It’s one week until my birthday. I’ll be 35, not that I really care how old I am. Most of the time I forget how old I am, about 6 months ago a slight mental hiccup occurred and I thought I was 25. Age, the passage of time, are not things I’m very good at keeping track of. However, this year I stopped and thought about it, holy shit! I’m going to be 35, what happen to my twenties and then the depression set in.
Everyone starts their year out by recalling their previous years or decades, now with it being 2020 everyone’s doing the decade in review. What was I doing 10 years ago? Life, is that a good answer? I really don’t like seeing those things about reflecting because I start to think back and reflect, which is good in some ways. The distant I’ve come since my breakdown in 2012 is amazing. Yeah, it took years to get me here, but damn. I made it through alot, and I celebrate that. Hey, I don’t stay in bed all day even though I sleep far too much. I get up every day, whether I want to or not, I take a shower (something I would go days without doing before), put on something other than pajamas or lounge stuff. Then grab a little something to eat. That’s a major thing! For a normal person, sure, they are rolling their eyes thinking that’s nothing. For someone with major depression, PTSD, and other mental illnesses, that is HUGE!
I’m proud of myself for this progress.
Looking back and reflecting is a double-edged sword for me. Especially this time of year. The holidays have wrapped up, and there is a slump in good-will and uplifting moods. Then comes my birthday and the standard upset that comes with it. I know I’ve written in the past about being depressed over my birthday, how they were nearly always shitty, and trying to make them special now. Last year was a wonderful time, but this year. . . It’s hitting me hard, what with all this reflecting shit.
I look back and have tried--searched until I have a migraine--for some twinkle of a good/positive memory of the birthday from my past--my childhood. There is none. Yes, there are pictures of me from my early--I wouldn’t call them parties, more of family outings--to Disneyland and Knots Berry Farm. Pictures with my five cousins, my aunts, and Danielle (mom). Happy smiles and goofy poses, but the only thing I can remember from those birthdays are Danielle dragging me around the park making me stand outside a ride I was too small for, because my cousins wanted to ride the scary rides. Danielle liked to take all the cousins to the parks because they thought she was so damn cool, those parties/outings were never for me--they weren’t for my birthday--they were for Danielle to show off what an awesome mother she was. She’s closer with my two older cousins than she’s ever been with me. I don’t understand it.
The year she started dating CJ (future stepfather dickhead) I can’t remember a party, a cake. . . A gift. Nothing. My mind is blank. No family or friends, not that I ever had many friends. Once we moved to Pennsylvania it turned into birthday dinners. I was 7 years old, and instead of having an awesome party full of all the family in the area, or my many friends at the time, Danielle talked me into a nice dinner out with CJ’s parents. I was upset over it, but she said over and over again how grown up I needed to be, and a grown up goes to a nice fancy dinner. I guess it was an okay dinner, there is nothing I truly remembered from it other than cutting the cake they gave me at the restaurant into too large of pieces for everyone, and that I developed a serious fear of balloons.
Yes, I am scared of balloons. Not the balloon itself, I’m okay in a room of balloons, it’s the idea or thought that they are going to pop and make a loud sound. I don’t like the sudden pop/noise. PTSD from growing up in a violent household, and this birthday. Danielle had the waiters tie a bunch of balloons onto the back of my chair as they sang Happy Birthday. As the song came to an end they popped two or three right next to my ear. Danielle found it hysterical, I wanted to crawl under the table and cry. I really don’t like balloons, and if you want to see me get ridiculously nervous, give a kid of balloon or a dog/any animal. With the increased risk of the balloon popping makes me panic like crazy!
The year I turned 10. . . Blank. I can’t remember a damn thing, but I know it wasn’t good because home-life at the time was. . . the best way to put it into words is the worst abusive home you’ve ever witnessed on television. Between the fear, yelling, violence. . . God, there was nothing good about that year. Not a single thing.
From then on it’s a blur of half-assed birthday dinners with my siblings, no gifts, no cakes, no being special for a day. On the rare occasion I did have something like a sleepover (it happened three times) Danielle spent the time degrading me around my friends (in a joking playful manner). Picking on me, and playing the “Cool Mom”.
It’s the worst, to have a “cool” awful abusive mom. To my cousins, people in her social circle, friends, extended family Danielle comes off as mom of the year. 100% the most loving, caring, bend-over-backwards arms tied behind her back, kind of mother. None of it’s true. None of it’s reality, it’s an act for the outside but behind the family door--behind the wall of silence--It’s very different. Every birthday was a chance to remind me I owed me, and she owned me. . . Owned me very much like a child slave.
Danielle usually started the day by telling a story about how I came to be. The false labor she went into on Christmas Eve, the way my father wanted her to abort me, and the noble way she took on being a single mom. I’ve come to learn in the last few years a lot of it isn’t true.
You guys want to know the truth?
I’m an anchor baby. Yep, Danielle had a casual 80’s relationship with my father. They went out a handful of times even though he wasn’t interested. They had sex, Danielle told him she was on the pill (remember this is the mid 1980s, men didn’t know better), then he didn’t hear from her for weeks. Magically she showed up at his work declaring she now worked there AND she was pregnant. My dad had a stable, well-paying job, comes from a nice family, and she milked the hell out of that. I get it, she wanted someone to take care of her. She had, probably still has, daddy issues. I understand, but roping a man into taking care of her by getting pregnant? Pathetic, and when it didn’t work out she stole his credit cards and SSN. What The FUCK?!
Didn’t stop her from turning my whole birth into a noble thing--a sacrifice on her part. This endured me to her. There wasn’t a day I didn’t feel like I had to pay it forward to her for not aborting me as a baby. For giving up her life for a mistake (aka me). I felt awful for Danielle, and when she asked me to give, I gave. When she asked me to make my own sacrifices, I did without hesitation.
When my birthdays turned in Danielle pity parties, I didn’t complain. I did without because Danielle made me feel I wasn’t worth it. She made me feel guilty for being alive when none of it was my fault. My birthday has never been a celebration, it’s a reminder that the only purpose I have for being in this world was to trap someone into a life they didn’t want. When that didn’t work I bore the punishment of it’s failure for a lifetime.
So yeah, I hate my birthday. Especially this year because all I have is lonely, cold, dark, and painful memories of birthdays pass. Combined with the agonizing truths I learned about my entrance into this world, the reason Danielle choose to bring someone into this world she hated, I can’t. I have no happiness for myself or what another year living means. And the pain. . . man, the pain I feel over those birthdays, my life, and reality of my own mother not giving two damn shits about me unless she’s getting public praise. I don’t see any reason to celebrate. 100% honesty right now, I’m really finding it hard to locate a reason to live or not physically harm myself. I’m in too much damn emotional pain, I would rather be bleeding than feel any of this.
I hate you Danielle. . . I hate you, and I hope you feel agony because you more than deserve it.
#EmotionalPain #Depression #SelfHate #AnchorBaby #Suicide #SelfHarm #Agony
~JAX~
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