Overexposed: “What Worked For You Then May Not Work For You Now.”

One thing they do not tell you about your 30s is that truly, the chemicals in your brain shift.

It may not be in a literal sense, but figuratively it feels like something switches on as soon as you hit 30. Everything looks different to you. Everything feels different to you. You’re left in a place where you don’t really know what to expect or how to adjust because the switch doesn’t give you the time to prepare. It just happens, and when it does, it’s crucial.

In 3 months, I will be 31 years old, which is shocking since it feels like I just turned 30 but at the same time lived so much life being 30. These last 9 months have changed me as a person. It changed how I thought, felt, and even how to regulate those said things.

And I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s been fucking scary.

Hi, my name is Liz, and I am learning that the survival tactics I created for myself no longer work for this version of who I am.

I grew up being an entirely different person than I was when I was younger. I had a fairly normal childhood; I never felt like I had to be older than my actual age or deal with the world in the way other kids may had to. I am the youngest in my family so that deemed me the “baby” of the house. We are deemed the spoiled ones; we got away doing a lot of the things our older siblings didn’t and rarely got blamed for any wrongdoing that we done.

But many of the times our concerns and worries were never addressed or concerned because we were the youngest; parents thought they had the formula of parenting down by the time they have their second or third kid. In many cases, it’s our younger siblings that keep their thoughts and feelings to themselves because they’ve accepted the fact that no one asks them how they were doing.

We involuntarily assign ourselves the role of being the strong one. The one that seems to always be put together socially, personally, and mentally. The one that succeeds in everything that they do without showing any signs of a struggle. The one that always has a smile on their face despite the situation. The one that everyone assumes is so independent, they don’t need to check-in on them.

I don’t know when I assigned myself this role. I think these roles are assigned to people without them even realizing it, to be honest. I didn’t know this was my role until much later in life, when it started to affect me in a way it never did before.

My role simply isn’t indefinite, and the power it holds does not serve me in the way it once did.

“Just because you‘re strong doesn’t mean you have to be strong all the time.” Those are words I’ve said to other strong people who are hurting and thinking it was that easy to shed the role I only know how to be. I understand why hearing that can be frustrating; how do you just unlearn the habits and beliefs you grew up with? How do you tell yourself to not be strong in this moment when that’s all you know what to be when you’re in survival mode?

As I’m writing this, I still don’t know the answer, nor think I’ll know it anytime soon.

I think with everything complicated in life, you learn the answer as you go (and grow) through the experience. I look back and think about the things I once feared of doing due to how much it took me out of my comfort zone. I’ve realized that I had to be uncomfortable in order to find what works for me and how to adjust myself in the future. There’s a lot I’ve done in the past couple of years that made me uncomfortable, but I am where I am because of it.

Half of the challenge is to completely unlearn the beliefs that ultimately shaped you into the person you are today as well. For me, I feel like a lot of things I’ve done and accomplished was because of believing I had to. I had to be nonchalant and pretend what I was going through wasn’t as bad as I was making it out to be. In a way, it positively shaped me into who I am today, but as I get older I am realizing that even with the work being done, it is okay to ask for help. Asking for help will not make you any less strong.

It’s okay to say that what worked for me back then may not work for me now.

Moving forward, I have to learn to live my life. I have to learn to be strong for myself the same way that I am strong to others. I have to learn to be gentle with myself the same way I am gentle to others. In a nutshell, I need to say and believe that the love I had for others can also be used for myself. I have to learn a lot about what it means to put myself first even in the situations where we’ve learned that loved ones and family should always take priority in your life. At the end of the day, they are people that have to look out for themselves as well.

I have to learn that it’s okay to let go of survival tactics that do not help me survive anymore, and that doesn’t mean you can’t handle it anymore. It simply means you’re able to survive without needing that tactic anymore.

And that alone makes you even a stronger person than before.