There’s a difference between feeling depressed and being depressed. Feeling depressed is like bad weather — you wait it out, take a walk, maybe call a friend. Being depressed is like realizing the forecast forgot about you. You’ve lived in the fog for months, maybe years, pretending to see the sun so no one gets worried.

I am clinically depressed. I hate saying that. I don’t want the label. I don’t want the medical file. It makes me feel like I’m a cracked version of who I was supposed to be. And I can already see the disappointment in the air if my parents ever read these words. Because in their story, depression means failure.

Their failure to raise me right.

My failure to follow the “perfect” script. 

My failure to be grateful enough for the life they worked their asses off to give me.

But it’s not failure. It’s biology and trauma and hormones and life. 

It’s survival. It’s complicated. And still—I feel guilty about it. I protect them from the truth because hurting them would break me even more. So I put on the happy daughter costume and pray the zipper doesn’t split.

Clinical depression and LIFE

On social, my life looks solid. There’s the husband, the kids, the dog who thinks he’s a person, the indifferent cat, and that stupid beta fish that showed up after a birthday party because some mom thought handing out live responsibilities in crystal bowls was super cute (teaches responsibility or something). That mom, in my book, is a bitch.

I run a “typical” family. PTA meetings. School fundraisers. Sports. Taco Tuesdays and Pizza Fridays. Movie and game nights. 

I set the tone in this house. If I wake up light, the whole family floats. Dance parties for breakfast.

If I wake up heavy, the air shifts. Everyone walks around me carefully, like sadness might spill onto the floor and stain the kitchen rug.

And that’s another chapter not included in enough parenting books: Mom Becomes the Thermostat for Everyone’s Emotional Temperature.

There’s enormous pressure in knowing your mood can derail an entire day. It forces me to smile wider, laugh louder, perform better—while inside, I’m wishing for silence. Not always death. Just quiet. Just a break from being the center of everyone’s world.

That’s the thing about suicidal thoughts that some people misunderstand: It’s not always a plan (though many times a plan has already been quietly pre-filed). Sometimes it’s just a desire to step out of the role life set you up to live. To stop being.

To stop being the cheerleader.

The nurse. 

The organizer. 

The finder of things lost five fucking feet from their faces.

And then there’s the career I didn’t have. The dream of me.

Because the woman I swore I’d never become? She’s here, wearing my clothes, and smelling like expensive spa.

After all the money, the degrees, the expectations…She became just the mom.

The house manager.

The mental binder of all schedules.

The knower of everyone’s likes and dislikes.

And the worst part? She’s good at it. Like, obnoxiously good.

Because I am a great mom. I am the mom who remembers to pack healthy snacks and cracks jokes that teens actually appreciate. People trust me. They like me. They come to me for advice.

Would it be easier if I were terrible at this mom thing? Easier to understand the clinical depression? Clinical depression doesn’t care. It doesn’t care about your talent for motherhood or your charming personality or that you color-code the family calendar. It just shows up and sits beside you while you cut disposable facial towels in half to last longer.

Medication helps. Let me re-phrase that. Medication saves lives.

It doesn’t erase me—it lets me show up as the version of myself that isn’t drowning.

My parents don’t get that part either. They think pills mean giving up. A lifetime commitment. More money being thrown away. 

But for me, medication is the thing that keeps me here to set the tone at all.

So yes, I’m clinically depressed.

Yes, I’m still a great mom.

Yes, I’m still funny, loving, and occasionally glamorous.

And yes: I sometimes feel like I’m screaming inside the glass box from “You.”

But here I am.

Still setting the tone.

Still choosing to stay.

Still believing that I will see clearly and the rain will be gone soon, even if I am the one that drags it out of my way. 

Make out on the dance floor. Please. It’s fun. Like, really fun. That sweaty, glowing, spine-tingling kind of fun that makes you forget your name and remember you have a body.

I did it in Glasgow, in 1997. It was at Archaos, a nightclub the size of the Colesseum, only stickier (and quite possibly, louder). 

I was young, overconfident, and kissing a beautiful man I had recently met in class. But in all honesty, I didn’t know it was him (my classmate). The house music was the soundtrack to the blockbuster romcom I was starring in. 

