About Me — Brian Curtin
“The lowest points in life make space for the most personal growth to take place.”
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Where do I start?
How about the very beginning! What could possibly go wrong?
I was born at 2:10 am on Wednesday, the 3rd of February, to two loving Irish parents.
There was something wrong with this seemingly picture-perfect birth though; I was early…
8 weeks early, to be precise.
As much of a surprise as my 8-week pre-term birth was for my parents though, I can assure you it came as even more of a shock for me! Taking me almost 18 months to fully recover…
When I was born I was so surprised I didn’t talk for a year and a half.
— Gracie Allen
Dad compounded the drama of my premature birth by blowing the engine of his car as he raced his way up the motorway to make my delivery in time.
Unfortunately for my family, the drama with “baby Brian” was only just beginning.
From what I’ve heard, the sequence of events surrounding my birth must have been a spectacle surely deserving of an opening credit sequence to a blockbuster Hollywood movie.
I’m told there were 2 paediatricians at the end of my mother’s bed waiting for me to be delivered on that fateful night, and that once I was born, they grabbed me and “literally ran down the hall” with me to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) without my mother even getting a chance to catch a glimpse of her newborn son.
My first few days were met with bouts of jaundice and Newborn Respiratory Distress Syndrome (NRDS).
Both are supposedly quite common in pre-term babies or “preemies”, with the latter arising simply because of insufficient time in the womb for my lungs to develop to be able to take in enough oxygen on their own.
As a result, they placed me on a ventilator to carry out the lion’s share of the breathing workload for me, and like almost all preemies, the glass incubator became my home for the next few weeks.
As soon became clear though, in the narrow timeframe each day that I was awake and not deeply asleep, my insatiable curiosity led me to explore every inch of that glass box with the enthusiasm of a mini (mini) Christopher Columbus setting off to find new land.
My little escapades up and down the incubator were short-lived, however, as they proved to be a cause of great concern to the staff in the NICU who feared I would burst a lung sooner rather than later.
The buzzkill doctors duly administered morphine to me soon after and that marked the end of my exploratory adventures of the “glass Americas”.
Another fun fact: I am believed to be the official holder of the title of ‘The World’s Youngest Mullet’.
No, really.
At one stage, I got so ill I had to be placed on four different I.V. antibiotics. These 4 different drips had to be changed often, otherwise, the veins would collapse and undergo potentially irreversible damage.
Well, I was on those antibiotics for so long that the medical staff ended up using every single viable vein in my arms and legs.
There was only one place left…
Not a bad mullet origin story, if I do say so myself.
A few other bumps along the road to recovery kept me in the NICU for longer than expected, but I did thankfully arrive home days before my initial due date, just shy of 8 weeks later.
I was fortunate to have had a brilliantly innocent, fun childhood with plenty of video games, team sports, and a strict, nutrient-dense diet of chocolate Rice-Krispy cakes.
My adolescence was marked by a similar trajectory, as I came to enjoy challenging myself in school with the increased responsibility and opportunity afforded by second-level education.
It was my early years of venturing into adulthood, however, that bring me to the reason I am writing here on Medium today.
Whilst significant challenges to my physical health marked my first few days of infancy, I met my first few years of adulthood with an equally challenging period of struggle, this time with my mental health.
Between the ages of 18–20, I suffered from social anxiety, chronic overthinking, and crippling low self-esteem.
The sort of combo that makes an everyday activity like going shopping infinitely terrifying.
As strange as it may sound, though, I am deeply grateful for this period of great inner struggle and would not wish for its absence.
As my subtitle suggests, I know deep down that present-day Brian is a much stronger, resilient, and more self-aware person not despite but because of those dark days.
To describe precisely why I’m here writing on Medium then, I will quote my current favourite Youtuber, Andrew Kirby, as he explains how one can use the internet to add value to others' lives whilst simultaneously creating a supplementary stream of income. (Hey, a man’s gotta eat — those Rice Krispy cakes don’t grow on trees you know!)
What is the most painful problem that you have solved? The niche that you choose is a niche of people similar to you; because the most painful problem that you’ve solved, chances are there are loads of other people with that same problem. And if you know how to solve it for yourself, chances are you could probably solve it for them too.
— Andrew Kirby
Now, I am not for one second here proclaiming that I have completely “solved” my mental health struggles.
It would be ignorant and naïve of me at the tender age of 22 to believe I have figured out every one of life’s problems and completely removed suffering from my life; especially given the inevitable pain and adversity we all go through, marks the very human experience we all share.
