NOT sharing my birthday cake!

It was my birthday this week. I love my birthday! In fact I don't just have a birth-day, I have a birthday week! Or at least I try to, but my husband isn't too impressed with me milking it so much!

A while ago I was in a team meeting about a teenage client and we got on to the topic of her struggling to compromise. I realise that some level of compromise is important in life if we are going to get on with others, however there is a tricky edge here. This topic can become a bit too 'social skills' training for my liking where neurotypical norms can be pushed onto neurodivergent people. One of the professionals in the meeting suggested that staff work with the teenager on compromise by using birthday cake as an example. The professional said, "it's like when you have a birthday cake, you might want more for yourself but you cut it and share it equally with everyone there". I was gobsmacked...in my head I was thinking, really?! You all share your cake equally? Why do you do that? It's your birthday! I looked at all the people in the meeting nodding and my life long masking pattern kicked in and I started nodding too. But...I'll be honest with you all here...I do not share my birthday cake equally. I choose my own cake and order it from the most amazing cake maker (The Cat's Meow) in Ulverston. I probably eat at least a full quarter (ok, maybe a third, or a half) of the cake myself and I share the rest...it's my birthday!!

So since it's my birthday week, I just thought I'd share that story with you. Partly as I think it's funny. But also because I think it's so important that we can be unapologetically ourselves, do what feels good to us and not what society tells us we 'should' do, especially on our birthdays!

Hanna