I remember the first time I was prescribed an antidepressant. I was a junior in high school and my days were riddled with confusion and sadness, mixed with punk-rock angst. Sounds typical for a teenager, right? What wasn’t typical was my inability to cope with life on a regular basis, so I missed quite a bit of school. I would start most days feeling dread or worry. Sometimes I felt empty, like I was a shell of a person wondering from scene to scene. It was almost like I was too tired from feeling the feels, my brain and my heart would just opt out. On the plus side, I remember finding the empty days to feel less risky; emptiness was a relief when the alternative could be destructive.

I spent a lot of time observing other people… their traits, their reactions, the way they communicated. I realize this makes me sound like a serial killer in the making, but it’s no different than what humans do all the time now, just on their phones. Comparison, analyzation, intense emphasis on presentation and points for the ego. I wasn’t really interested in trends or culture. I was interested in how they could live every day without questioning themselves. I spent a lot of time wanting to know what exactly was wrong with me. Turns out, it’s hard to focus on school when you’re an insecure teenager grappling with existential questions left unanswered. There wasn’t a class that could teach a person how to be ok with not knowing the answers.

At the time, mom was becoming more dependent on me and my dad for daily needs and activities. She was no longer able to walk without a cane or a walker and she sported a purse full of pain medication everywhere she went. I remember the sound of pills jostling around the inside of plastic bottles when she walked. Mom aged quickly during those years. Most noticeably, her spirit and vitality took a downward turn. As a result, she was not overly concerned with me or my schoolwork. She became increasingly self-absorbed and wasn’t able to be present with me. I resented her for the lack of interest in me and often felt anger at her for throwing in the proverbial towel of parenthood. My dad was often out of town, and when he was home, he struggled with homelife and familial expectations.*

As I look back on this younger version of myself, it makes a lot of sense why I’d be feeling so heavy. I had so much on my mind and so little control over it. I felt the sadness in my home like an almost tangible presence. Like part of the family. She was quiet but persistent and longed to be recognized. I couldn’t help but become close to her as the years went on. Recognizing her in others became easy too. It’s a skill I’d carry with me into adulthood.

This would be about the time I learned to compartmentalize my home life with my social life, my family from myself. What I didn’t know then was there’s a word for that: individuating. It’s a natural course a human must take and should not feel ashamed of. I guess I missed that TEDtalk though. Instead, I would go out with my friends feeling immense guilt for leaving both my mom and my sadness at home without me.

In many ways, I did not have the knowledge to articulate what was happening at this time. But what I did have was intuition, a decent way with words, time, and music. I wrote poems and songs to help me understand my experiences. Complex feelings felt more manageable when I could see them on paper. Writing was involuntary. As if it were the only way I could keep breathing and living the life I’d been delt. I would learn later this wasn’t unique. So many people have a passion that keeps them sane, so to say. Sadly, many people have lost their passion and replaced it with something else, like alcohol, or sex, or facebook harassment, or serial relationships.** Of course, it’s a simplification to say these replaced a passion, but what I mean is, we didn’t enter the world wanting or needing those vices. We started off curious. We started off believing in ourselves and others. We started off by leaning into life — not away from it. Somewhere along the way, things got complicated and if you didn’t learn healthy ways to cope as a young person, it wouldn’t be long before the unhealthy ones became second nature.

Anyway – where am I? What’s happening? Ah yes, drugs. So I start my first antidepressant at sixteen. I can’t remember which one it was because I’ve tried many at this point. I took the first dose and my life instantly got better! The leaves were greener, and the sky was bluer! I’m kidding; it doesn’t work like that, silly. I was a teenager who could barely remember what class came next, let alone remember to take daily medication. So my healthy opportunity passed, yet I somehow made it through high school. Miracles really do happen.

Skipping ahead a few years of bad decisions, impulsivities, arrogance, expensive mistakes, and a growing distrust of humanity, I realized I better try some meds again because all the yoga in the world wasn’t going to help whatever issues my brain has. I was running out of excuses and started to believe I was inherently flawed. I booked an appointment with a psychiatrist who met me where I was at. Nope, joking again. But it should be that easy, right?

