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For The First Time In Decades, I’m Excited About My Birthday

I don’t know why it is, but I’m happy about it!

Sarah McManus MSc
3 min readJun 27, 2022
Photo by Joyce Adams on Unsplash

It’s my birthday tomorrow, and for the first time in decades, I’m not depressed about it. It’s a weird feeling, but a really great one. I’m even quite excited!

I don’t remember when I first began to feel really down around my birthday. It usually begins about a week or two before the day of — the 28th of June — and lasts a little into July. The first time I really remember feeling it was in the lead-up to my 13th birthday. I was struggling with figuring out my sexuality, and I distinctly remember preparing for my birthday party and telling myself I just needed to get through the day without thinking about it. Looking back now and imagining tiny me thinking that is so sad, but I didn’t feel like a kid then.

My parents always made an effort for it. Throughout Primary school, I had the ‘invite the whole class’ type parties at those big play places, I didn’t have a lot of friends but everyone went to each other’s parties, and in early high school we’d put our huge tent out in the back garden and play games, dance, have lots of food. Later in high school, with way less friends, I’d have sleepovers with one or two friends and we’d watch movies all night. In my twenties, it became going out for meals with family and…

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Sarah McManus MSc
Sarah McManus MSc

Written by Sarah McManus MSc

Sarah is a UK-based writer with an MSc in Psychology. She writes about mental health & Neurodiversity. She is also the Owner and Editor of The Blade & Beyond.

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