Let me take you back to when I was in high school and college.

I’m pacing back and forth. Nope, wait, lying down will be better. Except it isn’t. Why does it feel like a ton of bricks is sitting on my chest? What even started this? Why do I feel this way? Why can’t I breathe? Ok, I need to get up again. I can’t sit still.

That was the beginning: the first time anxiety showed up and made itself at home.

Here’s what nobody prepared me for.

There were mornings I would force myself to get out of bed, shower (if I had the energy), grab whatever clothes were closest, and make my way downstairs. Then came the real battle: walking out the door and facing school.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like school. It wasn’t that I didn’t have friends. It was that every interaction, every conversation, every glance, every laugh across the hallway truly sent me into a spiral of second-guessing.

Did I say something wrong? Why didn’t that boy like me? Why did my friend sound short when she said hi? They’re ignoring me because I don’t play sports. My teacher must be disappointed in me. I don’t feel good in my skin. I should be smaller. Better. Less.

That spiraling anxiety, the nausea, the hyper-awareness, it sticks to you. And when it sticks long enough, it grows. It festers like an open wound left untreated.

That’s how anxiety started for me. And soon after, depression showed up too. Lucky, lucky me!

“I’m not a psychic, but I can predict exactly how a scenario will go wrong in 47 different ways.” — Unknown

Here’s why I’m telling you this now.

Let me tell you, way back then (OMG typing that out really makes me sound like an old fogie, and writing “old fogie” really is the cherry on top, ya?), mental health wasn’t talked about the way it is today. And even now, it still needs work. Like a lot of work. We need to talk about our struggles and our wins. We need to talk about what breaks us and what puts us back together, and how sometimes that process takes a long time. And sometimes that process is actually ongoing.

Sometimes you get five pieces put back together… and then three crack again. And that’s okay.

This series is the story of how I learned to understand my own mental health, live with it, and eventually, stop letting it run the show.

Because if 16-year-old me knew that one day she’d grow up, build a family she adores (except when I am the only one emptying the dishwasher, like come on now, is it really that hard?!), start companies, create community and movements, and feel genuinely proud of herself? She wouldn’t have believed it.

But here we are. And I’m ready to talk about all the messy middle.

Come tell me about the moment you first realized something in you had shifted, whatever that looked like for you. That’s what the Social Club is for.