I can't celebrate my birthday...anyone feel the same?

Now that I feel super old (past 35), I get very depressed on my birthday. I actually cried the past two years. I expected nothing but became even more depressed when my own spouse forgot my birthday this year and didn’t say anything to me!

But really, I knew I hated birthdays since I was 12. My parents told me to invite friends for a sleepover party and going somewhere but after I invited all those people, only 2 bothered to come. And after that day I just had this realization like, oh...people don’t really like me... I don’t have real friends... nobody wanted to come, and so on.

Since then I never made any attempts for birthday celebrating. I just buy something I want, and get depressed about getting old. I refuse to tell people my exact birthday whenever they ask because I don’t want to be disappointed if they know and don’t say or do anything on my birthday.

To be honest, I always feel like that day is a bit special, even though I don't do anything special on that day, and nobody knows that it's my birthday (which is good).
I am sometimes shocked at how old I am already. But so far, since my childhood, I have felt a little bit better with every year, so getting old seems to be a good thing.

^ Getting older can be great. As our minds beginning melting things seem calmer and easier to take. Well, until it becomes overly frustrating to do simple things. But at that point it doesn't really matter.

I quit celebrating my B-day at about age 10. It's just another day. Also, many times I loose track of what normal day it is since I no longer work or interact with others. When I check and realize I'm off a day or two I just laugh and think it doesn't really matter. Sometimes I forget what month it is too. I even forget the year especially this one. I keep thinking it's already 2021. Dates just have no importance in my life any more. That's one big stresser gone!

I know all too well how terribly difficult it can be to feel lonely on a birthday. While it definitely doesn't cure all ills, one good conversation (be it with a sibling, an old friend, or even an Internet pal) can go a long way. And when that option isn't available (as it all too often isn't), simply doing things that will draw some attention away from the difficult state of things can be beneficial. Activity and (especially) productivity can really help--and perhaps constitute a form of celebration in and of themselves.

I am "old" here I guess. I've always had anxiety about my birthday. Not about my age, I am very accepting and OK with my age (50+) but the birthday itself. I guess I feel why would people celebrate it. Similar feelings as you.

B-Days are a celebration that you were born and another year closer to becoming the person you are meant to be. After age 40 everything is down hill. So, there's no point in celebrating it any more. B-Days are like Trix:

I don't celebrate my birthday. I have been a wierd lonely sad person all my life.
Birthday, Christmas, New Year...etc just remind me of how disconnected I am from the rest of the world. So, I don't want to remember it, I don't want to celebrate anything. In fact, I have forgotten about my birthday a few times.
And I usually just go on vacations overseas during Christmas and/or New Year, so I can be in strange crowds. Nobody know me, and I don't feel the need to connect to anyone.

If it weren't for my handful of family members who insist on buying me birthday presents, I wouldn't even observe mine at all. I see nothing to celebrate in becoming a year older with, in my case at least, nothing to show for it.

HappyYogi said:

Anyone feel the same?

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Yes, but I go a step beyond, it ENRAGES me, I don't even want to look at myself in the mirror.
It makes me see someone who should have either gotten his honeysuckle together or ended his life long ago.
It's like that scene from the Peanuts Movie, where Lucy reflects Charlie's face with a mirror and says, "This is the face of failure."

TheSkaFish said:

I'm 27, I don't really like getting older anymore.  I'm dreading 30.  I mean, I like living.  But I hate the idea that my one and only youth is forever gone, and that I wasted much of it making myself feel bad about things and not being as good as I could be or letting myself have as much fun as I could have had.

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I am double your age.  I don't like getting old either, but that is life.  I am just glad that I studied hard, worked hard and saved money while I was young. So, today, with my age, I don't have regrets on what I could have done. I can tell myself, I did the best I could.
P.S. I am not trying to preach.