I still hate birthdays: my mental health in sobriety

Today sees the start of Mental Health Awareness Week, and its seems like a perfect time to talk about my own experience of mental health.  Last month, I wrote about sobriety not being a magic wand, and this isn’t truer than in relation to my mental health.

My mental health has been up and down for the last decade.  In 2016, I was off work for seven months due to a breakdown.  If a stranger was to ask me about it, I’d say it was because of work related stress, which it was – that was what was on the sicknote - but it’s deeper than that.  The work situation was horrific, but I had no foundations for any form of self-care to deal with it.  The job was the reason I moved to that town and it was the basis of my friendships, my social life and my identity.  When it crumbled, so did everything else.  I let it engulf me.

As that situation played out, things did improve and I started to build foundations.  I had months of counselling, had more hobbies and started to make more connections away from work.  Oh, and I was taking antidepressants.  Looking back now, I can see how flaky those ‘foundations’ were.  The counselling and medication (once I was on the right drug) definitely helped, but there was an underlying problem, in that I didn’t particularly like myself so I was still trying to find happiness in connections with people who I didn’t align with, drinking too much wine and drunkenly buying crap I didn’t need online. 

Before the pandemic hit, it probably looked to the untrained eye like I was doing OK; but inside I was deeply unhappy.  I was incredibly lonely and I did not like myself.  As 2020 progressed, my life became more stressful and the few ‘positive’ self-care practices I had in place (going to the gym and cinema) were taken off the table.  Alcohol, on the other hand, became the nation’s sweetheart and my main hobby.  After work I would go to the local Co-op, one basket for essentials for my elderly neighbours; another basket with wine, crisps and chocolate for me.  My solo hobby, numbing out the crap and stopping me from having to address my real feelings.

If I hadn’t stopped drinking, I don’t know where I would be right now.  It would be quite the ‘sliding doors’ moment.  I would still be living in that house I hated; numbing out every real feeling I felt with more and more wine.

Thankfully, I’m living a very different life – I’m living in a house I love in a town I really like.  I have so many ‘tools’ in my self care tool kit to mention, and am building solid connections with people I really like; the others long gone.  Work does not dominate my life.  I no longer take antidepressants, my mental health has definitely shifted up a couple of octaves.  As a rule, my bad days are as bad as my good days were once good.  The main difference – in sobriety I have done the work on dealing with the issues that hounded me for years and, for the first time in my life, I actually like myself.  I am proud of what I have achieved and I love that I have enough love and support spilling over to be a better friend, daughter and professional connection. 

But this weekend is a perfect example of how life isn’t perfect.  It was my birthday.  This opinion may split people – but I hate my birthday.  I hated them when I was a child, and as an adult I grew adept numbed out the negative emotions with booze. 

Since quitting booze, I have tried to tackle it by going away for a couple of nights alone, or booking into something wellbeing-y locally so that I don’t really have to acknowledge the day.  This year, conscious of money because of building work, I decided to stay home and there was nothing to book onto.  For the first time sober, I had to do my birthday as an actual day.

I umm-ed and aah-ed over what to do for at least two months, very aware that it wouldn’t take me much to become overwhelmed with it.  I settled on a couple of hours with some friends at a board game café, and food afterwards.  Nice and simple, it’ll be fine.  Or so I thought.  And how wrong I was.  Despite the low-key nature of the plans, the usual feelings hit me like a truck. 

A birthday is one of those days, like Christmas Day, where a spotlight is shone very brightly on the fact I am alone and I hate it.  I feel so incredibly lonely in a way that is so deep that most people won’t understand.  I don’t have a partner, I don’t have any family close by.  My birthday is just another day, but the general expectation of a day of being spoiled and bombarded with love is a million miles from my reality.  I make my own breakfast, I do my own washing up.  363 days of the year, these are things that are absolutely fine and do not impact me at all; I love living alone and wouldn’t have it any other way, even if I was in a relationship.  I have amazing friends, I have a very happy, full life.

But there is something about my birthday that my brain turns into a dick and focuses on what I don’t have instead of what I do.  I try everything to change this, but I just can’t.  There aren’t enough CBT techniques in the world can quash those feelings for that 24 hours.  I just need to ride out the feelings, knowing they would pass. Instead of dragging myself to play board games, where I spent most of the time staring at the game and biting back tears, I should have not arranged it, giving myself the freedom to do what I needed to do to feel as best I could on the day.

Yesterday, the day after my birthday, I woke up feeling fine.  Like the day before was just a bad dream.  Nothing had changed expect the expectations of the day before no longer an issue; the spotlight gone.  I spent the day in slow productivity; prepping for building work to commence this morning.  I did what I needed to, interspersed with podcasts, TV shows and making phonecalls and sending messages to friends. 

Today I am very much back to reality.  In addition to watching a man dig a hole in my patio, I am back to the normal routine of life with shopping deliveries, clients and a networking event.  I had my coffee barefoot on the grass this morning, grounding into the day and then I started a journal specific to the building work, to help me process all the thoughts racing through my head.  It will also help me to focus on how grateful I am that the work is happening and the positives I see each day as it all progresses. 

Tomorrow, I intend to do the same, with the addition of watching the sunrise on a local hill to take in the beauty of the world, with me and my worries just an insignificant part of it.  This week sees more clients, a soundbath, pub quiz and more board games -hopefully without the tears.  I am seeing different friends, different connections, all of which meaningful and positive. 

The expectation that mental health will always be good is unrealistic and, at times, dangerous.  In my sobriety, I accept that I will have good or bad days.  The main difference is that I accept the negative as much as I encourage the positive.  I don’t wallow in either.  Bad days are as valuable as good days.  And if I have to do nothing more than get through two days a year – well that’s 0.5% of my time and I’ll take it. 

If there is something I need to deal with, I deal with it. I make changes; I always have.  I was unhappy in my career, I changed career.  I was unhappy in my house – it took me a while, but I moved.  When I was drinking, I didn’t have the tools to understand myself, my needs and my thoughts.  My emotions were all over the place, self-medicating and numbing stuff out.  I don’t expect perfection from myself now, I expect to make mistakes and bad judgement calls at times, and I accept myself for doing so.  Everyone is complex, and I am no exception.  I’ve got good traits and bad; but I love myself for all of those, as I continue to work on myself to live more attuned to myself and my values.

I am making a promise to myself – and to the friends who had to endure my company on Saturday without really knowing what was up – that I won’t do that to any of us next year.  I’ll either go away on my own, or I’ll make no plans.  I will set myself no expectations and I will just do whatever I need to do.  Because I can’t be happy all of the time, and I won’t put pressure on myself to be so.