This one is for all of my fellow emotion repressors. *deep breath* Okay, so I want to take a moment to say thank you to all of you who are not like that for talking about your feelings on this here app—especially when they are not such good feelings.

This time last year I was crying every day while my kids were at school and my husband was at work. Then they would come home and I’d do the bare minimum before taking a bath for the quiet or just going to bed early.

It hadn’t started out that way. No. In the beginning it was just being tired. Then I got really cranky. Then it got to the point where I was taking the long way home from the grocery store because I knew that would give me extra time to cry in the car.

I was so damn mad at myself because there was nothing bad about my life. I mean yes, I have three kids and a husband who occasionally do annoying things (like not do everything my way) but I had a great life (and still do). Plus my career was the absolute best it had ever been.

But I couldn’t stop crying and wanting to just lay still in a quiet room. Me. The normally super hyper annoying extrovert wanted nothing more than to be left the fuck alone. By the way, did I mention how much fun it is to write RomComs while bawling every five minutes?

Something was definitely off but I couldn’t bring myself to admit that to anyone (obviously but my powers of denial and suck it up buttercup are fierce). I didn’t tell my best friends the extent of it. I didn’t tell my husband anything. But I had Twitter and many of you helped.

Those of you who are open about depression or hormonal changes that lead to depression or just the number of spoons you had, got me to realize and accept that I needed to ask for help—my absolute most hated thing in the world to do.

So there I was in December 2019 staring at a bare Christmas tree as our only holiday decoration because I couldn’t bring myself to schedule family decorating night and I called and talked to a behavioral intake nurse with our insurance company.

It took until mid-January, but I got in to see a doctor and got meds. That was a really fun conversation because remember admitting I need help and could possibly be vulnerable plus having to actually talk about feelings was just … yuck.

But I’m so glad that thanks to y’alls ability to share your own challenges, I did it anyway. To say this December is different than last year is an understatement. I mean, yes the world is a trash fire in so many ways but now when I cry it’s usually because of a book or a movie.

Well thanks to a super speedy heart and a family history of keeling over at a young age, I’m stopping the meds. That’s scary. But I’m committing to asking for help when I need it and trying to be open about my own challenges in an attempt to pay forward all the help you gave me.

Thank you to so many of you on this site. There’s so many that I can’t name you all and honestly feel weird about dragging you into this thread. But if we’re friends & you’ve shared on here then I’m most definitely talking about you.

And if you’re feeling like I did last year, make the call for help if you can. If you’re not ready yet, I’m sending all the virtual hugs. I believe in you.