defend myself.  And in that moment they deny it, no he didn’t do that.  And they say oh we were stressed because we are so worried about you, we care so much.  And it’s screaming at me, slamming doors, making me do things physically I shouldn’t be doing, and it’s getting in my head.  I live with them.  They are telling relatives stories.  And they start to use my medicine and medical treatments as tools of control.  I’m fairly bed bound for months, but when I can leave the house again… if I leave to keep in touch with my life, my medicine or treatment is pulled that week and I end up in the hospital etc.  So I learn the rule not to leave the house.  They try to keep me broke too. They do things that make me sick.  They are doing all sorts of things.  If I ever move out all medical is gone.  They manage to control me like this – actual control – for a few years.  Yeah, living like this for years.  Cut off from my support network.  Isolated.  Mental health decline.

I was living on my own for years before this. Had my own place, my own job. I had a bunch of friends. I was in some ways the life of the party, sociable, extroverted. I even stepped away from a good job to have my medical treatment thinking it would be a few months. I lost that job. And then I'm under my parents like this and beaten down like this.

I manage to get away.  I move things when they aren’t there, line things up.  They are not happy with me leaving, but I announce it.  And I actually leave the country itself.  I go to a developing country.  As soon as I move out, all my medical is pulled so they try to make me as sick as possible.  It goes from “we’re in this together” to they never ask me how I’m doing with my health ever again, from what I recall.  No concern, no asking how’s my health. My head is a bit of a mess and decisions are hard (being so thoroughly controlled I guess does that to you) but I take steps.

Long story short, after about a year, I get stuck in this developing country.  A big reason I’m stuck is because of what my parents have done.  They cut me off from my life for so many years, I don’t have those former friends, or made new friends there for couches to crash.  My relatives think things about the situation that are false – maybe a mixture of them assuming it and my parents not telling them the truth?

I could maybe fly back, but what about rent, and making sure I’m off the streets.  I cannot return to my parents.  It took me a while to mentally adjust.  I still imagined having a support network, and my parents’ words and actions don’t match, so the words all sound nice, and then I realize oops I’m on my own, I don’t have the money to get back.  And local wages in the developing country are really low, so I cannot financially return.

At one point I’m homeless in this developing country but a stranger lets me sleep off the streets.  I am still in contact with my parents and I tell them this, after I already got the help of the stranger, so I wasn’t asking for help from my parents, just telling them.  They don’t give any help though.

I go on no contact with my parents.  I mentally have to have distance.  And I'm processing I suppose. And years pass.  I send messages indirectly sometimes through other relatives.  So I’m left there, or stuck there in the developing world for years.  Some relatives hung up on me, never replied to me, didn’t reach out.  I had relatives say no, can’t stay with us.  One relative was offering a place but is close with my parents.  And I would be dependent once I move in, unable to financially move out right away, and I just went through that with my parents, I needed this relative to know the situation a bit but the relative wasn’t getting on board.  And years were going.

After some years, I do get a message from my parents where they try to use me being stuck as leverage.  If I want help returning, I would have to do things they wanted, and they would control my rent money, and pay the landlord, or something like that, so again I would be dependent on them for my housing, and again they could use it to control me, to threaten homelessness if they wanted, like they threatened illness and they actually followed through with hurting me then and making me more ill in the past.  I did not reply to that.  They did not help me get unstuck.

I did it myself, I figured it out, I saved up.  It took years.  So when I did return I didn't have to crash on anyone's couch and wasn't dependent on anyone. And I return to my home country.  In the time that lapsed I went through a lot in the developing country, with homelessness, violence, crime, and it's terrorizing to have no safety net like that and have no support. Earlier in life you think that can never happen, someone is going to have my back, my parents or others, and then nope. And in this other country I met someone and she became my girlfriend and basically now my wife.  Her and I long distance.

