Brutally Honest Check In

So ... hey there.

Remember me? I know, I know. It feels like it's been forever since I posted with any regularity. Or played on twitter. Or showed off a book on instagram. And I've spent the last several weeks - months, really - debating on sharing what's going on. But I've gotten a few questions and I know I've been seriously absent-minded lately, especially regarding blog tours so I feel like it's time to come clean. I'll try to keep this short and simple and to the point.

Right before Thanksgiving, I started feeling ... off. Not quite myself. I spent the last year as a running joke with friends and family that I could never stay still. I was the girl with 6 jobs - full time job at a doctor's office, part time job at Ulta, blogging, blog tours, planning 2 book conferences, and trying to see my family and friends in my free seconds.

The beginning of December, I ... lost it. Call it a nervous breakdown, call it a mental breakdown ... Whatever it was, I lost it. I was drowning and could not find my way out of it. So many circumstances, personal and professional manifested themselves into this perfect storm of anxiety. I spent weeks in a state of panic attack. To the point where my body didn't know how to not have one. 

I stopped eating. I lost 26 pounds in 3 weeks. All I would consume was half a bowl of dry cheerios and a gallons of water. I cried every hour of every day. My coworkers started asking me what was wrong, watched as I literally fell apart on day and sat with me, holding my hands through the worst of it. 

My parents and my sister never left my side because I was terrified of being alone. I was a girl who loved to be by herself and suddenly, the idea of being left by myself was enough to make me shut down. They asked if I needed to go to the hospital and check myself in for a few weeks (I didn't ... but I probably should have).

At the worst of it, I was alone in my office at work and spent two hours researching the easiest ways to kill myself. What ways were most effective. What ways would cause the least amount of stress on my family to deal with. I wrote that letter to my family, detailing that they were amazing and I loved them, but I was simply too tired to keep going.

Needless to say, I stopped reading. I stopped blogging. I stopped being on social media. I couldn't even fake being happy. I had never been able to understand how people could get so depressed and so anxious that getting out of bed became a Herculean feat. But that's exactly what it was. I forced myself to live minute by minute for months.

I only told a super small group of friends and family how bad it got. I was embarrassed and ashamed. I mean ... I'm known for being sunshine and sparkles and happy, and I was so afraid that if people saw this broken, damaged version of me, that they would want nothing to do with me. I mean, I wanted nothing to do with me.

To those people, and you know who you are, thank you. I'm not kidding when I say you literally saved my life.

I'm getting better. I am better. I feel closer to being a calmer version of the old me. Having friends and family rally around me and keep me in check (and in prayer) is the best medicine. I'm still struggling to keep my focus in the blogging world, and it's why so many times I have posts and blog tours falling through the cracks. I'm stepping back for a bit and taking it slow.

So ... what's the point of this? It's not for sympathy. It's not. Part of it is an apology to the people I've let down recently - bloggers and publishers I spaced on, never emailed back, or went radio silent on. And it's to tell everyone what I've been going through so they know I'm not a total flake (just a partial one), and to let anyone out there who reads this know one thing:

I get it. I've been there. My door (inbox or DM) is always open. You are not alone.