Nothing says isolation more than spending your birthday alone

[UnKnown-Self]

This is what I did one of the many times I spent my birthday alone. I picked up a cupcake and some takeout. Went home, listened to some of my favorite feel good music, took a bubble bath, had my dinner and cake.
Afterwards, I sent an email to everyone say I decided this year to turn off my phone and pamper myself for my birthday. Of course my phone was not only on but no more than two feet from me the whole time.
Then I described what a nice relaxing, enjoyable birthday I had, exaggerated the food and my mood a lot but I went into detail of how nice it was to pamper myself and the cupcake was pure heaven, blah blah, so moist and chocolatey on and on. I said please understand if you called and I didn't answer. They all knew I was saying f*ck you assholes.
I got all these excuse emails in return that were defensive, which I didn't answer.
Not one of them even tried to say, oh so that's why you didn't answer when I called because they wanted me to know they hadn't bothered. But writing that email did help me feel better and so did the bubble bath.

Happy Happy Birthday to You! Do something nice for yourself.

 

[Ann]

Well, today is my birthday. NOBODY at work said a word, my adult daughter texted me to have a good day,
(actually, I am shocked she even remembered). Here, I sit alone with my dog. NOT a pity party, but I am so sick of being lonely & friendless. People at work have their little clicks & are not willing to accept anyone into then. I do not have any friends, just the "acquaintances" at work. Yes, I am depressed & crying as I type this. I am worried that someday I will be the old lady in a nursing home with no family, relatives, or friends. Don't know what to do. Just needed to write this hoping that somehow it would relieve the tears, but it has not.
There isn't a recipe out there to "make new friends" or "join a group"......well been to such things & the people who attend are already "in their group." Had SIGNIFICANT family deaths 5 years ago & have been alone since. *Just a word to all: at funerals & wakes, don't say to the person who had the losses--I will call you & we will...blah blah. You all lie......you cross that person off your "list" of friends.....it's hurtful.
PLEASE don't say that I AM THE one who needs to reach out. Tried many months after---nobody wants to be around you. Happy Birthday to me.

 

[UnKnown-Self]

You cry if you want to @ann
You can also put on some of your favorite music and embrace your day.
I know it is hard, especially when you are on the outside looking in . It's my entire life.
Find something you enjoy. It doesn't have to be today cause it's difficult when one is feeling as down as you seem to be.
Take some time to think of something you like to do. Are you creative at all? Is there something you can enjoy even when alone or especially when alone. Gardening, cooking, crafting, photography ( all you need is your phone) writing, dancing, the list is endless. If you don't know, now is the time to find out. THIS IS YOUR TIME TO FIND YOU! Adventures don't have to cost money. Visit your local library, look things up on line. You will find your joy, it's all in you. You just need to start your adventure and look for it.
Happy Birthday! May this be your adventure year :-)

 

[8888]

Sorry to hear that. I'm pretty isolated too. Happy Birthday! I hope this year is better for you than last year.

 

[Jed]

Well, today is my birthday. NOBODY at work said a word, my adult daughter texted me to have a good day,
(actually, I am...

well that's just crap. I'm British so well vested in understatement. It's my birthday on Sunday and I know it'll be the same as you. So from me to you even though I don't know you 'a very happy belated birthday' x

 

[Sa'id]

I wish all of you happy early AND belated birthdays, and happy years to follow! May Peace and Blessings be with you all. :)

I've not celebrated since I was a teenager. Men of my culture (Chechens) are expected to be stoic, emotionless. For 13 years I would buy my cat a treat or toy, and let him freak out and play until he was exhausted. When he passed away, I met someone I thought was a "nice gal" (narcissistic mask), who ruined those happy memories by ignoring me the whole week of my birthday, and begrudgingly bought me dinner 2 weeks later. Withholding any affection whatsoever. I've never felt so insignificant to society in my life.

A year later and single again, working in a new environment where people already have their department-specific cliques, I sit here typing this. I feel like a literal government mule. As long as I can keep carrying heavy shit on my back up high elevation trails, I'm useful. But when we clock out, I'm vestigial at best. About to watch a Clint Eastwood movie, maybe even have a cigar, to calm down.

Love and hugs to all of you, we deserve better for ourselves -- To treat ourselves better, and to play our parts in the world again. If you're like me, and have survived multiple attempts at suicide, you know deep down there's a reason we survived. And continue to survive. That reason was not to remain our own worst enemies, OR doormats to society.

 

[Ronin]

Thanks for your words of wisdom, Sa'id.

 

[Rani G2]

don't say to the person who had the losses--I will call you & we will...blah blah. You all lie......you cross that person off your "list" of friends.....it's hurtful.
PLEASE don't say that I AM THE one who needs to reach out. Tried many months after---nobody wants to be around you. Happy Birthday to me.

