To hate my birthday

[orangeleopard]

It’s my birthday tomorrow and I feel a bit of an ungrateful grinch as I hate my birthday and want to treat it as if it’s just any other day. I think i have a bit of trauma around my birthday, my abusive ex loved to ruin occasions for me - so on my birthday he would do anything to ensure it was ruined and would never let me be happy, so i feel a bit icky if i am happy on my own birthday - like I’m looking over my own shoulder to be berated for being happy. I also have my biological dad trauma, where I haven’t seen him since I was 10, then my last birthday he tries to contact me. I also was a very sick child and spent most of my birthdays in hospital. I just feel like every birthday I have had has been surrounded by negativity which cloud the wonderful effort my lovely family go to which makes me feel so ungrateful and awful. I just always end up crying all day on my birthday, it just makes me feel sick to my stomach the idea of it and I panic and want to throw up. Would I be unreasonable to not celebrate my birthday anymore?

It’s your birthday, so it’s up to you what you do or don’t do….It’s very understandable that it triggers lots of difficult feelings.

That said, if your family want to make lots of effort it could feel rejecting to them if you completely ignore it. Could you talk to them? Perhaps there’s a middle ground? Maybe you could reclaim your birthday and do one special thing that’s for you.

For myself, once I got over the ‘ must go out somewhere special and enjoy myself a lot’ thing, it went better for me, because with a chronic health condition that was quite exhausting.

It's your birthday, you do whatever you want.
I haven't celebrated mine since I was 17. No particular feelings about it, just can't be arsed to organise a big do-dah. I take a few calls from my family and that's about it. In the last few years my partner has been taking me out for a low key dinner. I haven't had a party or anything silly like that for over two decades.

Just stumbled across your thread from earlier this year. We have a family member similar, with birthday and Christmas. So what we do is randomly give a nice gift on a different date. That seemed to work, zero expectation, nice to be thought of, and no birthday big deal.