It's My Birthday - Struggling

[-lemurlibs91-]

Today is my birthday. Nothing bad has happened on my birthday and I am grateful for that. So why have I been freaking out about it for weeks and now it's here feel a weird emptiness?

I (sometimes quite insistently) didn't want people to do things to celebrate my birthday - I felt like I was doing them a favour rather than them doing something nice for me. I feel like I'm making other people feel better by "enjoying" my birthday, so I've been all jolly with people today, but that doesn't stop me feeling like I don't deserve it. Any of it.

I got presents. Why? I should be thankful, but I'm not. I feel indifferent to some, and guilty about the rest. I feel like tearing it all down, smashing everything related to my birthday. But then in 2 weeks....we move onto Christmas. Oh fantastic. Just what I want. MORE demand to be "on" and "festive" when I just want to curl up with my cuddly toys. With my birthday, the worst thing is that the focus is on me, and that makes me so uncomfortable. With Christmas, everything is about food (I'm physically recovered from anorexia, but still struggle mentally with it), and there is no routine. I desperately need and love routine, and people interfering with mine makes me angry and uncharacteristically aggressive.

The whole thing makes me quite stroppy and aggressive. I don't get it. I feel pressured, like I'm being poked at to come out of my shell - no one knows about my PTSD except my partner and 2 friends, and my family all think I'm more ok with food/weight than I am, and so they have no idea how much I'm struggling with dissociation/flashbacks/hypervigilance at the moment.

 

[Justmehere]

Seems like your (perhaps unexpressed) boundaries are being overrun a little? And it's bringing some core self image issues to the surface at the same time too?

Makes sense to me to have a little fight or flught response even if it is ni needed. Trauma sends the message we are unworthy or not good enough or etc. That we have to perform or please and can't say no. To survive.

To get gifts and be celebrated for you just as you are, sort of flys in the face of the messages that often come with trauma.

For example, as a kid I had to believe I was bad to make sense of and survive the bad things that happened. When the trauma was over, compliments felt almost threatening. I believed I was not good enough to make he trauma seem less bad and more logical. Compliment me and I have to face for a nanosecond that either the person giving the compliment is doing it to please themselves, or because they don't know me, or because maybe the abuser was wrong. It was a small reminder that I didn't deserve what happened to me and it make the pain a little more real each time.

Some of what you describe makes me wonder if the celebration of you is stirring up that pain that if you are worthy of gifts, then it makes the bad trauma all the worse.

Maybe that doesn't apply at all to your situation and the reaction to people celebrating you on your birthday. Just a few thoughts. Totally feel free to disregard if not helpful.

Birthdays and holidays can also be a weird cluster of stressful chaos that fills up the stress cups of many people. Even without PTSD. The Ptsd Cup Explanation

Happy Birthday :hug: I hope you find some space and rest for you over the next few days.

 

[Tinyflame]

I have always found it very difficult to accept gifts. Not deserving I suppose. Amongst other things.

Idk but I think many of us here neither celebrate our existence nor find value or hope in the thought of a future. Indeed it can feel the opposite.

Hugs to you, xox. :hug::hug::hug:

 

[Tinyflame]

Something else came to me: putting all trauma or triggers aside for a moment as much as possible, if you can imagine for a moment, receiving nothing, & no marking of the day or well wishes, not due to respecting your wishes but simply absent, how would you (truly) feel? Not to say black-or-white thinking, but rather the contrast. Assuming others' good intentions, and not manipulation, why they give or want to celebrate or acknowldege your birthday & you is because they feel the opposite: you are not alone, not unloved, not an incidental thought or 'off the radar'.

So whatever you feel (and that is ok, including & not limited to :wtf:), it can be counterbalanced with an acknowledgement or the realization that you are supported, valued, loved, & a priority & an important part of their lives, not an afterthought.

:hug: @-lemurlibs91- .

 

[-lemurlibs91-]

Thank you for your replies.

I ended up completely breaking down in tears to my boyfriend. It turns out that another part of why it feels so wrong on my birthday is that I feel (this is not to say it is true about other people) that if people knew what happened, they wouldn't want to give me presents or celebrate my birthday or know me, so it feels like I'm tricking them into giving me things by pretending to be someone different to who I truly am. I've always felt I'm inherently "bad", and explain any kind behaviour/assessment otherwise as "it's because no one knows the true me". My boyfriend completely disagreed with me about how people would react, which was confusing....but I get what he was trying to do. It's just a bit like being a child and realising for the first time your mum isn't part of you.... that you're separate people. It's like that, but at 25 years old instead of 2. Like the conflict is baffling because I feel so strongly one way but would feel the opposite if someone else was in my position. I feel as speechless/unable to properly communicate how strongly I feel it, as a 2 year old does!

Seems like your (perhaps unexpressed) boundaries are being overrun a little? And it's bringing some core self image issues to the surface at the same time too?

Yeah this makes sense. I have really strict boundaries, but I'm not very good at letting people know them and/or dealing with it assertively when someone crosses them....that's where I'm in this position I guess! I'm someone who doesn't want to make someone else feel uncomfortable/guilty/embarrassed/offended so I let things cross it that I'm not ok with, even a hug when I'm in a place of feeling horrible in my skin. So I guess they are unexpressed in terms of helping other people stick to them. They don't know that I don't like someone standing behind me, but I expect them to because I don't understand how anyone would be ok with someone standing behind them...it seems obvious.

compliments felt almost threatening

Yeah totally. I mean I can even deal with compliments about my appearance - I basically let people do that because they want to, even though I disagree. But I can't when people say I'm a good person/kind/honest. It's just like total lies, but they think it's true!
I don't tend to ever think I didn't deserve it, so it's more that I feel I'm tricking people because they don't know the true me.

I will check out the PTSD cup explanation. I know of "spoons", and birthday/Christmas certainly use up all of my daily spoons within a few minutes, just existing!!!

Assuming others' good intentions, and not manipulation, why they give or want to celebrate or acknowldege your birthday & you is because they feel the opposite: you are not alone, not unloved, not an incidental thought or 'off the radar'.

I guess because I don't feel like the issue with how other people are with me (I don't feel unloved etc.), I just feel that I'm not worthy of it. Also I know people love giving gifts/giving compliments....they can't help it. I feel guilty, I should appreciate it more and appreciate how good I've got it that I have family around me/a boyfriend who sticks by me even though I've seriously screwed up in the past and it would make most people run a mile. But yeah. It's the guilt that kind of consumes me on my birthday.

Thank you for your :hug: @Junebug @Justmehere @EveHarrington - I do appreciate them. I'm not lying on that one.

I also always remember my 18th birthday & that Christmas when it's this time of year - I was on a psychiatric ward and it turns out, got further traumatised by my experiences there. It wasn't abuse, but restriction of movement/being left completely alone/ignored when crying/not given psychological support all whilst doing the hardest thing for me at the time: gaining weight. As a teenager on an adult ward on my own, without my mum who I was completely dependent on. It's massively shaped my thinking and behaviour now, and reinforced all the difficulties I have from the original trauma - like not coping with change or choice or decisions or autonomy. But I feel emotions about that, where I don't about the original trauma.