I idealised hermetic existence as I hardly find that connection with people out there, running around with their own stories, their own struggles. Only a very few will make an effort to really get to know you. Most of "them"(Too many during the last years) will ffnd that you dont match their moral and value system, one probably might be too much of a victim, in some people's eyes, which only means that one might show a part of human fragility that many dont want to see. To accept the fact that there are mechanisms not under our control is hard for many to comprehend. Those who survived trauma are trying their best to fit into society, they all have their good reasons, these f*ing neoliberal phrases of "if you really try you will make it" is bullshit to me. F* off

 

[Anonymous 82]

i remember few beating my 21st being miserable when indie have friends only bc I was never able to find a gf and was lonely in that sense. Then years later I move away, meet someone and get engaged to her. Even she made me feel miserable on my birthday where I had to hold back tears to pretend like things are fine around family. Fortunately Im not with her anymore. But now I'm turning 34 and I have no friends to celebrate with, no one who loves ne, no one to give a damn about me. And now I get to celebrate my birthday in the shadows of my loneliness while the tears continue to stream down my face. Happy birthday to me! Yay!!

 

[Dinner alone]

I celebrated my last birthday alone. With the exception of my kids saying Happy Birthday. I got no acknowledgement from my wife. We are going through some tough times now and financially we are scrapping rock bottom. I am reminded of this everyday I see her so I tend to avoid her now. Even her parent's who would have prepped a birthday dinner on the weekend seemed to have a resentment to me. But none the matter. Did I even want her to say Happy Birthday? It's that point that I wouldn't care, but would have been nice at the same time to hear it. But the day went on, and she was about to come home from work, and I really didn't want to be home. I only stayed home because the kids were in and out. So when she came home I was there for 5 minutes before I left. Funny, I was just giving her a small window to say something. But the silence was heavy. I told her I was going out. I didn't say with or without friends or anything. I just said I was going and she just said, "ok bye."

So I had decided to take myself out to dinner. Dinner for one. I went to a restaurant that I enjoyed and got myself a nice meal. I was in no hurry to leave, so I really just took my time. What was I going to rush back for, more silence? The up side, my meal didn't cost a lot, unlike when the family comes along. But as I was eating my meal, I was reminded a couple of times by staff that were singing Happy Birthday to clients who were there with their friends and loved ones. There would be no birthday song for me. So while I was enjoying my meal, it is still hard to think of the isolation I was in and was feeling. Happy Birthday to me.

 

[Crappy New Year]

This is probably one of my worst birthdays ever, and thats hard to top. I am spending it sitting...

Well Brother, I think your reading about my sucky birthdays will make this one you've experienced a reality check and light a fire under your @#% to make little changes for the better. I'm no Shrink, but I have much hindsight that might give you a little insight.

I try not to place blame of my life on anything but me. As a child of 5 years old, I remember the happiest year of my childhood. This year had all the Family Birthdays, Christmas, Easter, Halloween. One of each for that year of fond and happy memories. The following year, my Father decided to lead his Family towards a "Certain Religion" that had an excuse NOT to celebrate anything except a few boring ones related to that "Religion".

The next year I remember watching out my bedroom window on Christmas morning, the neighborhood kids sporting their sweet gifts. Riding brand new bicycles and comparing each others presents. I remember our entire Family hiding from the Trick or Treaters in our back bedroom with all the lights in the entire house off. Oh No, we don't celebrate "Pagan Holidays". I never did find out what the hell a Pagan is.

I am now turning 55 years old, on New Years Eve, 2017. Yes, I was born on January 1st. Here I am, alone again as almost always, standing on my porch, a stones throw away from Downtown San Diego, listening to those who are Out There Doing. I am always just climbing out of the Depression Pit of Christmas only to slide down into the New Years Eve not partying / alone Birthday Depression Pit. This is a gimps of almost every year of my life.

It may be a little late for me to alter this ingrained way of, "it's only another day of your life" or, the most ridiculous thing my Father said in convincing his three children to give up all the fun, happy, Family bonding celebrations, "Just think, we won't have to wait until once a year to give you children gifts and presents. You will get them the whole year". In factual hindsight we all received less than before because we now didn't celebrate anything and rarely were given gifts the whole year.

My hind/insight is:

Just Get Up and Out There! Start Doing and accept your life as it Was. Make one little change until it becomes habit and then another and so on. You will then realize you're starting to feel a little happy. The realization of that, sparks excitement and then you have Motivation to change rather than Making change.
Get it?
Just my Five Bucks worth...

 

[TheSpydah]

It's my birthday tomorrow, and I have decided not to be with my family because my family and the place I am now forced to live in are major triggers for me because they were there when my partner died it is my father who caused the accident that killed him. Obviously no one understands this and people assume I am just heartless. But I do not have the luxury to feel any warm attachment to my family anymore. Not to mention that I am penniless and in a dump of a place where most people are unemployed. There were two things I dreaded: his death, and being back here. Now I am stuck with both. And I do not deny that I spend all of my day quietly thinking what is going to be the best way to kill myself.

So I am going to the last place where my partner had been happy for a few hours, among strangers who made him happy for the space of one coffee together. I neither want to celebrate my having made through another year.

I am suicidal the whole time I am not asleep, and to be honest having decided not to grow old is the only source of comfort I have right now. And I have no one except this board to talk about it. Everywhere else I wear a mask, and I feel like my brain is bursting at the seams of my skull by my constant trying to seem normal when I know there is no hope for my life, not just because of the PTSD istelf, but because the illness and the circumstances it appeared in have effectively condemned me to a life of bare survival and poverty, completely isolated and surrounded by backward people I have no attachment to, and no way to get away from.