Every birthday makes me depressed

An example: Priya and the week before the thirty-ninth

Watch when the low starts, what the mind does the night before, and which part of the day is actually the worst. Then watch what happens after the date.

Priya is 38 and works in marketing. Her friends plan something every year and every year she finds a reason to keep it small. She can't say what she dreads. Nothing has gone wrong.

Six days before A friend asks about plans. Priya says she is thinking of a small dinner and feels a weight settle in her stomach. She tells herself it's nothing.

The night before She lies awake running a review: the flat she doesn't own, the relationship that ended two years ago, the novel she meant to have drafted by now. By two a.m. the list has a title in her head: where I should be.

The day Messages arrive from morning on. Eleven friends and her mother write. Her closest friend has not, and by noon Priya is checking her phone every few minutes. By evening, at a dinner she chose, she is smiling and wants to leave. At home she cries in the bathroom with the tap running.

Three days after Her friend calls, apologizing for a delayed flight and a dead phone. The weight is gone by the weekend. Priya is a little embarrassed and doesn't mention how bad it had been.

The low built in the days before, peaked on the night-before review and on one missing message, and had lifted within days of the date. The part that hurt most was the gap between the life she listed and the one she had pictured, and it eased when the date passed.

The review of the flat, the relationship and the novel fits self-discrepancy theory, which describes the sadness that comes from the distance between how a person sees themselves now and the self they hoped to be. The weight of one missing message fits rejection sensitivity, where silence reads as proof of not mattering. The research on ages ending in nine suggests that a coming decade may prompt this kind of life audit, which could explain why this birthday felt heavier than most. The fact that the low lifted within days points away from a constant mood and toward the date and what it carries.

A different story would point elsewhere. If Priya's mother had died in the same week of an earlier year, the low might be an anniversary reaction. If the dread had no link to the number or the messages and she had felt low most days for years, the birthday may only have made it visible, and the pages on persistent depression and on low mood describe that. If birthdays had been ignored or ruined in her childhood, being made a fuss of might feel strange for older reasons. One birthday can't settle which. Whether the low follows the date, the number, the messages or the calendar of a loss says more.

What the research shows

3 studies, each with what it doesn’t show

Nobody studies the birthday low as such. The studies below are about what approaching a new decade seems to do to people, and about how the distance between the actual and the hoped-for self connects to sadness.

Adults appear more likely to take stock of their lives near a new decade of age, though one reply to the original paper reported no sign of end-of-decade crises in panel data, and one of three replications did not repeat the effect. A long-standing theory ties the gap between the actual and the ideal self to dejection, which may be what a birthday review measures. No study here looked at a yearly birthday low directly.

Across six studies, people nearing the end of a decade of age were more likely to take stock of their lives

In 2014, Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield reported six studies showing that adults appear to search for existential meaning as they approach a new decade in age, at 29, 39, 49 and so on, or when they imagine entering a new epoch. They argued that this search leads to behaviors that suggest an ongoing or failed search for meaning, such as exercising more vigorously.

The proposal is that numbers ending in nine work as markers where people stop and review how their lives are going. The paper reports effects on a measure of meaning-seeking and on behaviors.

Doesn’t show Only the abstract was read here, so the sample sizes aren't given. The result is about ages ending in nine as a group and says nothing about a yearly birthday low. A 2015 letter in the same journal by Simon Kühne, Thorsten Schneider and David Richter was titled “Big changes before big birthdays? Panel data provide no evidence of end-of-decade crises.” Only its title and opening were read here, and it shows the finding is disputed. The study doesn't show that stock-taking is painful, only that it seems more likely.

Adam L. Alter and Hal E. Hershfield, People search for meaning when they approach a new decade in chronological age, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(48), 17066–17070, 2014.

A replication found support for a life review near a new decade, with one of three studies failing to repeat the original

In 2018, Jinhyung Kim, Rebecca Schlegel, Elizabeth Seto and Joshua Hicks tried to replicate the experimental study from Alter and Hershfield's paper. Study 1 compared the two conditions of the original, and Studies 2 and 3 used all three conditions, adding a birthday control.

