Today’s my birthday and I didn’t feel like celebrating it, I didn’t feel like there was anything to celebrate about myself.
One shitty thing about me is I wallow in negativity. Even if there’s an option to try and make myself feel better I don’t take it. Depression fully swallows me whole and I choose to wallow in it, in the self hate and in the negativity. I mean I tried therapy earlier in the year and I got a lot of advice on how to work on myself but didn’t stick with it, I got prescribed antidepressants but a good chunk of them are still lying on my table unused. This might be me overanalysing myself but I think I felt like I didn’t deserve to feel any better, didn’t deserve to not be depressed
My birthday is usually the best day of the year for me. I love it, I love celebrating it, I love being celebrated, I love the attention and love I get on my birthday. But here I am today telling my friends and family to not do anything for me and here I am sitting alone at home.
2019 has hands down been the worst year of my life. My mental health has been shredded to bits and is hanging on by a very weak, rapidly fraying thread. It makes no sense because on paper I’m great and I have nothing to be depressed about. I have a very loving family, I have amazing friends, Hell I finished my Masters degree this year. That is two degrees at 22 am I insane?
So why? Why the constant need to shit on myself and all my accomplishments. It makes me feel like there’s something fundamentally wrong with me. There probably is but another thing is how I don’t even want to fix it. I don’t try and do better for myself, I don’t try and get myself out of my funk. Like I said earlier, I wallow
Today has been dramatic as hell. I’ve been on such an emotional rollercoaster it’s basically been like a weird mind fuck trip to Disneyland
This morning was okay. I put on a happy face, got through all the necessary calls and then got stupid high and fell asleep. In the afternoon I woke up feeling absolutely terrible. There were stupid voices in my head telling me I’m a piece of shit (as usual) and that I’m stupid and worthless (as usual). I started thinking about all my other birthdays and how I’ve always wanted to do something to celebrate it. And how I could have celebrated this one, but chose not to, chose to tell my friends and family not to do anything for me, and instead sat at home alone like the big clown I am. Anguish is the word that comes to mind to describe what this afternoon was like. There were so many horrible thoughts and feelings bouncing around my head, it was overwhelming, I had what I would call a mini nervous breakdown.
But after this mini nervous breakdown I just kinda lay in bed and thought about everything. I genuinely didn’t want to do anything today, I could have but I know my heart wouldn’t have been in it. And I’d be faking feeling happy for no reason.
I thought about how today is my birthday and I owe myself some self reflection or whatever because it’s my damn birthday. I didn’t want to look back on this year and remember it as the birthday I spent crying and battling panic attacks in bed. So I forced myself to think about the messages I got today and the love I got. My mum set an alarm for 1am for her and my dad so they could tell me happy birthday right on time because I’m an hour behind. That got me. There was so much love in that little single act and I couldn’t ignore that, or let my depression make it less than it is. And to be honest it’s hard as hell to feel like a worthless, valueless piece of shit when there are people sending you love from all directions. I got some really really sweet messages today, I had people describing me in ways that I didn’t even know I could identify with. Like damn is that really what you think of me? Where’d you get that from? I read those messages again and something popped up in my head,
‘How can you hate yourself so much when there are SO many people who love the fuck out of you and think you’re pretty amazing?’
For the last couple of years a part of me has been waiting for the other shoe to drop, and for people to realise that I’m really really not shit. Even on the birthdays I celebrated there were really really low points where I felt like I didn’t deserve to have people celebrating me. A mess
But it looks like no shoe has dropped, I mean damn in this year that was the worst one of my short life I somehow made new friends in my Masters course who I love very very dearly. Which was surprising as hell because I didn’t come here thinking I’d make friends. Man I didn’t come here WANTING to make friends
And today I realised that I have so much to offer, and that if not for myself, then for everyone else who believes in me and loves me, for my family and for my friends, I need to stop wallowing in my mess and get my shit together, I need to actively take steps to getting better, and especially when I don’t want to I NEED to keep on trying. And then maybe it’ll stop being me doing that for everyone else and start being me doing that for me
So I got out of bed and played some music and baked myself some Nutella stuffed cookies and I am now in the process of again getting stupid high. I posted the Instagram and snapchat stories people put me on as it appears that’s what you’re meant to do on your birthday 🤷🏽♀️, and I wrote this, which is pretty big considering I have not posted a thing on here in like three years
Don’t get me wrong it was hard as hell. While I was trying to do some superb karaoke to Beyoncé and bake my cookies I was crying my eyes out. But at least I TRIED, and that’s the difference because most times I never really try, my pain always fully demands to be felt, and doesn’t give room for any notions of happiness. And God it is so so HARD to try, I am literally exhausted right now from all my damn trying
I’m pretty glad I didn’t do anything today. I wouldn’t have had this moment with myself if I’d been forcing myself to do something special because I’d have been too busy trying to fake happy. I don’t regret today at all, however I’m determined to not be in this same frame of mind when my birthday rolls around next year. Even if I’m only just slightly better
So here’s to me choosing the positive from now on. Here’s to me working on being better, working on actually properly tackling this depression thing and to me believing in myself
Here’s to me choosing self love again
And here’s to trying
Happy 22nd birthday to me :)