Our county has some pretty neat offerings. Easy and affordable access to mental health care? Not so much. I once booked an appointment, showed up ten minutes late due to car trouble, and they refused to see me. Another time, I had to pay a deposit of $100 to book an appointment three months out. This was money taken out of that month’s grocery budget. Then never got an appointment or a refund.

For those of you who don’t know what it’s like to not want to get out of bed, let alone, go tell a stranger about it, these were crippling disappointments. I felt truly discouraged. I gave up trying to find a psychiatrist. But I did see several therapists over the years. Fortunately, I had a counselor years back who was engaging, genuine and affordable. Unfortunately, counselors cannot prescribe medication. She did give me a bracelet once though, which was kinda an antidepressant if you think about it. I still have it today.

There would be more years of inconsistent drug use (could’ve worded that better). I’d start one, start to feel normal, then decide I would stop. I didn’t want to “depend” on a drug, especially growing up with a parent who relied heavily on them. I wasn’t ready to accept that they may be part of my life forever. I guess in my little brain, it was as if I thought depression and anxiety were a hat I could hang on a hook when I was done with it. That’s the thing with depression and poor mental health: you believe the lies you tell yourself. Throw in some religious attempts, failed career paths, overwhelming self-esteem issues, and you would have easily seen a woman searching for truth and solace.

It really is amazing how much time we can spend on shit that doesn’t matter at all. Thanks to the ole interwebs, you can learn about anything that piques your interest. You may not learn legitimate facts, but hey, you’re learnin’. This access to information at your fingertips can be distracting and detrimental to someone looking for depth and meaning. It is so difficult to have the self-discipline to turn inward when there are so many easy ways not to. Shallow and temporary fixes can start to feel normal if you’re not careful. Folks make lots of money when we give them our attention. In the words of Rob Bell, “Too much treble and not enough bass.”

Eventually, I would learn to stay on my meds and keep a consistent prescription coming from my OBGYN. Yep, the OB prescribed my SSRI. Do you think I would have had to get anti-depressants from my OBGYN if psychiatry were more accessible during those years? Likely not. But without my doctor’s willingness to help, I’m not sure where I would have ended up.

Let’s move on to a happier place: September of 2022. I begin a second antidepressant as a result of ‘heaviness’ making her comeback. She surely was not invited, and I was working hard to avoid her. But there she was again. I spent so much time crying in the bathroom that a corner of it is now called my “crying spot”. Adorably pathetic, right? During this season, I had a breakthrough and was able to resist the lies of my depression long enough to believe one sentence: I need help. I knew it was selfish not to get help. That would be too easy. I spent enough years thinking I was flawed and different and a failure. But my boys, how would they learn they can make it through the hard times if I couldn’t? How could I fully embrace my life if I was still holding on to the heaviness?

I couldn’t. I had to let her go. She robbed the world of the best parts of me for too long. So I told my partner I needed help. And took the next step. That’s all we really can do, right? Take the next step.

I can still feel her with me sometimes. She’s there with certain songs, certain times of the year. Sometimes I miss the way she made me feel and the way she helped me create, almost without effort. She is still part of me — maybe literally — as some neurological or chemical imbalance, hereditary gene, or something we won’t ever figure out. I’m come to terms with that. I may not be as creative as I was when I wasn’t on medication, but what I’ve lost in art, I’ve made up for tenfold by creating a better life for myself and my family.

I have learned to accept that medication won’t block out the heaviness forever or give me a permanent feeling of lightheartedness. It won’t heal old wounds or make intimacy easy. There’s no one-size-fits-all. What works for me today may not work next week. What I can say, is that medication has enabled me to be able to use my healthy and positive traits more easily. I have less murky water to wade through now to get to other side of a good choice. I’ve found that the path between who I am and who I want to be, feels a little less intimidating. I’d like to think I’m still me, just 2.0.

