I’ve struggled with depression around my birthday since I was a young adult.
For a long time, birthdays have felt like signposts for loss, emptiness, and shame—reminders that I’m getting older but have too little to show for it.
Around this time of year, I’m always thinking about my best friend who died three days after my tenth birthday, and how there was never a chance to say a real goodbye. I think about how, among the very few birthday parties I had as a child, I can’t recall one that wasn’t traumatic or filled with drama from my parents.
Even as a child, I realized I had an unusually high number of birthdays that ended in tears. In loneliness. In feeling like I didn’t belong in this world.
Since becoming a mom, I’ve tried so hard to change my mindset around birthdays. I do everything I possibly can to give Sophie a great party each year—one that helps her feel deeply loved and celebrated.
I also try to celebrate my own birthday with her, enough to rewrite some of the strange, painful messaging I absorbed from my family.
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