And so, knowing that I would remember a negative experience more than I'd remember.

A positive, I would really make it my mission to go okay.

But the positive experiences with that person were equal, I'm gonna choose to let that negative experience go.

Mm It's hard to put in towards honestly.

And it feels different at different times when my anxiety is high.

It feels like an absolute inability to make decisions.

Like I would rather not do something then decide what to do.

And it's almost paralyzing.

Which is odd because it seems like it's simple.

Do you want to go on a walk or sit on the couch and watch tv?

And I'm like, I can't figure that out.

I don't have the brain power.

It feels like decision fatigue and then depression is different.

My version of it feels very restricted, like, like if you're trying to put on like a latex glove that's way too small for your hand.

Also, it's sort of coincides with this feeling of not being excited about anything, which again, on a day when you feel great or even normal, you can get excited about things like you're like, I'm gonna have pizza today or I'm going to see a friend today or any, all of the fun things about life and when I'm having depression, it's like none of those things Are exciting or seem worth it.

So there's this real disconnect because I know logically that should be a feeling that induces some happiness.

But it's like my depression will not let me recognize those feelings at 40.

I don't believe anything should be taboo anymore.

Like I talked to my kids about sex and yes, they're very young, but they wanted to know how they got here and we talked about it and they were grossed out and left the room and that's fine.

But I think that anything that's taboo and hard to talk about should be some of the first priorities you should be talking about with the support systems in your life.

I wish that I had known as a person in the public eye to talk about it publicly at an earlier date.

I had been acting and you know, doing publicity for a while and I was at the stretch the last stretch of two movies of a press tour and I've done all these interviews and I was lying in bed about to do SAm jones, which is a long form interview.

Like it's like a 45 minutes to an hour, sit down so you better be prepared to talk right?

And I said to my husband, God I have nothing to talk about.

I feel exhausted.

Like I've said every story about my life and he said, why don't you talk about your struggle with anxiety and depression?

And it was a huge lightbulb.

I was like, have I never, I've never done that, I was experiencing the same thing that everyone else was, which is like, well just don't talk about that.

And then I just felt so inauthentic and irresponsible to have been presenting this like bubbly happy person which is someone that I cultivate and I nurture and I try really hard to exist as um and I just wasn't being honest with the people, like the girls who may look up to me and so I was like okay, I'm just going to talk about it and so I don't even think that Sam knew, but during that interview I was like actually, you know, for a period of my life and periods and often, and sometimes just on a random Wednesday I feel this way.

And then we started to get more in depth than I found myself really happy to be admitting all of it.

And the response I got from that interview was astounding to me, like so many people saying I've felt that way to thank you for saying it out loud, you gave me the courage to say it out loud, which I mean I did practically nothing other than do what I should do would just be honest and authentic.

And it really, it was a huge turning point in my life.

I just felt a huge sense of responsibility.

Um and so I kept talking about it and I talked about it a lot and here we are.

I started noticing a feeling of being disconnected when I was probably 18 or 19.

I moved out of Detroit and to new york when I was just turned 18, I was like two weeks into being 18 and I was so excited, it was all I wanted to do, I was going to N.

Y.

U.

I was studying musical theater, I was living in this beautiful like melting pot cultural city and seeing, you know, broadway shows each night and it was, it was wonderful.

And I just felt like if I wrote my life down on paper, I had so many opportunities, so much privilege, so much access to happiness.

And yet my feelings were not that as an 18 year old living on her own in new york city, I should be like, yes, like it should be so exciting, but it wasn't, I felt like I was sort of followed by this, we're dark cloud that just didn't allow me to see all the happiness around me.

And I was lucky that I felt in my bones that that wasn't how I hate to use the word should, but should be feeling or how I could be feeling I guess.

And I was lucky enough that my mom had sat me down and had a conversation with me and she said, hey, just a quick heads up.

Um I experienced these feelings.

Sometimes your grandmother experienced these feelings, sometimes she's a nurse and so she recognized that there could be hereditary component to a serotonin imbalance.

And she said if you start to feel any of these things, just know there are a variety of ways that you can reach out to people or try to fix it and you don't have to live like that.

It's such a hard thing to talk about.

Like I don't like that there's any sort of stigma to it.

But I I get it it's a weird thing to talk about because it's not an affliction that you can see.

It's like a hard thing to I guess diagnosed and also acknowledge and a lot of families or support systems or anyone in your life, they don't know how to talk about it, especially if they aren't themselves feeling it.

I think I had an upper hand because my mom had explained it to me in a very medical way early on and I was like oh okay sort of armed me with the information um about what could happen and maybe it never will.

But if it did there is access to help.

I knew that there were all of these ways like talking to a friend, finding a therapist, talking to a psychiatrist or a psychologist and just knowing that changed everything for me, even if you're not experiencing any mental health issues, I would hope that you would walk through life being open and ready to be a shoulder if someone needs you because the reality is we're not all born the same.

Some of us are born with a ton of confidence and then some are born really timid and I just feel like maybe this is just my maternal instincts talking but I just don't want anyone to feel like they don't have a support system.

So if we collectively as a society like self care, this whole idea should also include caring about each other.

You know, it has to obviously be on the person to identify the feeling and say I need help.

But then I think it has to be on the people around them that love them to say, okay, let me see if I can support you, you know, even if that's just checking in once in a while.