October 15, 2025 • 39 mins
⚠️ Hey BA fam, before we jump in, just a heads-up: today we’ll be talking about depression and mental health. These topics matter and can hit close to home. What you’ll hear is real talk, but it’s not medical advice—we’re sharing stories and information, not diagnoses. If you or someone you care about needs support, please reach out. You can call or text 988anytime for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, or visit 988lifeline.org for free, confidential help. You’re never alone, and there’s always hope.
In this week’s episode, Mandi gets real about something she’s been holding close for a long time her battle with depression.
After years of pushing through and showing up for everyone else, Mandi opens up about what it’s like to live with high-functioning depression, the pressure to keep performing, and the exhaustion that comes from pretending to be okay. She talks about losing her rhythm after Tiffany left the show, dealing with career setbacks, and the toll motherhood and burnout have taken on her mind and body.
this isn’t a “how I fixed it” story, it’s an honest look at what it means to stop hiding, ask for help, and start healing in real time.
🧠 What We Talk About
- Living with high-functioning depression and burnout
- How motherhood, career changes, and loss reshaped her mental health journey
- Letting go of perfection and showing up without the mask
- Finding small ways to prioritize rest, healing, and self-compassion
📬 Connect
Follow us on IG: @brownambitionpodcast
Email: brownambitionpodcast@gmail.com
Follow Mandi: @mandimoney
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is what's behind the mask. I feel so deeply
exposed right now. You're really going to have to make
a choice, Brown Vision. You're gonna have to make a choice. Bafam.
Is this the host you want to support or is
it too much? I don't know, but I said I
was taking off the mask, so be it. Before we
get into this episode, I want to give you all
the trigger warning. This is a very heavy mental health
(00:23):
episode and I'm going to be talking about depression and
anxiety alight a lot. If you are suffering from depression,
you've got thoughts of harming yourself, and you need help,
you can call or text nine to eight eight. That's
the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. And with that being said,
let's get into today's episode. Abafam. It's your girl, Mandy
(00:53):
aka Mandy Money. This episode has been on my mind
for a while. I can't stop thinking about it. I've
been running through my mind what I wanted to say,
how I want to say it, why I want to
say it. But it's just become abundantly clear to me
(01:15):
that the best thing I can do for myself in
this season is to be brutally honest with the people
I care about the most. And it's about damn time
that I take off the mask and get a little
bit vulnerable. It's already starting. I think the scariest thing
(01:42):
about opening up to you all is that I don't
necessarily at all have an ending to the story to
make you feel better about it, to make myself feel
better about it. There's no and then I did this,
and I'm going to tell you how I've been waiting
for that. If I'm honest, I've been waiting for myself
(02:04):
to get right so that I can come to y'all
and tell you what's been going on after I've figured
it out, and after I, you know, fixed it. I
can't fix it. I can't fix it. I'm not fixed.
(02:24):
I'm I'm not healed. I'm not okay. I don't know
if I'll be okay anytime soon. And I've been so
hungry and like looking for other people, you know, who
show up in the way that I have too for work,
(02:45):
who are dealing with some similar challenges. And I'm looking
for it. I'm not finding it, and it's it feels
really lonely. Honestly, I don't know if it's bravery so
much as driving in this moment other than just sheer
exhaustion of pretending otherwise. I'm so tired of showing up
(03:07):
to this microphone and putting on the mask. I'm deeply depressed.
I've been deeply depressed most of my life. I suffer
from depression. There's been many periods of my life when
(03:30):
I've been very high functioning. Thank you, doctor Judith Joseph
for giving us that terminology. Very high functioning. Depression was
just another obstacle that I had to overcome on my
path to, you know, creating the life that I've always
dreamed for myself. And I wasn't gonna let it get
me down. And I wasn't gonna let the negativity, I
(03:52):
would say, or my lack of energy and my sadness.
I wasn't gonna let it get in my way. It
was almost I was fighting it, battling it, trying to
be stronger than it. And I succeeded. I was doing
great in a lot of ways. I've been doing great,
(04:15):
and I succeeded my way out of that pain and
that that challenge, that struggle for a long long time.
And what's different? What's different now? Mandy? Why are why
am I not able to just push through it and
(04:36):
ride the waves. A lot of things have happened. I'm
older now, I'm thirty eight years old. I have a
much more demanding life now that I've ever had before.
I'm a mom, I have two children. I'm a wife.
I'm still a daughter and a sister. I am a citizen.
(04:58):
I try to be a good neighbor. I'm the host
of Brown Ambition podcast. I've been running a career coaching
business for three four years now. There's a lot on
that list to be grateful for. So why am I struggling?