There is one thing I am certain of, however, and that is that throughout those 3 years I fervently searched for tools and techniques to reduce the level of power these inner demons held over me, adamantly refusing to allow myself to accept this state of suffering as my day-to-day existence.
This led me to devour a quantity of psychology and self-help content proportionate to the level of enthusiasm and curiosity that only a guy who had to be dosed with morphine as a baby to settle down could conjure up.
This involved me consuming hours upon hours of YouTube videos by perceived experts in their fields, listening to countless podcast episodes, and reading upwards of 50 books on the topic throughout that period.
Unsurprisingly, however, the most profound self-growth I undertook throughout those years did not arise from reading or listening to the words of others, but my own.
This was through the practice of freewriting, a writing technique in which one essentially word-vomits all of their racing thoughts down on paper without time for editing or adjusting.
Through the distance afforded to me by pen and paper, I could put tangible distance between myself and my racing thoughts by being able to visually observe these previously subconscious worries and fears written down on paper in front of me.
This degree of separation proved crucial in enabling me to observe the overtly negative, self-condemning, and often just plain wrong nature of these thoughts that were polluting the rapidly flowing river that was my relentless thought-stream.
In other words, this grossly underrated self-help practice provided a portal of sorts between my subconscious, fear-fuelled thought-stream, and my rational mind.
For it was only by first gaining an awareness of these irrational thoughts that I could then challenge these inner gremlins with logic, rather than accepting them to be automatically true in my subconscious mind.
With time (and tens of journals), I wrestled with these irrational beliefs, gradually tearing down my self-imposed castle of fear built upon inferiority complexes and social anxiety, brick by brick, journal entry by journal entry.
Writing is therapy. Writing is how you think. Writing lets you see your thoughts so you can challenge them.
— Tim Denning
And so, I’m here on Medium to write about social skills, meditation, and psychology-backed self-development; the tools I’ve found to be immensely helpful in overcoming my own struggles with social anxiety, chronic overthinking, and low self-confidence, respectively.
As my Bio reveals, I’m a massive foodie; but not the pedantic kind that is keen to point out that an avocado is a fruit and not a vegetable, but the more probing, philosophical kind of foodie that questions, if this delicious superfood is indeed a fruit, then why isn’t it ever listed as an option for starter, main and dessert!?
As my Bio also points out, I’m a self-proclaimed “Neuroscience & Psychology Nerd” currently in my third year of a BSc in Medical and Health Sciences, with a particular emphasis on neuroscience, at University College Cork.
Given the nature of my degree, I also plan to write about discoveries in neuroscience and some other miscellaneous areas of health science that interest me, with a bit of wit and humour thrown in for good measure.
Nothing would please me more than, with time and practice, becoming more effective at communicating and translating some of these fascinating scientific findings into more simple and universal language so that the “layperson” who has not received formal scientific training may benefit from them.
I am eager to get started in fleshing out even more of my observations, ideas, and stories, hoping they may engage the reader sufficiently to provoke them to think about how they can apply them to solve problems in their own lives.
Whether my writing will gain any amount of popularity or traction in the next few months or years is not of any great significance to me.
Honestly, I mean it.
I’m in it for the long haul; I’m committed and determined to become a writer, irrespective of the short-term results of my first few years of online writing.
How? By getting up early to write every morning before my college lectures and publishing two articles each week at the very minimum.
The process of compound growth is my primary focus, cultivating the habit to write and share publicly, learning and exploring along the way.
Continue to write poorly, in public, until you can write better. Do it every day. Every single day. If you know you have to write something every single day, even a paragraph, you will improve your writing. If you’re concerned with quality, of course, then not writing is the problem, because zero is perfect and without defects. Shipping nothing is safe.
— Seth Godin
To those who made it this far, as I near the end of my very first “shipment” here on Medium, thank you sincerely for giving me 9 minutes of your precious time on Earth that you’ll now never get back.
Was it worth it? Actually, don’t answer that…
To those who didn’t make it, I won’t take it personally. Rather, I can take pride in knowing that you obviously must have been so deeply moved by my initial few paragraphs that you felt compelled to uphold my introductory theme of “early exits”.
For anyone interested in the topics I plan on writing about, I would be very much grateful if you would care to follow me on this new journey I plan on venturing on here on Medium — I promise it’ll take a lot more than 10mg of morphine to stop me this time!