I was thinking about what I would say to teenager-Veronica, and it’s the same as what I would tell myself today, and what I’d like to tell you:

Life is hard right now, no doubt about it. You of all people know one cannot have joy without having felt the depth of sadness. Hold on to your hope for a better tomorrow. We can’t do it without you.

– V

*Disclaimer: I have a lot of wonderful memories with both my mom and dad. There are also sad memories. Picture decor reading, “Live, laugh, can’t wait to get out of this house”, for understanding.

** Sorry to those I hurt while learning to love myself.

Why do we call it “black Friday”? This is a question I asked myself this morning. I always thought it meant something ominous, like the Friday before something hopeful – like Easter. Turns out it has nothing to do with anything religious, not in a typical sense anyway. There are a few theories on the origin of the name, but undoubtedly today, we recognize it to mean shopping.

When I woke up yesterday, I checked my emails like I always do, and the first one had the heading “Black Friday EARLY DEALS!”. I thought it was sad. The morning of Thanksgiving, a retailer is trying to persuade me to shop. Can we not even wait until the day of the event? Can we not allow one day in America to be about presence? To allow the space to appreciate what we have, instead of longing for something else? Of course, a business is a business and trying to make a profit isn’t something to be ashamed of. But where do we draw the line? When do we say enough is enough?

Retailers put deadlines on bargains to make us feel that an opportunity will pass by unless we act. But while we hunt for deals and pat ourselves on the back once we find one, the time we could have spent on family, on thoughtfulness, on friendship, on rest, on insight, on presence, is gone. That’s the real opportunity that passes us by. It’s insidious, the way this game works. We often don’t realize what we’ve lost until later in life. Until tragedy, or illness, or old age, or some other happening forces us to slow down. These opportunities are more direct than subtle. They force us to use our most precious resources on less trivial things.

But what about the space between these events? What about the everyday moments we encounter? The ones in which we elect to put our minds and our actions on autopilot, forgetting the sheer magnitude of the fact that we will never get it back? Today. Right now. Why have we turned it into a saying (YOLO) and use it to justify simplistic or even stupid behavior?

There’s a lot about my Christian upbringing that doesn’t sit well with me now. There is, however, times when the words I memorized come to mind – without any effort it seems. One of these verses from the Bible is this:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and exult in the surrender of my body, but have not love, I gain nothing. 1 Corinthians 13 1-3

I have thought of this verse many, many times during my life. Almost every time I see a friend or stranger doing or saying something kind, I think of this sort of Love. Not necessarily the love that says, “I will pray for you”. But the kind of love that takes action. The kind that makes a person present to nothing else but that moment. This kind of Love is bigger than religion or race or political identification. I hope you have experienced this kind of Love. But what does this have to do with Black Friday?

Sometimes when I find myself caught up in my phone, I feel a sense of guilt for my betrayal to the moment at hand. Because wherever I am at the time, I’m not really there. If you’ve ever tried to talk to someone while they are using their phone, you’ll know exactly what I mean. We can’t be in two places at once. I can’t be present with my life if I am somewhere else. It seems like a no-brainer, but I so often forget this. So often I feel like I have to be doing so many things at one time. I have a feeling you do too.

So here we are, one of the most profitable shopping days of the year in America. We could say we are being kind and thoughtful by buying gifts for loved ones, and that may be true. But what kind and thoughtful action are we not pursuing while we stay immersed in the game? If we gift because it’s the season and it’s what is expected, are we really showing love? While giving has a way of reminding us that life isn’t always about us, it can easily turn into obligatory generosity, or a clanging symbol, if you will. Attracts attention but lacks depth. It lacks the kind of effect that moves a person. And that is what Love does: it moves us.

While you are hunting the sales today, tomorrow, and throughout the season, remember what moves you. Look up and away from your screen. Chances are there are people and opportunities waiting to be seen, right in front of you. Ones that don’t involve a credit card.

In closing, I’d like to remind you that you are enough and that you have enough. You deserve to be Loved. You deserve to have joy. Thanks for being you, friend.