Why am I not able to do it? I know
all the things. I know how to do self care,
(05:19):
I know how to meditate, I've done all the therapy,
I've read the books. So what the hell? Why am
I still not getting any better and in fact getting worse.
Another big shift happened this year. Y'all know Tiffany left
the show My Beloved and I was so excited for
(05:47):
the new chapter of Brown Ambition and continue to be.
But showing up to the microphone by myself for the
past ten months has been so challenging. I miss Tiffany,
even if I was showing up feeling like even how
I'm feeling right now, I can always rely on our dynamic,
(06:10):
our chemistry, our friendship to make things feel lighter for
that hour and a half that we were recording. You know,
I've had some incredible Brown Table co host of course,
Chris and Yeat, Nelly. I haven't told anybody. I haven't told,
you know, anyone who's co hosted the show with me
(06:31):
what I'm going through. And what that means is that
I'm putting on a mask for them. And I had
a level of trust with tiffany where I could have
I could be completely honest with how I was feeling
and how I was showing up and at least I
could get that off my chest before we hit record,
and you know, we would do our thing, but I'd
(06:51):
always know that she knew what was really going on.
And it's been really lonely, I think recording the show
and people on the other side of the screen who
don't really know and don't really know me or what's
happening with me. Not everybody needs to know my business.
(07:11):
At the end of the day, I have a job
to do. I'm here to give them a platform, share
my platform with them, and help them amplify whatever it
is that they're working on, and then of course like
do a good show for y'all. But it can get
really exhausting to put on the mask and show up
as frequently as I have been. I've still been doing
(07:32):
two to three episodes per week without fail. I should
have started off by saying this, this is not me
leaving brown ambition. We built this brick by brick. I'm
not walking away from it. But I do want to
stop showing up with a mask on. And I hope
that that's good enough. I hope that I hope that
(07:52):
everything that we say is true, that we can hold
space for people who are going through depression at a
really tough time, and that we can be loving toward
them and not think less of them. I hope that
that's true. I don't know why, but I've been afraid
(08:13):
that if I showed up like this that it would
be rejected, especially at a time when there's so much
We're just all inundated with things to be sad about
and to be afraid of, and there's fear, and is
this really what we need right now? Is bandy woodrof
(08:34):
boohoo and on a podcast? I think depression is a liar.
I know depression is a liar. I know so many
of the things that I think can feel don't actually
have any basis in fact or reality, but the feelings
feel so real. If you've ever felt withdrawn and like
(08:58):
you want to withdraw from everything that everyone that you
love and hold dear because you feel toxic and you
want to protect them from yourself from that negativity. You
want to you want to dig a moat around yourself.
(09:19):
It's really about protecting the ones you love from having
to see you like that and to cause them any pain.
You're already in so much pain. The last thing you
want to do is to cause the people you love pain,
and so you withdraw. And I have been doing that.
I've been withdrawing from most people that I can, anyone
(09:47):
that I really can, anyone I can get away with it.
I have been tapping out. I have been Homer Simpson
disappearing into the hedge. I've been saying no, I've been
buying tickets to events and not going. I've been I
have been RSVP yes and then withdrawing at the last minute.
(10:07):
It's I don't want to show up anywhere where I
have to put on a mask. It's just too exhausting.
It truly is. And the only place, the only space
where I have felt like I could really be who
I am is in these four walls of my home.
And I haven't really figured out how to be in
(10:27):
the world depressed without the mask quite yet. I think
I'm so used to putting on that show and sparkling
and tap dancing and bake it everybody feel good to
be in my presence and cracking the jokes and all that,
that I feel so vulnerable and self conscious not being
(10:53):
that version of myself. What does it mean to be
the host of brown Ambition and to be deeply depressed?
What does it mean to be the host of brown
and vision and a coach to women who are striving
and working and deserve more in their careers? If I'm
(11:15):
also plagued by anxiety and doubts and am fighting this
dragon every day? Am I allowed to do those things?
Am I still allowed? Am I still welcome in the
spaces where I have shown up as my full self?
(11:36):
Will anyone want to work with me when they see this?
If they see it? Will anyone trust me? If they
know the truth that I'm not okay all the time.
I don't know. But what I do know is I'm
so goddamn tired of a mask. I don't want it anymore.
(12:04):
You can have it back, you can have it back,
taking it off. No, I'm not giving it to anybody else.
We're just gonna burn the mask. Let's just burn it together.
I mentioned that I've been depressed for most of my life,
and it's a really hard truth to hold, especially as
(12:30):
a mom. I worry because I know at such a
young age I was depressed, you know, by the age
of like seven or eight. I are my first memories
of being depressed, if that's only a few years older
than my oldest son. I was just a case where
(12:51):
in a really volatile home, the one who is quiet
seems to be doing well and needs to be quiet
and needs to be okay because so much else is
not okay. And so from a very young age I
learned how to put on that mask. I was okay.
