Poll: Your Most Traumatic Birthday

[Mike 03]

Question: If you ask ten people what their most difficult birthday and year to follow was, you will get many different answers. I am just curious which birthday, for you, was the most traumatic.

Please feel free to vote "other" and tell of your experience.

I'm asking because my birthday is tomorrow, and I've been reflecting on the passage of time and what it all means.

Or maybe the birthday/age itself has less significance than that it coincided with some major life event that happened to you around that time.

Thanks.

[LeftyMom]

1. My grandmother died on my 13th birthday.

It was not unexpected. Hell, it was something of a relief considering what she'd gone through. Still, we were close and that was hard.

[LeftyMom]

7. There's also the birthday I lit my hair on fire, and the birthday I spent in the ER for false labor.

I apparently suck at birthdays.

[surrealAmerican]

52. My grandmother died on my 18th birthday.

She, too, had been sick for a while before. My mother was out of town taking care of her.

[MrCoffee]

2. Turning 9

Had a party, invited my whole elementary school class, no one came.

Good times.

[flvegan]

8. Ugh. At that age, too. That SUCKS.

[redqueen]

9. Aw, that sucks. (nt)

[orleans]

31. are you fucking kidding? how did that happen? n/t

[helderheid]

45. That SUCKS.

[4_Legs_Good]

61. Beeeeeen there!

Yeah that's very true. I totally had one of those about the same time too. Luckily I still had a party and invited the many neighborhood kids who did come, but lack of any "friends" from school was a real downer.

David

[bigwillq]

3. All of mine have been pretty good.

:party:

[AlCzervik]

4. 29, i wasted too much of that year worrying about turning 30, i turn 30 and it wasn't

a big deal.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

49. I did the same thing..29 was awful by 30 I was over it.

9 was also a weird year for me. I no longer felt like a kid. My teacher that year had a lot to do with that.

[redqueen]

5. my 28th

that was the year i had my first daughter, and my STBX ruined it

[flvegan]

6. Your birthday is tomorrow, Nov 18?

[MorningGlow]

10. Other: 29

Lost a guy I thought was the love of my life (boy, was I wrong), was still living at home with my parents, and had a shit job working retail.

The good thing was my depression was motivating: Within two months I had gotten a full-time job and moved out to my first apartment. Took a while longer to get over the guy, but eventually did that too.

Happy birthday, BTW! :hi: :party:

[Gidney N Cloyd]

11. 35. I felt like half my life was over.

[mwdem]

12. Turning 50..my best friend gave me a surprise party.

Did not want.:cry:

[Mike 03]

13. Thank you for the responses.

I'm not ignoring them at all. I just don't want to interfere with what you are saying in any way.

This is very helpful.

Keep talking if you feel like it.

[JuniperLea]

14. My 21st...

I was pregnant so I couldn't go out and get drunk on my 21st!!!

To make up for it, I've always made it a point to take each of my kids out to a local public house on their 21st birthdays.

[mnhtnbb]

15. 40 was tough. I really felt middle-aged. I'm now 57 and I suspect

the next traumatic turn will be 65.

[yellowdogintexas]

16. my 18th birthday. My grandfather died about a month earlier, first one without him

his birthday was 2 days after mine and we always had a big family dinner for both birthdays.

Plus his sister, my aunt died ON my birthday but my parents didn't tell me until after my birthday/

I was away at school and they drove up to see me, brought me a cake and also brought my mom's stepmother, and of course my sisters. We went to church, out to dinner, and visited all afternoon then they went back home.

That was a sad year, Christmas sucked too.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

25. I'm sorry

:hug:

That must have been very sad for you. I remember the first birthday after losing all of my grandparents respectively as well

[Oeditpus Rex]

17. The initial one

I was nice and warm and all of a sudden there were all these bright lights and people wearing masks. :scared:



I haven't been the same since.

[helderheid]

47. !

:spray: :rofl:

[mwooldri]

18. 32. My wife forgot. nt

[whistler162]

19. In some ways November 4th 1979.

[DeposeTheBoyKing]

20. Getting laid off on my 18th birthday

I was expecting a homemade birthday cake (banana split cake), but instead got a call telling me not to come in. My dad angrily called the boss back and said, "That's a hell of a thing to do to a young lady on her 18th birthday!" Bless you, Dad!