I made out in Bali, too, at a place in Kuta called Paddy’s Pub, right next to the Sari Club. I remember bamboo walls, the sea breeze, and wild dogs loitering outside like the grifter cabbies who trolled every baggage claim in a 2,000-mile radius. I danced and kissed like nothing bad could ever happen to me in the exact spot where more than 200 people would be killed. In one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Indonesian history, a bomb had even torn through time, boring into my memory and staining it like a flood-damaged photo album with a strange tinge of survivor’s guilt over doing nothing but leaving, a month earlier. A moment of carefree (and careless) fun I had once felt lucky to have experienced, I now feel lucky to have survived. 

There was also Puerto Vallarta, slow dancing to Baby, I Love Your Way. And Mexico City, twice: at the posh bar with polished shoes and ice-cold cocktails, then at a sketchy rave “bar” that definitely violated several laws.

What I remember most isn’t the names or the music or even the kisses. It was the anonymity. The glorious invisibility that allowed me to be whoever I wanted for a night. The freedom to kiss like no one was watching. 

The feeling of being completely present in the moment – unconcerned about the past and oblivious to the future. 

The feeling of being alive.

To most of the men who met me on those dance floors and gave me a few hours of chemistry and escape: Thank you for the memories. 

But then there’s the memory I don’t love, and deeply wish I remembered less. 

Waking up naked next to a guy I sort of knew, sort of didn’t, with complicated ties to my past, which made it all worse. I didn’t feel attacked, exactly, but I didn’t feel okay either. So I did what some of us do when we don’t know how to process discomfort: I went back the next night and slept with him again. He thought I was coming back for more, and he couldn’t have been more wrong. I came back so I could rewrite the memory (or at least the end of it) on my terms. To feel like I had control.

I walked away feeling like a badass. Three hours later, in line for the morning-after pill, I felt like trash. Not because of the sex, but because of the voice in my head. The voice that sounded an awful lot like my mother’s. And society’s. And every cultural message that ever suggested that a woman who owns her pleasure is somehow dirty.

So now I’m a mom. And I ask myself: do I want my daughter to feel that way?

No.

And yet – no, and also – I want her to feel. I want her to dance and kiss and burn with aliveness. But I want her to know where her boundaries are. I want her to be brave enough to say yes, and strong enough to say no. I want her to recognize the difference between desire and pressure, between fun and manipulation, between being lit up and being used.

Because kissing on the dance floor is fucking awesome. It’s joy. It’s chemistry. It’s youth and freedom and the music too loud to hear your doubts.

But it doesn’t come with a manual. And too often, we leave girls to figure it out alone. We pretend we never made mistakes. We slut-shame the bold ones and leave the quiet ones to fend for themselves. We hand out vague warnings instead of real talk.

What if we changed that?

What if we told the truth? What if we said: Yes, I’ve done it. Some nights were amazing. Some nights wrecked me. But every single moment taught me something.

And what if we stopped judging each other? Stopped whispering “slut” and started asking, “Are you okay?” What if we made space for women to explore their joy without being punished for it?

So, will my daughter remember my words? What will my advice be? How will I phrase it? 

I’m still figuring it out. But I’m the kind of woman who remembers. Who won’t lie. Who will say: Don’t make out in public (unless it’s on a dance floor with good music, strong legs, and a sense of who you are).

And if you forget who you are for a second – because we all do – come talk to me. I’ve been there. I still carry it all. The good. The bad. The foggy. The fire. The freedom. And I thank God for it all because I would not change a thing. 

What have I become?

I was raised by upper-middle-class Mexican parents who said, “Be free, Chris.” They were liberal—in theory.

Go study. Travel the world. Learn English, learn Mandarin. Get a degree. Get two. Be bold, be brilliant.
But also:

Marry well.
Have kids.
Smile.
Make tortillas.

Don’t talk about sex. 
(Especially if the windows are open.)

My mom would be disappointed to know I occasionally buy tortillas and canned beans.

(And honestly, she should be.)

But, following my mother’s advice, I did learn how to clean properly—so I could show someone else how to clean for me when I had my own home.

Then I met American feminism—all shiny looking with glossy magazines and TV commercials saying:
“You can do it all!”
Be a mother, a boss, a lover, a best friend, a CEO, a yogi, a goddess, a glowing moon witch who drinks eight glasses of water a day and thrives in beige loungewear.

