A BLUE BIRTHDAY

My 23rd birthday was last week and I cried my eyes out a night before. Don’t get me wrong, this is not a regular occurrence. I do not shed unwarranted tears every night. Sometimes, I am fine. My moments of panic or sorrow come and go, but they are nothing out of the ordinary and certainly controllable. But you see, there is a crippling anxiety, a brain consuming crisis right before your birthday called THE BIRTHDAY BLUES. Whenever you feel these blues, you tumble into a spiral of ridiculous thoughts: ‘I. hate the attention’, ‘I really don’t feel like celebrating’, ‘Why am I. such a burden’, ‘Is any of this even genuine?’, and finally ‘what is wrong with me?’. Rinse and repeat.

As with every other matter of emotions, there are always signs — constant, consistent, and sometimes silent signs that will communicate themselves to you if you listen. If you end up feeling the following then sorry my dear friend, you have been caught in the emotional trap of THE BIRTHDAY BLUES:

• You feel absolutely abandoned. Even when you have a truckload of friends.
• You question the meaning, and value of your life. You start to question why a birthday is even important in the first place. Asking questions like who are my friends? What if I’ve been on the wrong path of my life? Do I have friends? What is the meaning of life, anyway? Why do we even celebrate the day of birth?!
• Experiencing a feeling of inadequacy. The way we think affects the way we feel. If you’re thinking thoughts foster your inadequacies and emboldens your failures, mistakes, and heights you “ought to” have attained, there you will be stuck in the pit of sadness and anxiety. Instead of beating yourself up, you should raise your shoulders high and look forward to the beautiful offerings of the future if you put in hard and smart work.
• Feeling like a burden to others. The birthday blues will force you to feel like such an inconvenience to your loved ones, regardless of how bad they want to celebrate you.

Yes, it’s a real thing and you are not alone if you experience this too. I mean, I don’t blame you anyway, birthdays can be so unnecessarily difficult. You are okay and you will get through it: it is all. about owning those feelings and finding a way to either enjoy the day or mitigate those feelings of sadness.

Let go of those Birthday Blues with these:

• Give your day a positive start: Play some music, dance around the house like you’re on a lifeline. Order that shawarma you’ve been craving abeg. You need to invest in anything that will make you happy on your day. If you have the ability to do the things you want, do them. But, again, it’s your day. So do what you want. Maybe make a special breakfast or watch a movie in bed, whatever brings you joy. If you have to work on your birthday, try to change it up a bit. Order lunch at one of your favorite local restaurants or other small changes you can make
• Your birthday, your way: Can I just say that we need to make our birthdays what we want them to be, not what people say they should be, especially social media. We cannot deny the impact that social media does have on the birthday blues. We see people getting cash cakes and surprise parties and new iPhones, an insane ideology, but we need to make our birthdays about what is important to us. Heck! If you’ve always wanted a cash cake, you can get one for yourself! It’s all about loving yourself and making yourself feel important.
• Boy! You need to manage those expectations! One of the major symptoms of birthday blues is feeling absolutely friendless and very much lonely, all because the expectations you have placed on your friends from the gifts to the surprise parties did not come through. Can we also talk about how we sometimes trick ourselves to think that monumental things should happen on our birthdays? Like what’s up with THAT!
• What are you grateful for? I’d like you to look in the mirror and mention all the wonderful things you love about yourself and all the things you have achieved, and no you do not have to restrict yourself to just the last year. It may be helpful to begin each birthday by pointing out everything to be grateful for. You are reading this article right now, that’s your number one right there.
• People need to know it’s your day. I remember my teens years and how I wake up to calls from exactly 12am. So many well wishing friends. But now everyone is so busy with responsibilities that they tend to even forget birthdays, and that’s okay. You should remind your loved ones of your birthday a day before. Nothing wrong with them making your day a big deal on your behalf. You are wonderful to them and they should appreciate you!

It seems to me that the older we get, the harder birthdays get. Birthdays are only as good as you make them. Get what you want from them and, if possible, make it a day of fun and celebration for yourself. We only get one per year, so even if you think it’s. not going as you planned, make the most of your day!