Happy and meaningful holidays and may the gift of life be evident to you,

– V.

There’s a quote I love by Mark Twain:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness.”

There are a few reasons why I love this quote. Firstly, if you know anything about Mark Twain (or Samuel Langhorne Clemons), you’ll know how beloved he is and how he shaped what we know today as American literature. This is a man who was unconventional — radical, even — during his time. He went through many troubles, yet inspired so many with his stories, poems, and individualism. He had a deep yearning for knowledge that lasted his entire life. To put it poetically, Mark Twain was punk-rock before punk-rock existed.

Secondly, I love this quote because it’s true. Travel provides insight and helps us grow as humans, if we’re willing. Being in a new place will force us out of our comfort zone. The experience of each person’s travel is as unique as they are. It is humbling being able to remember how small we all are on this giant planet.

Lastly, I love this quote because it’s short, so I can use it on the fly, and it makes me sound smart.

Now that I’ve established my credibility, let’s talk about something really exciting! Steam boilers. In the early 90s, my dad inspected steam boilers for a large insurance company. Founded in 1866, the company began back when steam boiler explosions happened once every four days. Wow. If you’re not able to define or imagine what a steam boiler is, no judgment. I spent years pretending I knew what my dad did for a living. What I can tell you is that a steam boiler is a pressurized vessel used to convert water to steam. That steam is then used for a variety of reasons. The level of pressure has varied and evolved over the years, and so have the safety measures, thankfully. The 1865 tragedy of the Sultana Steamboat inspired a group of men to come together with the goal of standardizing safety for all steam-powered vessels. This code, known as the ‘BPVC’ (Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code), made its official entrance in America, year 1915. While Alabama’s neighboring states, Mississippi and Louisiana, had already begun to welcome an inspector into their factories and mills, my dad faced much resistance when inspecting mills in our home-state. It wouldn’t be until 2004 that Alabama would become the 49th state to adopt the code. Sorry, can we read that again? The 49th state. You have my full permission to roll your eyes now.

If you’re still with me, reading about steamboats and boilers, props to you. There’s nothing sexier than learning about industrial safety measures over your first cup of coffee in the morning. Cheers!

Now let’s keep going.

When I was growing up, my dad traveled a lot for work. As I approached the double digits of my youth, I realized he’d seen some pretty cool places. He went all over the US and other countries, including Australia, Germany, and Columbia. My young mind had its first ah-ha moment sometime around nine years old: he wasn’t just ‘my dad’; he was a traveler with passport stamps and memories of places I knew very little about. So, after he would return home, I would ask him questions. I had to learn to initiate conversations since he wasn’t the type of person to talk just to hear himself talk. What was true then is still true today; sometimes, interesting stories are just below the surface of a person and a good question is all you need to break to ice.

There were times I’d listen to him answering my questions and I’d get the feeling it was the first time he’s spoken about whatever it was he was sharing with me. It was as if he was able to exhale a little, to free his mind of what he didn’t know was occupying it. Sometimes we are stuck in our routines that we don’t realize how interesting we are until someone else is interested. It’s hard to remember all the details of the stories he’s shared with me, but what I do remember, is that he wasn’t able to take a lot of time to explore the places he visited due to his workload. I felt sad knowing this. I couldn’t comprehend not having the chance to explore places you may never get to visit again.

In my dad’s early years, he was thin but muscular, built like a runner. When his official “dad-bod” made its entrance, he was in his late-40s and still expected to crawl inside of a boiler to ensure it met code. He would tell me stories about how he’d have to crawl into a tight space, barely able to maneuver, sometimes struggling to breathe. Mind you, my dad is 6’1″ and not into yoga, so I’d imagine this was pretty difficult, both mentally and physically.

The other part of the job was deskwork: managing accounts (businesses his company insured). In 1991, he started working out of an office he built with his dad, my Pawpaw. The entire thing was made from wood. It looked like something you’d find on a hike in the Smokeys. I was too young to see him and my dad building together but I imagine the two, working in the hot sun, only turning in whenever the sun finally set. I looked at the two as if they could build anything. Nothing was too much or too hard.