Do it all.
Alone.
But don’t look tired or show any emotion. And never, ever drop the ball. 

Then came the French whisper—tucked somewhere between a worn copy of Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and my third existential breakdown:
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.”
Simone, my college girl crush, flicking cigarette ash at my guilt like, “Get over it, already.”

I wasn’t born to be a wife.
Or a mother.
Or a rebel.
Or a burnout case.

I became.
And I’m still becoming.

—

So what kind of woman am I today?

I’m the kind who refuses to pick one version.
I’m my mother’s dreams and fears in one breath.
I’m America’s “You got this, babe!” and its 3 a.m. doom scroll.
I’m French ennui paired with Mexican sarcasm and a side of to-do lists I keep losing.

The only job I take seriously is being a mother, which means forever living with fear.
Not for me.
For them.

I’m addicted to beginnings—ideas, projects, new versions of me.
I love the moment before things settle. Before something must be finished, or fixed, or defined.

I’m allergic to endings.
Endings mean choices stick.
And existentialism says: You choose, then you become. Ugh.

So maybe I’m just endlessly becoming.

A woman stitched from three cultures’ half-truths.
A woman rewriting the same essay because her answer keeps changing.

A woman locked in a cage built by family, church, and capitalism – the whole time jingling the key in her pocket that she’s afraid to use.

—

So, what have I become? Ask me again tomorrow.

I’m not done becoming yet.

May has knocked me like Hulk smashed Loki.

I had a flare-up of panic attacks and couldn’t drive for a few days. It was the kind of spiral where brushing your teeth feels like an achievement.

Here’s the kicker: I’ve been doing everything right. Eating real food. Taking my supplements. On HRT. Hydrating like a camel before a desert rave. Could I exercise more? Sure. But when have I not said that?

And still, I was taken down.

Because stress doesn’t care that you take magnesium glycinate.
Because life isn’t impressed by your smoothies.
Because the news is basically a massive cortisol spike with a heaping side of despair.

So we go hunting for the missing piece:
More protein? More breathwork? Should I start jogging? (Ha…very funny, Chris.)
Should I wear one of those magnetic, nervous system-calming rings that scream “I’m totally fine!”?

Then before you know it, you’re $200 poorer, your pantry looks like a health food boutique exploded, and the wellness industry is doing an adaptogenic victory dance.

And this is why I do what I do.

Not to sell you a cure-all powder that tastes like dirt and broken dreams.
Not to brand my own line of protein powders formulated to treat each specific symptom of menopause (Protein for Rage, Protein for Night Sweats, Protein for Hot Flashes).

I just want women—all women—to feel well and feel good. (There’s a difference!)

Yet people still ask: “What are you selling?”
And when I say, “I teach people how to avoid needing a cardiologist at 50,” they look at me confused, like I just told them I raise goats in my living room.

And when I hear: “People don’t really want to pay for that,” I want to scream, “Fark you!”

I don’t, of course. But oh, do I want to. Because I know that if they are not actively managing their wellness by now, they will end up paying insurance companies much more later, just because they never learned how to conscientiously eat, breathe, rest, and regulate.

This month, though, I’ve been quiet. Hiding. Recharging. Avoiding people who say, “Have you tried yoga?” like it’s a cure for corruption and climate collapse.

But here’s what I’ve learned, resting in the dark:

You can love your body and admit it’s not well. You can be body-positive and metabolically struggling. You can be doing your best and still feel like crap.

This is not failure. This is reality. This is the life of a woman.

The wellness industry wants to gaslight us to believe the solution is always one more supplement, one more detox, one more overpriced, super-cute tin of CBD mints. But what we really need is truth—and people who are brave enough to speak it.

So here I am.

I’m not selling a shake. I’m not trying to be an influencer. I’m just trying to help women stop living in constant pursuit of “better.”

If you, too, are ready to come out of your cave, let’s do it together—with truth, with food that nourishes, and just enough sarcasm to get us through it all.

Let’s do it differently, and find true health.

I have been re-watching all the top HBO shows of the early 2000s, and right now I’m deep into Big Love. I have to say, I am seeing this relationship in a completely different light now that I’m older and wiser. As someone pushing 50 with an exhausted husband, an exhausted me, and two kids running the show, I have to admit: The sister-wife setup doesn’t sound thaaat crazy anymore. But that's for another newsletter.