I didn’t plan to be back in my home country necessarily long.  But had to go through it, being back in my home country after so long.  I arrive back after years and it’s disorientating.  And I land at the airport alone, and go to a rental immediately.  No free place to stay and rents have increased since I last left.  I have to look for a job.  I get one, am fired after a few weeks due to something on the company end, bad luck with that.  No family is saying wow glad you’re okay, no place to crash. I announce to the family I’m back and it was not what I expected.  It was more like oh, so you didn’t visit.  Why couldn’t you have visited before sort of attitude I’m getting, when I was stuck for years outside the country and had to survive.  I don’t see all my relatives yet.

I see my parents in person, after all these years.  They give a vague apology.  My dad it’s more of a deflection than an actual apology.  Nothing specific.  He assaulted me, interfering with my treatment and hurting me, but he just apologizing saying oh he probably didn’t realize I was more capable than I was (when I was in my late 20s, early 30s) so not actually apologizing for anything specific.  He also said it was a long time ago (really wasn't). My mom isn’t specific.  They don’t acknowledge that I was even stuck in another country.  They talk to me like I was just off somewhere, and like nothing happened.  They are not recognizing reality.  They are taking no accountability.

I’m focused and engaged with them.  And my girlfriend is not liking all the time going or the lack of communication and it's causing strain.  It is very hard for me to engage in both things at the same time.  I prioritize my girlfriend, but also my parents are what I have to face right now. Then an emergency happens on her end and she sends me a message and I have to deal with that.  I tell my parents that I have to turn my attention to an emergency.  They basically ignore that.  My parents continue to go at me, bombarding me with messages or are nearby in person wanting to talk to me right then and there about their stuff still.  I then make it clear to them that if they continue to write me in these weeks, or show up in person nearby etc, when I need to focus on my emergency, that it’s crossing a line.  My parents read that and cross it anyway.  They send more messages.

So I don’t reply to my parents’ message there.  Then to retaliate against me for daring to draw a line with them - I believe that is what they were responding to, daring to have a boundary and say don’t write - they go silent on me, cut me off, I’m not invited to Christmas.  I write a relative who confirms I’m not invited to Christmas.  I wasn’t invited to Thanksgiving either.  So the year I’m back, I’m not invited.

It's baffling.  The issue is about them crossing boundaries.  Then after all these years, they cross another, interfering when I’m dealing with my own family (girlfriend, basically wife) and they lash out. 

Then months later, I get a message from my parents where again they pretend nothing happened. They aren't sure if I'm still in the country. They pretend they didn’t do anything.  They pretend they are the ones reaching out. It's nuts how they don't acknowledge things. They have an ability to just be very selective in not responding to certain things I say, and just not even mentioning reality, like it doesn't exist. It's awful actually. I don't think that's right.

Other relatives are not writing me.  I don’t get any invitation on one side of the family.  But one side of the family, for the first time since I’ve been back, actually invites me to Easter.  They don’t know if I’m in the country or not, but I finally get an invitation.  But my parents haven’t apologized.  I asked them to the other day, to be specific.  No specifics.  Still no mentioning reality. 

My mom is trying a bit, she at least gave a general apology.  I haven’t heard again from my dad. They love me and care but something is off...? 

I feel it would be re-entering a situation where I’m painted as the bad guy for not visiting all these years, not talking enough with my parents.  Where is the correction of the record?  Where are the apologies?

Justice and truth are important.  They committed a big injustice towards me.  Hurt me big time.  In turn it’s affected others I’ve loved.  And it’s like they just want me to sort out my emotional stuff and then come back to them.  Don’t they have to give a little too?  Where is their give?  At least a specific apology, like sorry for [fill in the specific blanks]?

I think they think, as parents, it's not right for their son to draw boundaries. Or something. I don't know at this moment. It's sad.

So I didn’t end up going to Easter.  I want to have a relationship with my relatives and with my parents. 

Something is off though.

A person doesn’t know how many holidays we all have together, pray to God I hope it’s many and many, and all the time that is passing.  But, something is off here.

But my relative did invite me.  My mom gave a general sorry.  AITA for not going to Easter dinner?