Growing Up Uncelebrated: The Chronic Effects of Self-Erasure
I grew up the way 1% of the world does:
uncelebrated.
A Life Without Celebration
I grew up in a world where celebrations were absent,
Where milestones passed quietly,
And birthdays felt like any other day.
To this day, I still can’t name the full weight of those wounds—
the shame runs too deep, the silence too long.
But days like today—birthdays, holidays, celebrations—
they crack something open.
Memories come rushing in like waves.
And sometimes, they knock me off my feet.
The Doctrine of Self-Erasure
When your identity is built on the belief that celebrating yourself is a sin—
a moral failure, an act of pride or selfishness—
it changes the way you see yourself.
You learn, early and often:
Being visible = dangerous.
Expressing joy = prideful.
Having needs = selfish.
Drawing attention = punishable.
Reflexes That Keep You Small
Eventually, it becomes a reflex:
Don’t take up space. Don’t draw attention. Don’t ask for more.
And the longer you live that way, the harder it is to recognize you're doing it—
because your entire sense of safety is built on staying small.
The chronic effects of self-erasure don’t always look like pain.
Sometimes, they look like silence. Or flatness. Or forgetting what day it is.
The Long-Term Effects of Being Uncelebrated
For me, they show up as:
A shaky sense of self
A deep discomfort with praise or attention
Shame around joy
Fear of visibility (craving connection but being afraid of being seen)
Ongoing self-surveillance, even though the “rules” are long gone
Learning to Want Again
So when I forget a birthday, or don’t realize something should be celebrated,
or when my own celebration falls flat—
it’s not that I don’t care.
It’s that I was programmed not to notice.
Not to want.
Not to ask.
Not to shine.
Even now, on days like this—on my own birthday—I still second-guess everything:
Am I being too selfish? Why do I want attention? Do I even deserve it?
Days like today leave me hollow and unsure.
And somewhere deep down, I still hope—
Maybe one day I’ll fully believe joy belongs to me, too.
-A
If this resonated, you might also like:
Why Me?: Gets at the heart of being the child who was left out.
The Crushing Kind of Loneliness: Ties into invisibility and the pain of being emotionally skipped over.
What if You’re Not Broken?: Reframes internalized shame as survivorship, not failure.