So let me set the stage. I am making dinner and working on this newsletter and listening to Big Love in the background. For those of you not familiar with the show, it follows the unconventional and complex lives of a modern-day polygamist family in Utah. Barb, Nicki, and Margene are sister wives—three women married to the same man—navigating the layered dynamics of marriage, motherhood, faith, and identity. 

"We are the women behind the woman..." This line is spoken by Nicki during a conversation about Margene’s rising professional success. The acknowledgment that behind every strong woman, there can be other strong women, choosing to support her even when it’s hard, made me stop. 

We’re Not always Raised to Support Other Women

You have heard this before if you watched Barbie. But it is true that from girlhood, we’re handed a script: Be perfect. Maybe not with those words, but its hidden meaning is clear. Be kind, but not too soft. Be smart, but not intimidating. Be pretty, but pretend it doesn’t matter. Be successful, but act like it’s effortless. Feel deeply, but don’t show it. Compete quietly, but win loudly.

And somehow in that tangled mess, we never quite learn how to be there for each other.

Sure, we support our friends. If we are lucky enough to have true, long-lasting, girl friendship, we cheer them on. We show up with flowers, send encouraging texts, share their businesses, praise their kids, their homes. But what about the other women?

The woman who is better than us.
The woman who has what we want.
The mom who seems more patient.
The CEO who’s younger.
The woman with the same education but more recognition.

Can we really support her? Stand behind her? Not hope she trips, just a little, so we can catch up?

The Science of Female Competition

Psychological and evolutionary studies show that women do, in fact, compete with each other—especially in environments where resources (like status, attention, or security) feel limited.

*One study found that women are more likely than men to engage in indirect aggression—things like social exclusion, gossip, or subtle undermining. Why? Because we’ve been taught to value cooperation and avoid open conflict. But we still compete—just more quietly. Other studies show that female competition increases when women perceive each other as rivals for limited roles: the only woman on the board, the only mom who “has it all,” the only one succeeding without apology.

We’ve been taught there’s only room for one. We fight for that spot, sometimes without even realizing it.

But we have not been taught that when women support other women to succeed, we are all lifted up. It’s not a cliché—it’s a strategy. One woman’s success doesn’t diminish another’s; it expands what’s possible for all of us.

Are We Missing a Piece?

Here’s what I wonder: What if the competition is just a symptom? What if it’s just what happens when women are raised to be everything, do everything, feel everything—but not ask for anything? Can we really do it all? Can we really be anything and everything?

What if we’re not jealous because we’re petty, but because we’re exhausted? Not because we’re shallow or vain, but because we’re constantly told that we can always be better—to do more, achieve endlessly—and we’re just plain worn out.
Because we’re still chasing a version of success that was never meant for us.
Because we’re measuring ourselves against each other instead of against our own values.

Because we are not taught how share power—just to seek it.

True Partnership Between Women

So how do we change it?
How do we become the women behind the woman—not just when it’s convenient, but when it’s hard? When it stings? When we feel small?

We start by telling the truth.
We admit the envy, the fear, the resentment—and then we choose differently.
We name our admiration out loud, even when it’s uncomfortable.
We create circles, not ladders.
We say, “She’s better than me at that—and I’m still whole.”
We build spaces where more than one woman can shine.

Before we even get to role models and representation, we have to acknowledge that this way of raising girls—rooted in perfectionism, comparison, and isolation—has to stop. If we ever want to reach positions of real power and be respected by men and each other, we need to raise girls who know how to stand beside one another, not just strive to stand out.

 I Didn’t Think Kamala Would Win

I’ll be honest. I didn’t think Kamala Harris would become president. Not because she wasn’t qualified. Not because she didn’t deserve it. But because I wasn’t sure enough women would stand behind her. I knew there were women who would cheer, but also women who would doubt her, judge her, diminish her, and distance themselves from her.

And maybe that’s the piece we still need to unlearn.

Because if we really want more women to lead, we need more women who follow—with intention, with grace, with fierce loyalty. We need more women behind the woman.

And not just our friends. Not just the women who remind us of ourselves.
But the ones who challenge us. The ones who trigger us.
The ones who make us better simply by being.

That’s where the healing is.
That’s where the power is.
That’s where we become we.

*Arizona State University (2011)