The Birthday Blues

It’s my birthday. Twenty-four. Even writing it feels… uneasy.

Having a birthday after suicide attempts is a strange thing. It’s hard to celebrate something that doesn’t always feel real. Every year, I dread this day as I become tangled in counterintuitive frustrations and unsorted feelings that leave me debilitated, held hostage by the internal torturer and inner saboteur, unable to free myself from the grips of the past.

This year, I learned there’s a name for this: the “birthday blues.” A temporary wave of sadness, anxiety, or dread surrounding one’s birthday, distinct from depression but connected to it through unmet expectations, loneliness, or the pressure of milestones. It’s the ache of reflection, of realizing where you thought you’d be versus where you are, of wanting to feel joy but feeling swallowed by “shoulds.” And I feel them all.

I’m frustrated that I’m too overwhelmed to prioritize my birthday, yet simultaneously ashamed for not doing enough, for not being further along, more accomplished, more… something. I want to celebrate myself. I want to make it a big deal. But every time I think about it, I feel a lump in my throat and a pit in my stomach.

When I was younger, birthdays were my thing: two parties, one for family and one for friends. Themes. New outfits. Cute photos. It was an event. It was me. But at fifteen, I started dating someone who told me that people who made a big deal of their birthdays were “attention whores.” He isolated me from those who loved me until there was no one left to protest the quiet when the day came. My sixteenth birthday came months after my suicide attempt, and I didn’t know how to celebrate a day I hadn’t planned to see and without hope for another. Thankfully there was the annual band competition I was required to attend that aided in my excuses to not celebrate.

My twenty-first birthday was eerily similar, volunteering instead of celebrating, telling myself I didn’t need a circle when really, I was just too afraid to ask for one.

Now, at twenty-four, I’m surrounded by more love and support than ever. And yet, the thought of asking for celebration feels… wrong. Heavy. Like I don’t deserve it. And I’m too burnt out to plan anything anyway.

A birthday isn’t a birthday without a cry, not a pity cry, but a deep, guttural one. A cry for the girl who didn’t think she’d make it this far. A cry for the versions of me still learning to exist without apology. A cry for the milestones that feel like mirrors, reflecting not where I am, but where I thought I’d be.

I’m working hard, really hard, to break through years of trauma, perfectionism, and shame. And though I still have a long way to go, I’m here. I’m alive. I’m twenty-four.

Maybe that’s worth celebrating after all.