Photo by Annie Spratt
It’s your birthday today. Your special day. People are wishing you a happy birthday and it just should be a feel good day… so why are you feeling so down and depressed?
Birthdays can often bring the sense of loneliness and being alone into sharp relief. Instead of feeling part of some group, or family, all it does it highlight just how separate and depressed you are.
This should be the day where you feel loved, are treated like royalty, and you pretty much do what you like.
Instead you just want to hide away and cope with your pain in the best way you know how.
Birthday depression is a big thing for the high level Empath. The feeling of quiet desperation, the desire to make the most of a day that will be over before they know, and the sense of loss as they realize it’s not going to happen can really make that special day one they’d rather avoid. It throws into sharp relief what they feel they don’t have, and may never have.
Worse, it might also remind them how no one seems to care, especially when no one seems to remember.
And on the other end of the spectrum, often, family and friends will insist on big party plans, or having the birthday person do something they really don’t want to do. Instead of doing whatever they wish, they feel obliged to make everyone else happy and end up going through the motions, just so they can get it all over and done with.
Birthdays can be little fun for empaths and they may wake up feeling down, depressed and think to themselves, I hate my life.
So, what makes a good birthday?
The answer, of course, varies, and I can only talk from personal experience, and I know for me, it’s having the entire day to yourself. Doing exactly what you want to do, and having others support it. Perhaps going out for a quiet dinner, or watching a movie with loved ones.
Some love their parties, but not all do. Some Empaths hate them, and surprise parties are even worse. They feel embarrassed and cringe inside, while they try to make the best of a situation that is embarrassing to them. This especially applies to those who tend to be very private people.
Celebrating the birthday of an empath (or anyone) doesn’t have to be all that tricky. Let them tell you what they want to do. Let them know it’s their day, and you’ll do what you can to accommodate them.
Since I can remember the day before and the day of my birthday is the worst two days of my life, it is eaxactly the way you describe it, it is another day you reminded that you still alive. It seems like everybody forgets your birthday, and it is two days that I just can’t get rid of my intense loneliness, it is the day that I even more feel that I don’t belong. Last year one of the ladies at work comment that they avoid me on my birthday because evry year whenI walk into the office they can see my eyes are swollen and that I have spend the whole previouse night crying. If someone look at me I cry, it just seems like I have no control over it. I keep on crying and just can’t stop crying. I hate my birthdays. Every year I think I hope this is my last one. People can’t understand this, it is difficult for me to understand myself why I feel this deep depression, how do you explain the feeling of lost and loneliness to others…….
It’s hard, but them avoiding you just makes it worse. Perhaps that’s something that can be explained.
Thank you Gary, you always know how to make me not feel so alone 🙂