[harmonicon]

21. I guess this one I have next week: 30

It's just that my life has gone to hell, and having that happen just at a time when I'm starting to feel "old" - not actually old, but at 30, I'm pretty sure that being like a kid is completely out of the question. If I fuck up things now and have to move back in with my parents, I'll be a serious weirdo, not just some strange perpetual student/failure.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

22. Probably the two birthdays I've spent without my mother

The first one was when she was overseas receiving treatment for her illness and the second one was this year which was the first one after she had passed away. At least last year she was able to call me and talk to me and wish me. My mother was always big on celebrating birthdays and would always find some way to make me feel special. It just will not be the same without her

The only other example I can think of was the birthday when I got food poisoning and was unable to celebrate

[mokawanis]

23. I did not like turning 50

I still climb mountains, ride my bike, play b-ball, etc but I can't do those things at the same level I did 10 or even 5 years ago. I'm adjusted to it, but at times it bothers me a little.

[baldguy]

24. Sucky birthdays have been the least of my life traumas.

[redqueen]

51. Hah... yeah, same here. (nt)

[SoxFan]

26. 30. I spent it alone

I was attending Field Artillery Officer Basic Course. My birthday fell on a Sunday early in the course, before anyone had a settled social life. So, I spent the day studying gunnery computations and watching ESPN.

[MassLiberal]

27. My father was dying on my 32nd birthday

I sat in his room in intensive care all that day -- he had had a heart attack and was on life support -- and prayed he wouldn't die on my birthday. My mother's friend brought me a bottle of Chanel No. 5 in the hospital so that I'd have something nice happen to me on my birthday. My father died three days later.

[Auggie]

28. 50. You start to identify (and regret) the missed opportunities in your life.

[PassingFair]

29. My 13th. I got a pencil case with $13.00 in it.

I sulked and acted like a jerk.

Later, my Mother took me aside and confided
to me how BROKE we were.

Then I felt like a total loser. I had been oblivious.

I still feel embarrassed about it, 36 years later.

[QMPMom]

30. Can't remember what number it was, but the

husband and kids forgot it. It was about 7 or so years ago. They also forgot it the next year, too.

I was devastated. It's gotten so I expect nothing so *anything* is a surprise.

Then there was this year's birthday. It was the first one without my Dad. He passed away in February and it was the first one where I didn't get to talk to him on my birthday and hear him tease me about my age. I hated my birthday this year.

[old mark]

32. 40.

Made a lot of big transitions in life that began that year.
30 was a big party.
50 was a joke - I had to work at a lousy job.
60 was great - spent a lot of money on myself celebrating surviving and retirement.

Every birthday since 58 has been wonderful - Had 2 heart attacks and a quad bypass that year.
This is all overtime for me, and I love every day of it.

mark

[Skittles]

37. you know how to live, old mark

:thumbsup:

[old mark]

41. I learned from hard experience, but I'm getting beter at it.

Sometimes I have to get hit over the head to get my attention, but eventuallyI get the idea.


mark

[Skittles]

64. sometimes that is the best way to learn

yes INDEED!!!

[auntAgonist]

42. I hope you have MANY more wonderful birthdays old Mark!!

"overtime" :applause: What a great way to look at things.


aA
kesha

[old mark]

59. Skittles and aA: thank you again - My other motivation is that

I worked a series of pretty bad jobs for the State of PA, just long enough to get a small pension and I want live very long to screww them out of every nickle I can.

mark

[MrSlayer]

33. I've yet to have one.

I'll turn 18 for the 22nd time in February.

[Lucian]

34. I had sort of a "quarter-life crisis" when I turned 25.

[Skittles]

35. my dad shot himself 3 days before my 27th birthday

and lived for 6 days

[Eurobabe]

36. Decade birthdays are always bad for me

30 I got a speeding ticket and my boyfriend said he didn't want to marry me (good in the end though!)

40 my oldest daughter went off to college and my thyroid stopped working. :mad: But I did rescue an adorable little ginger kitten who is the love of my life. (He's 8 now)



approaching 50, and year and a half to go, ugh....my birthday wish is to either go tornado chasing or do a tandem jump out of a plane. Or maybe jump out of a plane into a tornado. :rofl:

I have always found the big 10's to be the most reflective, the ones that take your breath away: good grief another DECADE, that went by too FAST!!! Wasn't I just 15?

[GalleryGod]

40. I have 22 jumps under my belt. (uncle sponsored,of course)

I guess I'd have to fly to Germany to do it,though!
:fistbump:

[BlueIris]

38. 22, 23 and 24 were completely awful b-days, and the years that followed them, wasteland.

It didn't start to get good until 25, suprisingly.

[jeff30997]

39. Turning 40.

And that same day I found my first gray hair too.

