Birthday’s on the pirate ship

I‘m a neurodivergent adult, a trauma survivor, a suicide survivor.

Every birthday should be a celebration, right? I mean, how did I even make it this far, my teenage years undiagnosed, well more accurately misdiagnosed. My childhood and young adult years full of trauma. I regularly ask myself how I got this far. But every birthday, rather than being a celebration, a gathering of family and friends, a happy event, since the age of around 16, and maybe a few before that, they have been just not.

Its overwhelming, I hate being the centre of attention, I hate the expectations. I can’t deal with our 5y/o’s enthusiasm, volume and desire to be on me or in my personal space, which is bad on a good day, shes a sensory seeker in many ways, the complete opposite of me generally. Parenting her is hardwork, but something about a birthday is just… just seems to turn her up.

We had plans, basic, simple plans. Nothing elaborate, nothing special. But barely an hour into the day, there had hardly been time for my meds to even kick in, I felt like I’d burnt through my chill pills. The child is loud and obnoxious, she is in my personal space. Which, yes I understand, shes excited about presents, but it dosent stop there. We get demands to stay here overnight (she spends the weekends with her father), when she has been with us 24/7 since Sunday night. And, as I’ve already said, shes hard work. I‘m already pretty done with her, its constant unless she is attached to a screen and the temptation to just let her sit and watch YouTube all day is strong, but she has a limit.

I slept most of my birthday this year. I dont remember my birthday last year. I hate my birthday. It’s hard work, its pressure, its overwhelming. I just… I just can‘t, and maybe that makes me a bad stand in parent or sister or whatever the hell I am. Maybe it makes me a survivor. Maybe it‘s my mental health, maybe it’s my neurodivergency.

Is it the lack of routine? The change in routine? The unpredictability? Or is that these things are just affecting my young charge? And her emotions make mine more…. She has been a total B over cake it seems this year. She wants cake, but because of her being a total B no one could stand to take her out to eat and get the cake. And yet the behaviours continue.

I mean, I have heard the comparision between parenting and ships, some people run a very tight ship, with everything running smoothly, everything has a place, everything is in its place etc etc. We on the other hand, we run a pirate ship, there is swearing (the small one will only refer to the laundry basket as “the shitty basket”, yes this is a Friday night dinner reference, and will not use it unless it is referred to as such), there is mutiny from the crew (someone is always at odds with someone else for some reason or other, whether both parties know it or not) and drinking (Responsibly-ish, I mean, there is always an adult sober and able to look after the dependant if they are around). Nothing has a place, nothing is in its not a place, and things turn up in the weirdest of places (I once found a TV remote in the fridge! and that is just the tip of the iceberg.) Don’t get me wrong, the little monster is happy, healthy, well fed, clean and clothed, educated and doing fantastic in school, no one has any concerns about her, we are just slightly chaotic! Ok maybe more than slightly, and some people can thrive on that, we seem to be the neurodivergent‘s who thrive with an amount of chaos.

But at what point does it become too much chaos? Where do we draw the line and how can we see the line coming up in the road and not in the rear view mirror? I‘m still working on this bit. I hope I’ve figured it out for the little one before the excitement of birthdays wears off and the overwhelm sets in. Because sitting here, writing this, hoping that a 10-15k cycle and some weights in the gym helps me sort this mess in my head out, that I dont have to resort to more… unacceptable methods. This feeling sucks, Strung out and empty. Sick and numb all at once. Fighting disassociation to get through the next hour or so.