30.

30 years of life.

Yeah, 30 is still young. But it certainly isn’t “that” young. Especially when I think of how I’ve gotten to exactly where I am right now.

Sitting in my living room with the love of my life. Watching the last preseason Pens game. Two “happy birthday” balloons and a Hogwarts balloon resting against the ceiling. Talking about how awesome it was having friends over last night, and how great it was that my parents and grandma came out to the house today.

We’ve had our fill of Mad Mex and cake, and we even went to a local vintage/antique market today.

Most importantly, Baby S is wiggling (I assume happily) around in my belly.

It’s a reminder of how far I’ve actually come.

Buckle up, folks. Here I go.

There have been long periods of time in which I wasn’t sure how I’d ever climb out of the darkness. I think it started when I was a kid (anxiety did, for certain), and manifested in various ways throughout my life. Personally, I’m not offended when someone jokingly says they are “OCD” about something. They mean no harm; they simply don’t realize the severity of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

When I was little, I became obsessed with time. If I couldn’t see a clock, all bets were off. I was off my rocker. It was horrible. I learned prayers for CCD and would practice them at night, just before bed. This led to years and years of me repeating specific prayers in a specific order multiple times in my head. Because, if I didn’t, I was afraid something bad would happen to my family.

I couldn’t look into a mirror in the middle of the night (though, truly, that could have been due to the whole Bloody Mary urban legend). Had to pull my shower towel over my head in a certain way, otherwise I had myself convinced that if I covered my face with it, my life would be entirely different when I lifted it back up. Yeah. Seriously.

There were plenty more rituals I got myself into, but the only one that has stuck is my need to count 4 steps before getting on an escalator. It’s silly, but it’s fine…and I just generally am afraid of escalators, so the counting actually helps.

But what’s interesting is the transition from childhood into adolescence. I will say, there is some subject matter that I won’t be getting too far into, but may be triggering for some. If you’re currently struggling with your mental health, it could potentially be a good idea to exit this particular post, and I will understand.

The rituals slowly faded, but there was a lot of self-hatred I dealt with day to day. Obesity and the cruelty of other girls, and my inability to understand that I’d been experiencing forms of anxiety for a very long time…I just felt too different? The “not good enough” feelings ruled my brain. Even though I was intelligent, and had friends, for some reason (anxiety/depression) I felt endlessly lost.

I was frustrated about feeling like I was being sucked into a black hole, because it didn’t make sense. Like I said, I had friends! I had a family that loved me and tried to speak positive words into my brain to make me feel better about my body. And yet, there it was. The brain monster. So…in time, throughout my teenage years, my strange-but-physically-harmless rituals were replaced. First, by self-harm. And later, by food restriction and over-exercising. Methods of punishment that somehow led to a strange satisfaction.

Self-harm is a taboo topic…and honestly, just typing that it was a piece of my life is enough for me. But it’s just like disordered eating. It’s all part of the same mental health battle, and should be talked about so much more. And although it disappeared for a long time, it reared its head from time to time again, most significantly when I had a poor reaction to Prozac in college.

It was yet another ritual I had begun, only to be replaced with controlling my food and trying to control my body. I developed a true fear of so many foods. The numbers that played in my mind cycled through over and over.

I would write and rewrite how many calories I was eating, over and over, all day long. After being so overweight for so long, I had it in my head that eating as little as I could get away with, and exercising every day, would solve all of the problems I had within myself.

I’m sure you know how that turned out.

I did drop a ton of weight. But at what expense? I was left constantly shaky, dizzy, feeling weak. Deflated, but pleased with other people praising my weight loss. But in the end, it still wasn’t enough and I still saw myself as being just as large as I had always been, regardless of the size of my clothes.

College was a cycle of anxiety and depression, ping-ponging back and forth. Considering the friendships I made in those years and have actually sustained, I always feel so blessed and so very lucky.

My bad habits transitioned into simply….not sleeping. Isolating myself from people. Freaking out (like, breaking down) over every big paper, only to finally sit myself down and start writing (which I actually loved). Didn’t go to parties (well, there were a select few, and I always left early on). Never engaged quite as much as I should have. I got very sick my freshman year as a result of anxiety and insomnia…because wow, stress really does do some damage to the body. It’s impressive what can happen when mental health takes a tumble.

By my senior year of college, the looming student loan debt took over my brain. I had a full class schedule, worked 20-30 hours a week at a local JCPenney, had an internship, and was trying to do some extra things here and there at the request of my advisor. And I just hit a wall.

The truth is that, from 2011 until 2013, I probably struggled the most mentally. So much uncertainty, which is so common in that transition out of college into the world of “ok, what next?” I’ve always seen all the beauty in the world, but somehow the Dementors just wouldn’t let me go, and it felt like I was sinking.

But the other truth is that I had friends. And a family. And a lot of love. The truth is that I had always felt too much, but there were people around to let me know that it didn’t make me strange or “too much.”

The truth is that without that brain monster, I never would have figured out how cathartic fitness could be. Never would have looked into how food could actually power the mind, rather than just make someone thin or fat. The truth is that there were times when I had frightening & intrusive thoughts and wasn’t sure where my future was going, but had all the hope in the world for those around me…who in turn, had a lot of hope for me.

Somehow, the work I started putting in paid off. Somehow, Zach and I ended up together in 2013. Somehow, that brain monster became a part of my story instead of the main character.

All I know is that, somehow, I’ve had infinite experiences with friends that I will never forget, and know there are more of those in the future.

It took a long time to get to the point where the future excites me, rather than terrifying me. Maybe I needed to participate in my own life, and embrace the friendships I had. Maybe I needed to scare myself into being ALIVE.

In the last 6 years, since beginning to emerge from years and years of turmoil I put myself through in my own head, I’ve had a few jobs. Learned what I like and don’t like. I’ve gotten stronger in understanding what I deserve. Got married. Travelled outside the country TWICE! Attended the weddings of some really awesome friends, who are more like family. Learned that great things can happen if you just decide to take action and let yourself believe that you deserve to have success.

What I’m saying is….for the better part of 30 years, I held myself back in a lot of ways. Sometimes I feel so old, but I know that everything happens in our own time, and that youth is really in the mind. And even though my nights are dedicated more to sleep and snuggles and watching movies in the living room rather than partying it up, I feel more youthful in a lot of ways than I ever have before, because I know that there is so much adventure and love ahead of me.

And, sitting here on the couch now, balloons in my peripheral vision…I realize my very existence is creating another life. There’s a changing table and a dresser in the newly painted nursery. Zach finally got to feel Baby S dancing around (vigorously) before we fell asleep last night. We’re looking forward to a quiet night at home, but there are beautiful signs of life all around.

So this is where 30 begins. It truly feels like the beginning of my own life. The last 6 years have been full of learning and growing and understanding…and so will the rest of my years on the earth. But, at this moment, it feels like I’m ready to continue through this life, fully myself.

Love & light to all.

-Brittni