Birthdays are so tricky. They’re supposed to be the best day of the year—where people celebrate you for just being—and you hopefully get showered with gifts and cakes.
But unfortunately, that means it’s a day filled with expectations that everything has to go well. And with chronic illnesses in play, that’s hard to guarantee.
I finally had the “It’s My Party and I Can Cry If I Want To” Epiphany when I turned 20. I had a ton of great events on the docket—I got to see one of my best friends for lunch in Williamsburg on my to Virginia Beach with my family. Unfortunately, that day I was hit by mood swings which turned into anxiety and I kept panicking, “no! I can’t be sad on my birthday!”
I kept trying the “fake it ’til you make it” approach at having the Best Birthday Ever but once I started getting a tension headache, it got to be too much.
I spent that birthday morose and quiet, upset that I was losing to my body. I was supposed to be happy and perky, but instead I was busy fighting my own feelings and the throbbing in my head.
And then, I finally remembered that I’m the birthday princess, and I get to do whatever I want. I call the shots. This could finally be the year of the grumpy, quiet birthday—something I’d never tried before.
Honestly, it kind of sucked to give in to the mood swings for a while. It sucked to stop fighting to keep them at bay and let them take over for a while. But it saved me a lot of energy. Having bad feelings is exhausting, but battling them when they’re in army gear is so much worse.
Birthdays since the great epiphany have been better informed—for the emotional side, don’t fight your feelings, they’ll probably pass a least a little bit when you have your birthday cake/cookie/brownie/ice cream/whatever. But the physical symptoms are harder to self-talk away, but you can certainly treat them the same way. And on your birthday, no one can truly begrudge you some full-scale drama queen “woe is me! pain on my birthday!” because guess what, you earned it. If that’s your personality, if that’s your style, go for it.
My big day this year started off great—my present to myself was going to be a Treat Yo Self day: sleep in, no exercise, no school work. Mom also surprised me with treats from Mom’s Apple Pie Company. I went through my usual routine but started feeling symptomatic and that led to feeling some heartbreak. I got nervous that it would continue throughout the day—what if I didn’t feel well enough to go out to dinner with my family that night? Thankfully, there’s nothing like fear of feeling unwell to get you to chug water and get your salt.
I rested, got such nice messages from friends (and my mom’s 4 billion Facebook friends), and TWO CAKES!!! And aside from the several pictures my mom insisted we take at dinner, I didn’t force any inauthentic feelings. So yes, I felt bummed and symptomatic for a while. But it was my birthday and tons of people texted and wrote on my wall and liked my mom’s photos of me to tell me they loved me, so there was plenty of time to feel important, too.