As a little girl during the summer, I would sprint out of our house, down to the backyard, to visit him while he worked. It always had a certain smell that hit you as soon as you climbed the steps to the front door. The kind of smell you can think about and remember instantly. Something like cypress, juniper, coffee, and electronics. There were large windows on either side of the door that illuminated the entire space. It was beautiful and cozy and often messy. His desk was usually cluttered with expensive pens, books, and Columbian cigar boxes. The shelves that lined the wall behind his desk were stocky, made out of unfinished and splintered wood, and crowded with books — mostly American history. Two old shot guns were propped in the corner by the window. He didn’t have to tell me not to bother them. I never touched them and never wanted to. This space was his and I loved sharing it with him.

Like myself, my dad grew up in the same small town in Alabama. He calls the TV remote the “tuner” and the refrigerator the “ice box”. He introduced me to good music when I was young, so I could make it through life properly: Eric Clapton, Doobie Brothers, Led Zeppelin, The Allman Brothers, and CCR. He appreciates expensive clothes and cheap beer. He’s supported every single one of my wild goals, encouraged and supported me in times of weakness, and defended me when I couldn’t defend myself. He’s an American history whiz, a former drummer, a Pawpaw, and lucky for me, my dad.

Sometimes a new city or country holds wisdom for you. Sometimes we need to get out of town and away from everything we know. Travel isn’t the only way to explore new territory though. If you’re like most of us and acknowledge the depth of people too little of the time, here’s a reminder to pause. The people you love — the people you think you already know inside and out — hold a wealth of experiences, perspectives and insight. The next time you assume there’s nothing new to learn about your loved ones or yourself, think again, my friend. Be curious, ask a question, and be willing to learn.

– V

I could write a book with all of the interesting observations I have from growing up in a small conservative town. It’s impossible to lump it all into one post. So here’s the start of a multi-part post. If you’re immediately bummed out reading that — I get it. You’re thinking this will be lengthy and drawn out, maybe even like you have an obligation to read all of it. Well friend, there’s no judgment here. Read some. Read none. We’re all busy people here. You think you’ve got it bad? Try having the self-discipline to sit down and write this thing!

Part I

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don’t like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”
Bill Shankly

Let’s say you’re interested in your home state and interesting facts about it, during the year you were born. If you Google (or bing or go go duck, or whatever it is you’re into) “Alabama 1990”, the first thing you’ll see is a post about Alabama Football. First, I laughed, when I saw this. Then I realized it was absolutely representative. If Google’s algorithm presents data based on popular searches, the results are a good indicator of the user’s intent. On the Google and in real-life Alabama, football comes first.

There’s two primary parties in our beautiful country and there’s two primary parties in Alabama football — us and everybody else.

If you’re like myself and find football to be a bit traumatic (the yelling, the anger, the inability of fans to cope with loss, etc), know you’re not alone. Nonetheless, it’s a vein that runs through the entire state. It’s kind of like that Uncle at every family gathering that is so loud and colorful, you can’t help but be uncomfortable, yet it wouldn’t be the same without him.

I learned at a very early age that football is to be taken seriously. That if the team had a bad game, that means we have a bad week. I learned football is a conversation piece in which two strangers can unite in their passion, or the opposite; it can quickly put a wedge between the two. I learned to respond to the question, “Who do you go for?” with a swift, “I go for whoever you go for.” Ultimately, I learned that people have a deep longing for the dynamic of “us and them”.

As a child, I didn’t witness my dad expressing a lot of emotion. But on Saturdays in the Fall, this was a whole different story. I remember feeling entertained by the shouting at the tv, yet also completely perplexed that he was acting as if he was in the game. Football in Alabama isn’t just a past time — it’s a lifestyle. And if you’re not sporting some kind of Alabama decal on your truck or SUV, are you really even a fan?