[motely36]

43. On my 13th birthday

my father gave me a box a condoms in front of all of my friends.

[helderheid]

44. Other - shuttle blew up on my 11th birthday

[dropkickpa]

46. most of mine growing up

I was ALWAYS sick on my birthday, either had pneumonia or was barfing, so most of my childhood memories of my birthday are either of not being able to breathe and being hella feverish, or of yaking all over the place. And my brithday is always right around turkey day (the 26th) so that holiday was usually ruined, too. 4th birthday, woke up to me yaking all over myself and my bedspread. 6th b-day? Hospital with pneumnonia. 7th birthday? Yak'ed all over the floor at the school t-day party. So on and so on. Continued until I was about 20 years old, so every year I am healthy and relatively upright on my birthday since, I'm pretty fucking thrilled.

[BarenakedLady]

48. It will be February 17, 2009

I don't wanna think about it.

x(

[Inchworm]

56. Gonna be like what, 29?

;)

:hug:

[BarenakedLady]

57. Forever...

x(

[Blue_Tires]

50. turning 26 on Sept. 11

and turning 30 wasn't that fun, either

[Deep13]

53. It was the one when my step-monster went apeshit...

...in one of his no-longer-drunken rampages.

Mid-teens, I think.

[surrealAmerican]

54. My 12th.

My mother started to ask me to plan my party. I had to think up some excuse, because there was nobody I could invite that year who would want to come.

[bikebloke]

55. Minus one.

Boy, my whole world changed that day.

[av8rdave]

58. 50. The birthday itself was great, but...

My very next FAA physical sucked! All of a sudden, I was wearing prescription glasses, and the FAA doc made me change the "hair color" block on my paperwork to "gray."

THAT really stung!

[4_Legs_Good]

60. The first one that wasn't "magic"

It's hard to explain, and I'm not even sure which one it was (though probably around 30 or maybe 19, I don't know), but it was the first one where I thought that it was just another day, and sure I'd have cake with some family or something, but it wasn't like it was some kind of special day set apart from the rest. Maybe a good metric is that the day is different such that you don't want it to end.

Now it's just a nice day to reflect a little, eat some cake, have fun with the family, open some presents, and, most of all take the day off.

But it's not "special" somehow anymore.

Christmas is still a "magical" day for me, that is just different from begining to end, even though it's stressful, and crazy and the kids drive me nuts, it's still a great day. But to be honest, I'm nervous that one year it won't be, and it will also lose the magic.

Bleh.

David

[dysfunctional press]

62. year zero.

i did NOT want to come out of that womb...it was nice and warm and safe and cozy...then all of a sudden the walls started shuddering and closing in on me, until i was pushed down the birth canal, squeezed thru a pelvis, and out into the cold harsh light of the cruel, cruel, world- where the negative re-inforcement started with my mother's ob-gyn committing assault-and-battery on my newborn personage. oh, the humiliation of it all...to this day, i STILL haven't gotten over it totally.

[Critters2]

63. My dad was laid off on my 11th birthday. First time I ever saw my mother drunk

was at my slumber party that night. THAT was traumatic!

[Blue Diadem]

65. My 37th. My sister was having serious health problems

She died almost 3 months later, one day after her 39th birthday, one month after having a 2nd respiratory arrest while hospitalized. She had Down Syndrome and there are so many unanswered questions not only regarding her death, but her treatment as a woman with Down Syndrome in a medical community that refused, until forced, to take her illness seriously.

Her physician asked for a meeting the day after her 2nd respiratory arrest as she lay in ICU, with only a partially functioning brain stem and his first words were begging my Mom and me "Please don't sue me". That was a WTF moment. That same evening, as my brother, Sil and I stood in ICU next to my sister's bed, we'd asked her nurse a question about medication. The nurse went to check and practically shrieked "OMG What happened to her records, they've been thinned". A hospital chaplain called my Mom weeks after my sister's death begging her not to sue the hospital and telling her he knew she was a good Christian and suing wasn't Christ like. Another WTF moment. There was no lawsuit, although I did go behind my Mom's back and had a lawyer check it out. He said he felt there were red flags that something happened just by what had been said to us but with what records he obtained, there was no proof of mistakes or wrong doing.

It wasn't only the death of my sister that affected me, it was the craziness of the entire really bizarre experience as well as the treatment of her as if she wasn't a person, that to this day, if I really think about it, puts me back into a state of mind numbing shock.

My Sister in law, whose birthday is 2 weeks after mine told me it feels like she lost that year of her life somewhere. I think it's a perfect description.

RIP Sue.