Sad on birthdays

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It's my birthday today. I am, as I typically am on my birthday, sad. I can't "put my finger" on why I am sad. Maybe I am disappointed?

Can anyone relate to being sad on birthdays without a "real reason" or on other special occasions?

I feel the same on my birthday. It tends to feel like disappointment but I'm not sure what at. Maybe I get the feelings confused which wouldn't be the first time. All I know for sure is that I don't like my birthday.

Holidays and birthdays remind me , that noone will waste time, energy, or cash on me

Days that are not legal holidays , in unied states, I do not feel too left out

It's when a lot of precious lil "people" do not go to work, and have a lot of large, noisy , annoying celebrations, that I feel (more) left out

Happy Birthday teksla

It’s my birthday, too. Birthdays are usually awkward and sad for me because my family doesn’t celebrate them, but I’m actually having a good week.

I hope your day has gotten better.

I’m always a little sad or depressed on my birthday.

I attribute that to high expectations. I’m usually hoping that someone (my wife) will go all out to make me feel special.

She tries, I feel, but it often doesn’t work. It is not really the fault of my spouse, as the fault lies with me.

Birthdays are a convenient reminder that another year has passed and I still haven't figured out what I'm supposed to be doing on this planet. At least they aren't Mercurian years though.

the other thing that gets on my nerves is that when someone says "happy birthday", you are supposed to say "thank you". all they did was say four syllables.

"actions speak louder than words".

Yes, me too. I think I want the extra attention, but I don't go out and announce it's my birthday so people don't know or forget. My birthday was a week ago and I haven't opened facebook from before it. I know a few friends posted something, but I also know a couple hundred got an alert that it was my birthday. They can't be bothered? I need to appreciate the few people who reach out. Happy birthday!

They're wishing you happiness on your birthday. It's a platitudinous exchange at worst, but a positive expression regardless.

As my birthday is three days after Christmas it was never really celebrated it as a child, I never had parties and received my birthday presents on Christmas day as either a separate present or a slightly more expensive Christmas present. This has followed me through life as I still don't pay any attention to it and never treat it as a special day. Saying that, my wife and children usually buy me a small gift (around the £10 mark) and it is the one day of the year when I buy the family a takeaway rather than cooking a meal for everyone.

Unfortunately, due to Facebook, I find that on my "special day" I'm forever having to say thank you to people wishing me "A happy birthday" when I, personally, can't see the point in it. I do always try to remember to say happy birthday to others (Happy Birthday for yesterday teksla), always buy my wife and children birthday gifts and even gave the children the occasional Birthday party when they were younger, as I know that not everyone thinks the same way as myself.

I do find it really strange when adults have birthday parties as I always thought of them as something that children have. Speaking of which, as a child, I can only ever remember being invited to one birthday party; something of which I'm quite glad.

We don't do New Year's, Valentine's, Father's or Mother's days either. Christmas is different and baring meltdowns (one of which triggered my getting my AS diagnosis a few years back), we treat it pretty much the same as everyone else except, as were all atheists, there's no religious aspect in the celebrations. After all, you don't have to be Christian to wish for peace and goodwill

And again, a belated Happy Birthday teksla!

I've never been so tempted to say, "Amen!"

I've a birthday 2-days before Christmas and got combined gifts as a child too. Those were still great times. I wish I could go back!

I only say "happy birthday" to newborn infants. Otherwise I say "glad you made it back around the planet" or "congratulations on your numerical advancement" or somesuch thing.

I wouldn't say I'm sad on my birthday but I don't really see it as much special these days xD

I often feel sad on my birthday, don't really like attention. For some reason it also brings back old memories and having PTSD, that isn't a good thing.

Yes, moreso in the past few years. This is the first birthday where I was aware of ASD and I counted the cards and well wishes. It was a meager and therefore sad showing. The sadness is maybe from feeling overlooked, unvalued, self-awareness that I struggle to do these milestones "normally".

My birthday haul...
Cards: parents, in-laws, spouse, work, volunteer org (others may come late from family but typically include a grand parent and sibling)
Email: sib-in-law
Verbal well wish: spouse, colleague, phone call from parents. That's it.
Gift: spouse, parents, work (in-laws skipped gift this year, does that mean I have to thank for sending a card? What are the rules?


It was the lease amount of cards from family I have ever received. Part of it is my fault, I don't typically reciprocate or I rely on my spouse to do some of it. I might email or call instead of a card. We're far geographically. Or I might forget entirely.

Gifts can be tricky and I usually to them for christmas and mother/father's day/mom's birthday. I like to give the perfect thing or nothing possibly because my mom rarely cared what people wanted and just gave out used crap as along as it was cheap. I could probably choose some default giftcard. On the other hand, there is one set of cousins and their kids who never say thank you even when I give them money for graduation (like $100). They can't be bothered to write thank you notes.? I'm never sure my gift card arrived properly from the vendor... They seem to have friends anyway - they are young and have odd "church" friends.

This year I did two things "correctly" because of my new ASD awareness. I didn't fuss over spouse's choice of activity - a dinner out. And I didn't fuss over the gift which was a somewhat expensive piece of jewelry I could tell my SO was pleased to have picked out. I like it well enough. So I made sure to wear it (even thought it's over priced) and not let SO think for a moment I wanted to return it - or eat somewhere else. Or stay curled up inside in my pajamas. Even so I just thought about how I would have nothing and be alone if it weren't for my SO. I wouldn't exist.

So I guess that even if I try to perform birthday correctly - I still feel like it's doing things to please other people. Somehow that feels wrong but I'm proud of myself for trying. Ugh..

The most disappointing birthday part this year was that I randomly had a coffee meeting scheduled with a work friend and she begged off at the last minute because she was busy. I had really been looking forward to seeing her alone since the previous week I did get to see her but at a lunch with another work friend. I don't like to be disappointed.

Someone mentioned PTSD. I think I have CPTSD. I can recall some very sad childhood birthday memories of parties (among many reasons I think I have trauma). Even when I had and went to parties full of friends there was always something someone would do that was deeply hurtful or a mistake I would make. Happy times often were remembered in my mind as unhappy times since things rarely turned out optimally.

I'm starting to want recognition and notice when I don't get it.