Although birthdays are a good milestone to celebrate, I’m gonna explain why birthdays are a little more complicated for me, and perhaps for others too who experience depression.
I turned 21 last week on Wednesday. So, what I see as the conventional perception/approach on celebrating birthdays is that everyone wishes you happy birthday, people wanna hang out or ask what you’re doing to celebrate, etc. Overall, there’s a pressure to be happy for what you’re celebrating, which is yourself, your life.
For me, I’m surprised I’ve even made it this far.
— content warning: depression, suicidal ideation/thoughts —
I can’t remember what celebrating birthdays was like in high school. I mean, It was always hard because I’m a summer baby, so people might be on vacation and it’s harder to see people. Every year, it’s been kinda hard to celebrate with my friends. Especially since now, most of my friends are from UCI, and not everyone is local. Just in general too, people have their own lives and obligations, which I completely understand.
But all that aside, every year since I’ve started undergrad, my birthday has been really hard for me. The summer going into my first year, it was fine. But that was before I was really cognizant of my mental health.
Summer going into my second year was the worst — not just for my birthday, but in general. I’ve talked about this before in another post, but to explain shortly again: I spent that summer away from both my partner and my best friend at the time. My partner at the time was interning in Ventura every day 8–5 and my best friend at the time was studying abroad. For the entire summer, I was also at home, which, if you know me and/or have been keeping updated through my posts, is really difficult for me. I was doing literally nothing (no classes, no job). That was the utmost lowest point of my depression ever, and the fact that I couldn’t name it as such (I didn’t seek treatment or diagnoses until later) made it worse.
I remember very vividly that summer, 2017, right when it turned midnight of my birthday, I immediately started crying. I cried because I didn’t feel like there was anything to celebrate. I cried because another year had passed and I still feel awful, hopeless, that nothing was worth living for. I cried because of the irony of a day that most people (I guess neurotypical people more so) look forward to being one of the hardest times of the year for me.
Thankfully, the following year, my birthday was much better. Well, I spent it in Thailand when I was abroad, so I’d hope so! A month prior to my birthday, I also had a going away party that kinda became a pseudo birthday party. That party with all of my friends from different spaces coming together, for ME, is still one of my fondest memories ever. Although it wasn’t officially my birthday party and it wasn’t on my actual birthday, that memory made me feel like I could change how I viewed my birthday. For once, I felt like I could be, and feel, normal.
I don’t know why this year was different.
Every year, I feel surprised that I even make it this far in life without ending my life. This year was no exception. It felt off. *I* felt off. I was surrounded by different people this year, some friends couldn’t come through to celebrate, and I just felt this extreme guilt. I felt like I wasn’t worth celebrating, and that I was wasting people’s time or bothering them by trying to celebrate my birthday with a small get-together at my place. Even though everyone said they had fun, I still feel like no amount of reassurance could erase my feeling of emptiness on and leading up to my birthday.
This year, the week of my birthday and the few days leading up to it, I did not want to live anymore. Whenever I start to get suicidal, I make lists of things to look forward to: friends to spend time with, concerts, hobbies that make me happy, even smaller things like walking through Aldrich Park or going to the beach, etc. And that usually helps me get out of the darkness, because I have tangible reminders of what makes life — as draining as it is — worth living. I did that this time around, and I definitely thought of things. But none of them made me feel happy or excited to look forward to. Honestly, even though my birthday has passed, I still feel that way now. I know what’s in store for the future (for fall quarter at least), but still nothing makes me feel excited.
To no longer want to exist around a time where I feel like I “should” want to exist and continue wanting to exist — it’s one of the most awful feelings I’ve ever felt.
How do I celebrate my birthday when I feel like there’s nothing to celebrate?
My close friends know this about me, and I always tell them that if I had the choice, I’d just skip my birthday entirely. If I could go to sleep August 27 and wake up August 29, I’d be happy with that.
So what I’m trying to say is that birthdays and depression are not a good mix for me. Well, I guess anything mixed with depression isn’t good. But I just wanted to make it known and write it into existence that I’ve made it another year on this planet and I feel numb about it. If I do feel anything about it, it’s only doubt and emptiness.
Like a few of my other posts, I have no happy ending to close this off. I wish I did, because maybe that’d mean I could translate that into my life. I feel awful right now and I dread starting class again in the summer. If I just ended this with “but I’m OK now and everything’s fine,” I’d be lying to whoever’s reading this and to myself. I guess me somehow still living and breathing now says something though. Not thriving, just surviving for now.
What I think I should do for this post now is to make a compilation of photos and moments of the past year since my last birthday to disprove myself and say “yes, there are things to celebrate.” But honestly, I don’t feel like it. Maybe in another post. Right now, I just want to honor my feelings in this post and sit in this sadness for a bit. Hopefully not for too long, but for now.
Thanks for reading this rather dampening post. Hopefully the next one I write, I’ll be better.
(Photo/affirmation credits to @morganharpernichols on IG)