Studies 1 and 3 repeated the main finding, and Study 2 did not. When the authors analyzed the meaning-seeking measure, they found two factors in it: life-reflection and perceived value of meaning. Across all three studies, people were more likely to review their lives as they began a new epoch, and there were no differences in how much they valued meaning. The authors discuss a reinterpretation of the original finding as a life review.

Doesn’t show Only the abstract was read here, so the sample sizes aren't given. The experiments asked people to think about a new decade and measured their answers on a questionnaire, so they show a shift in reflection and nothing about low mood. One of three studies did not repeat the effect.

Jinhyung Kim, Rebecca J. Schlegel, Elizabeth Seto and Joshua A. Hicks, Thinking about a new decade in life increases personal self-reflection: A replication and reinterpretation of Alter and Hershfield's (2014) findings, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 117(2), e27–e34, 2019 (online 2018).

A theory of how gaps between the actual self and the hoped-for self tie to dejection

In 1987, E. Tory Higgins proposed self-discrepancy theory. A self-state is one domain of the self (actual, ideal or ought) seen from one standpoint (own or a significant other's). A gap between the actual self and the ideal self, meaning the person's or another's hopes and wishes for them, signals the absence of positive outcomes, and the theory ties it to dejection-related emotions such as disappointment, dissatisfaction and sadness.

A gap between the actual self and the ought self, meaning duties and obligations, signals the presence of negative outcomes and ties to agitation-related emotions such as fear and restlessness. Higgins reported that correlational and experimental evidence supports the model.

Doesn’t show This is a theory paper that reviews evidence, and the abstract is all that was read here. It doesn't mention birthdays, and no birthday study is claimed. It connects gaps to sadness in general, so it can say what a review of the life against its hopes may feel like but can't say that this is what happens at any one person's birthday.

E. Tory Higgins, Self-discrepancy: A theory relating self and affect, Psychological Review, 94(3), 319–340, 1987.

Try it: the birthday calendar

A short exercise

Write a few lines about the last two or three birthdays. Keep the notes somewhere only you can open.

• When the low began, and when it lifted
• What I was comparing my life against the night before
• What happened around that date in other years, including losses or endings
• Which part of the day felt worst, and what had just happened

The first line may show whether the low follows the date or outlasts it. The second may show whether the review is about a gap between the life and its hopes. The third looks for a calendar link, which the anniversary reaction describes. The fourth may show whether it is the number, other people's attention or something missing from the day.

Questions people ask

Why do I get sad on my birthday?

Several patterns could explain it. A birthday asks for a review of the year and of the whole life, and the distance between the life and the one hoped for may bring sadness, which self-discrepancy theory describes. A date near a loss may bring an anniversary reaction. Missing messages may land hard where rejection feels sharp. And research by Adam Alter and Hal Hershfield suggested that ages ending in nine may prompt a life review, though that finding is disputed. The pattern the low follows over several years, whether it tracks the date, the number, the messages or the calendar, helps tell them apart.

What is birthday depression?

A popular name for feeling low around a birthday, not a diagnosis. It describes a pattern more than a condition. If the low lifts soon after the date, it may be about what the birthday carries. If low mood is there most days and the birthday only brings it into view, a doctor can say whether something more is going on.

Why do I dread my birthday every year?

Dread before a date may come from what the date stands for. In self-discrepancy theory, a review of life against hopes brings dejection, and a review against duties brings agitation and fear. Some people dread being the center of attention, and some dread what is missing. The page above sets out what each of these looks like.

Is it normal to feel depressed when you turn 30, 40 or 50?

Common enough to have been studied. Alter and Hershfield reported that adults seem more likely to search for meaning near the end of a decade of age, and a replication by Jinhyung Kim and colleagues repeated the main finding in two of three studies and found more life review across all three. A reply in PNAS reported no evidence of end-of-decade crises in panel data. Whether it feels like depression depends on how long it lasts and what else comes with it.

Why does my partner get moody every birthday?

The same patterns apply as for anyone: a review of the year, a gap between hopes and life, a date near a loss, or a difficult history with birthdays. If the mood is heavy for weeks or runs through the whole year, a doctor can look at it.