Being alone on holidays/birthdays

[lauraa517]

I thought I'd mention this since the fourth of July is coming up. Does anyone else find themselves being consistently alone on holidays or birthdays? I was alone for my birthday a few months ago, and now I'm going to be alone on the fourth. My mom keeps asking me if I have plans because she doesn't want to acknowledge that bright lights and loud noises are very unsettling to me.

If anyone else is like this, what do you do to distract yourself from feeling bad for yourself?

 

[theoutsider]

I never cared much about birthdays but some holidays were hard to spend alone. 4th of July didn't bother me but things like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Years used to (before I got married) because those are holidays that you are supposed to spend with your loved ones. When I was single, my married siblings always assumed I had so many acquaintences and girlfriends that I must have been invited to spend the holidays with someone special. In reality, most of the time I was home alone watching TV and having a pre-prepared meal from some store or restaurant.

Based on that experience, I never just assume my single friends have somebody to spend their holidays with. I always encourage others to check on their single friends as well.

 

[Kiwong]

I haven't spent my birthday with anyone for over twenty years.

 

[theoutsider]

Oh, and the way I started dealing with it was, I found one friend who was in a similar situation as myself. I would invite her over for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner. Sometimes we would make a whole day of it.

 

[R3K]

everyone in LA meet me in Compton at midnight and we'll blast off fireworks until dawnerfect:

 

[Pacific_Loner]

I personally love to be alone anyway, and hate attention, so being alone on my birthday sounds great. Your birthday shouldn't be a day to feel shameful, anxious and bad about yourself, so I usually use it to do whatever I really want to do, whether it being a hiking trip alone, or with a friend, or staying home all day watching movies. It's supposed to be your day afterall.

The only thing that makes me feel a bit annoyed is when people ask me what I did and then give me weird looks when I say I did this or that alone (mostly co-workers and people who doesn't know me much). So to avoid this little piece of awkwardness that I really don't need, I rarely hesitate to lie to these kind of people about it and add a friend or two to what I was actually doing alone.

 

[laure15]

Being alone doesn't bother me. I watch a program or most likely, spend time on my computer reading manga, listen to music, code, etc. Being forced to go to family gatherings on holidays scare me even more than being alone.

 

[Froggy246]

I have in the past felt a bit depressed being alone for holidays/birthdays, that was because of being influenced by other people like my Mum banging on about how sad and depressing it is to be alone at such times. But once I shook that suggestion off I couldn't think of anything better! There's usually lots of things to watch on the TV, I can get some nice food in and I would even cook myself a roast dinner! The best xmas I have ever had was when I went to Spain on my own! OMG it was amazing, went to the beach with my mp3 player on xmas day, came back to some nice xmas films and a pizza. They are the best times to be alone imo, they are good times to reflect and make some resolutions too.