The irony here is that, as I grew older, I started judging others for their devotion to football. I thought their need for the game to be superficial and felt football was almost comparable to medieval jousting.

If I am honest, I felt superior by not having an interest in football. Was I more intelligent than my peers? Did anyone in my hometown ever stop to question why they embrace the game? Watching grown men, run around chasing a ball and risking a fatal injury? And we pay and glorify them? It was always just a bit too weird for me. And that’s saying something, because I was pretty weird myself.

By separating myself from those that loved football, (which, by the way, is like 98% of the people you’d meet growing up in Alabama), I was satisfying my own need for “us and them.”

Today, I see football fans as people who are more like me than not like me. They have a sense of belonging, they need something to hope for, they want to be entertained. So do I. Judgment is suspended… but is brought back lightening-fast if I meet someone with a football-related tattoo. Come on! Seriously?

Ok, I’ve harped on football as long as I can manage. I want to take a moment to bring in some levity. Here’s a list of expressions I heard on a regular basis while growing up, some a little more disturbing than others:

“They aint got sense God gave a billy goat.”

“Children are meant to be seen, not heard.”

“You want some cheese with that whine?

“You can’t fix stupid.”

“You’re cruisin’ for a bruisin’.”

“If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

“Your daddy wasn’t a glass-maker! Move!”

And lastly, my personal favorite:

“She can hear a gnat piss on cotton!”

I didn’t intend to write about football, pretty much ever. But I can’t think of a more fitting way to accurately sum up my earliest memories of what I learned was important to our state. I’m not saying I agree with it. I’m not saying I understand it. But sometimes all we can do, is to learn to roll with the tide.

I’ve only wavered 37 times since the first post. By that, I mean I’ve had thoughts like this:

Oh my gosh, what if my coworkers read this and think I’m some crazy person?! Well, that wouldn’t be far off. What if my boss reads this?! What then? What if someone I don’t even know reads this and ends up knowing more about me than people in my actual life?! Is this just another thing I start and don’t finish? Why did I do this again?!

It takes a real professional to make worrying look this easy. “Fake it until you make it!” That seems to have been the motto of my parent’s generation. A better one would be, “Pretend nothing terrible at all is happening” while the metaphorical house is burning down.

I’ve been learning to fake it for as long as I can remember. By age 10 I realized that the odd feeling I had around other people was, indeed, an effort to appear “normal.” Painfully shy at some points in my childhood, not socializing, giving me enough time to observe who I was around long enough so I could blend in. It didn’t take too long before I realized being my true weirdo self would come with a price.

Do you remember that feeling you had when you found out Santa wasn’t real? I am so so sincerely sorry if this is the first time you’ve heard this. I don’t want to be that person. But you needed to know. Ok, so the feeling is something like this: WHAT?! MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD HAS BEEN ONE BIG LIE?!! HOW COULD YOU, BETRAYERS! WHAT’S NEXT, MOM AND DAD?! SUNNY D ISN’T GOOD FOR ME?! YOU’RE IN THE SECRET SERVICE?* In one sharp moment, your entire holiday experience has been transformed into a day that seems fun, sure, but contains absolutely no magic anymore. Then we spend the rest of our adult lives trying to find ways to keep it magical for our kids. Because we know the rarity of this gift. We know that once they know, they can’t unknow. Try saying that five times fast.

K, so you have this feeling in your mind right now. This is how I felt when my own magic began to disappear. No, not like actual magic, I wasn’t a magician, I just speak in metaphors, come on. By age 11, my youthful brain, still with a premature frontal cortex, had somehow fully understood that who I was, wasn’t enough.

My sister, whom I love dearly, is fourteen years older than me. No worries, I’ll do the math for you. When I was 11, she was 25. Not sure if you’ve been either of those ages but if you have been, you know there’s some major life differences going on. She was a cool surfer girl who had this positive energy and seemed to get along with everyone (This is still true today!). I was an awkward sixth grader who was still climbing trees and playing outside as much as possible.

