Battling Depression & Anxiety on your Birthday

What it's like to have a mental illness on my birthday

If there's one day when everything is supposed to go right, it's your birthday. At least that's what well-wishers, social media platforms, & society itself have led us to think. Well, it doesn't work out like that when your mental illness seems to have missed the memo.


This year in particular, my depression chose to take a dip the day before my birthday, and chose to stick around rather than get better like I'd want it to. Everyone experiences depression differently and sometimes my depression can act completely different on two different days. For me my depression on the 28th, the day before my birthday, was crippling. I seemed to lose the ability to respond to any messages or texts all morning, and part of the afternoon. My body felt glued to my bed and the only times I was able to get out was when I needed to stop my dog from chewing something he wasn't supposed to. Before you worry about him, though, don't worry. Thankfully my sister is now living at home and was kind enough to feed him, let him outside, and watch him without me asking her to.

When my family would ask how I was doing, "Fine." What's wrong? "Nothing." Did I want to tell them what was going on? Absolutely I did. However, when dealing with depression it's very hard to convince yourself that your reasons for acting the way you are justified. In my case I feel useless, like I'm a burden, as if I can do better, that I'm being unreasonable and simply lazy. If you were to ask me if I would use any of these examples to describe others with mental illness I would say absolutely not. Many of us advocates for mental illness could be called hypocritical at times. The very things that we fight for for others convince us that we have no right to complain.

For the purpose of this blog, I'm going to layout what I'm going to call my victories and defeats on my birthday. Victories being things that did go right, or blessings I noticed on my birthday. Defeats being things that went wrong, or things my depression blew out of proportion as to how bad they were. I'm sure I'll miss things on both sides, but this is just a small snippet of what happened to make me feel the way I did.

Victories                                                                     Defeats

Got out of bed                                                                  Late to school
Car's gas was full                                                             Snowed night before
Family home                                                                    Car Bluetooth not connecting
Lunch with family                                                           Unable to concentrate on school
Loved                                                                                 Because of cold, ring didn't fit
Taken out to dinner                                                        BuJo for April not started
Big smiles from nephew                                                No real breakfast
                                                                                            Feeling exhausted as well as unproductive

My advice if this happens to you

Breathe.

It may seem like you have no reason to feel this way, but let me remind you that you do. If you're battling any sort of mental illness, of course your birthday may be less cheerful than past years. That's what depression does. No matter how strong your medicine is, you haven't seen a therapist in a year or just came out of an appointment, you live in a happy or toxic environment, you had a bottle of water or a full plate for breakfast, your wallet is full or empty, you've been officially diagnosed or not, or whatever other situations you're going through you're not always going to be happy. 

That's literally what depression does, it sucks your happiness out. For you fellow Harry Potter fans out there, remember that J.K. Rowling based dementors directly off of depression. For those of you who don't know what a dementor is, this is the definition: 
"Dementors are among the foulest creatures that walk this earth. They infest the darkest, filthiest places, they glory in decay and despair, they drain peace, hope, and happiness out of the air around them... Get too near a Dementor and every good feeling, every happy memory will be sucked out of you."
Dementors are the grim reapers of happiness.

Taken directly off the Pottermore website:

Remember that dementors are so effective that they can literally suck out your soul if they overpower you long enough. 

Don't let them suck out all your happiness. Listen to your favorite song, breathe deeply to refocus, go for a drive, draw a picture, go see a movie by yourself or with a friend, play an uplifting game, talk to a friend, watch funny cat/puppy videos, do anything to get yourself out of this state. This blog post is how I chose to channel all the emotions I was (and wasn't) feeling today. I hope this finds others like me that need help. Remember that chocolate always helps! (Or your equivalent if you can't have it.)