So here it is. The first time I remember feeling the magic go away. Sis and Mom are in the big bathroom putting on makeup and I am nearby watching them chat. Picture day is coming up at school. I hate picture day. Everyone does. Pretty sure that’s why the pictures cost so damn much. Because even the photographer hates it. The photographer says, “You can’t pay me enough to do what you’re asking. I’m sorry, how much did you say these idiots will pay for a halfway decent headshot?! Ok I’m in.”

Sis tells mom something about my eyebrows needing shaping and mentions parting my hair a different way. My mom agreed. There it was. My big Sis, who I looked up to so much and who knew everything about everything, was giving suggestions to my mom about my appearance. Well, it must be true if it’s coming from her, right? She’s right, I need to do something different. Have no idea why but ok, let’s do this.

I would have thought this irreversible moment would have been bigger, more explicit, maybe more dramatic and life-changing. But no, it was casual and hardly noticeable. Because we don’t just wake up one day and realize we’re not us anymore. It happens over time. A comment here, a suggestion there, a social media post or two here and there and everywhere. It happens by believing in our own words or someone else’s words about who we are.

Maybe it’s the anxiety or depression that makes a person ruminate over mistakes, over simple conversations, over everything, really. Maybe being a weirdo kid makes you hyper-aware as an adult. Whatever it is, it’s helped me realize the power of words and their ability to create and sustain magic, or to destroy it.

So here is a reminder, both to myself and to you as to why I am doing this, writing these words, telling you my stories. It’s because mental health starts with the words we tell ourselves and tell each other.

It’s because the truth is all I’m interested in believing anymore.

*My parents were never in the secret service. However, around that age, my mom did convince me she was in a witness protective program.

Hi, John Moe,

I’m Veronica. I heard you on NPR’s Unsung Hero and immediately had to google you on my drive home last week, because if I didn’t do it right then and risk my life searching the web for some stranger on a podcast while operating a moving vehicle, I may never have remembered to look you up once I got home. You’ve proven worth the risk.

I’ve almost finished The Hilarious World of Depression, and I have so many feelings and thoughts. The most logical thing seemed to be to send a complete stranger an email sharing them.

If Depression had its own “Me Too” movement, consider yourself a great contributor. I want to thank you. So… thank you for the following:

– Being vulnerable and transparent about your illness, your family, and your struggles and triumphs.

– Making me laugh so hard while also crying and trying to pretend I’m not on a long car ride home with my fiance and kids. (This trip sucked. I hope I either forget it or my brain becomes so foggy I remember it as a good time instead of a shit-show. Let’s just say the photographers at touristy places do NOT like being told, “No, we are NOT doing pictures. I don’t want to remember this.”)

– Reminding me I don’t have to pretend.

– Giving me the inspiration to THINK about writing again. I’ve paid for a blog domain for over a year now and still haven’t posted. It’s hard to want to write when you feel like no one wants to hear what you have to say. It’s a Saddie thang; I know you get it.

– Helping me see that I may need some more help. Again. 

– Stop reading now if this is giving you a big head. We’re all special, damnit! 

Now, I want to tell you how you made me angry and sad (it’s not you, it’s me?):

– I consider one of my highest achievements to be that I am now considered a Scholar on Podbean, running very close to being a Master. Do I hold a degree? No, but I am a scholar in their eyes (who are these people?) and that feels more than enough on no days of the week. So I was excited you had your own podcast! I went to check it out and what did I see?! That the last episode is from 2019! Immediately I assumed that this meant you had died because Depression. Ugh – I found someone I like and he’s dead. Go me. But nope! You’re not dead, at least not to my knowledge, but things may have changed in the last twenty minutes. I am happy to see you’ve got a project in the works.

Without going into too many details, depression runs deep in my family. So does suicide. What you are doing by continuing the conversation of mental illness is more important now than ever. So if you ever start to doubt it (doubt is depression’s sidekick), know I am here to remind you that your brain is clearly lying. I got you.

In gratitude,

Veronica Hopper

Surviving Saddie