(13:15):
I did really well in school, grades were popping GPA
on point, but I wasn't able to make friends and
maintained relationships, and I was very isolated and withdrawn into
myself as a child. Why am I sharing this. I
just I just wish that someone had seen me and
(13:40):
uh helped me at a much younger age. And I
just want to acknowledge that so many kids who are
doing well, they're playing sports. Okay, I didn't play any sports.
I was in the mertae band, but they're maybe they're
(14:02):
doing activities and they're doing well in school, and like,
there's there's signs, there are signs that it's a mask.
And for me, that was extreme irritability and just a
horrible attitude. Once I got home and could take the
(14:25):
mask off. I didn't realize it then, but I realize
it now that I was just as exhausted keeping the
mask on at school and in my activities, and when
I came home it felt like I could finally take
it off. But then it wasn't okay to do that
either at home, because you're so frustrated and you have
(14:46):
so much pent up emotion that it manifest as anchor
and bitterness. And I wasn't a delightful person to live
with in my teenage years at all. And you know,
I carried the same coping mechanisms into college. And I
(15:06):
remember it was maybe my senior year of college I
was so high functioning, and I was doing all the things.
I was an editor at the newspaper, I had an internship.
I was driving back and forth to Atlanta to cover
politics and as a journalist, and I took a full
(15:31):
course load. I was determined to graduate, you know, all
the nose at four years and I just found myself
trapped in my car, all my way to a career
fair that I was late for, and I was trying
to tick off all the things on my to do list,
(15:51):
and I was running late, and I just kind of
collapsed in the car and cried. And then I took
myself to therapy that next week, and I remember the
therapist forget her name, I think it was Maria, all
these years later, and just explaining to her that I
was doing all these things, but I wasn't feeling anything.
(16:12):
I didn't feel like successful, I didn't feel proud, I
didn't feel anything. I felt nothing. And I finally have
a word for it, thanks again to doctor Judith Joseph.
In her book High Functioning, she writes about a condition
called on hadonia and handonia. I don't want to butcher that,
(16:33):
and it's essentially why when we're depressed we lack joy
and feeling emotions about things that one would think would
bring us joy. And I really suffered from that as
a college student, and I overcame it at the time. Honestly,
(16:58):
I stopped living based on what I thought I was
supposed to do, and I started to pursue my own
passions and dreams. And I turned down my first job
offer after college, and I traveled to South America and
I did whatever the hell I wanted to do, and
I fell in love, and I played and I went out,
and I partied, and I traveled and I had all
(17:20):
these adventures and it was so liberating. And I came
back from that experience just a changed woman, truly, And
even as I embarked on my career in New York
City as a journalist, I still carried that experience with me,
that freedom that I built so much self love for
(17:43):
myself and really started to love myself during those travels,
and that became this like glowing golden ember inside of
me that I had been missing for so long, and
all of this that I really could feel joy. I
had this positivity, this light inside of being that new
that I could overcome any kind of challenge that came
(18:05):
my way, and that continued really all the way through
my twenties and even my early thirties. And what shifted,
what shifted, what shifted or I hit some bumps in
the road. The pandemic was a huge one. Becoming a
(18:27):
mother during the pandemic was traumatic, and I think I'm
still I know now, I'm still recovering from that trauma
of being alone and being a new mom in that
cold winter of twenty twenty and haven't fully healed from that.
(18:48):
I also had a huge career upset. I'm not quite
ready to talk about that publicly. I had a big
career upset that left me feeling very rejected and cast out,
and I haven't healed from that fully. And I had
(19:09):
and if you've listened to the show, you might know this.
And part of me is like, oh am, I still
talking about this. But I had a heartbreaking, painful breakup
with a best friend and that was I think the
third blow in the in the span of a few years, pandemic,
(19:33):
big career upset, big friendship breakup. And then the heads
kind of kept coming, the heads that come with life.
You know, you have aging parents, you have unresolved family shit,
and yeah, throw a couple of kids in the mix,
and you're you know, you're throwing in a marriage and
you're hitting these challenges and you're not sure how to
(19:55):
even do marriage during times like that, and it just
becomes a clusterfuck of challenges. And it's been a lot.
It still is a lot, and I am reckoning with
the reality that I really can't succeed my way out
(20:22):
of this depression. This time I have tipped over, unfortunately,
from high functioning depression into the land of low functioning depression,
where it is much much, much more challenging for me
to push through and to accomplish and to achieve the
way that I could and have always achieved my way
(20:45):
out of challenging situations. That has been a extremely painful
realization and scary, very scary when you have a family
relying on you financially to all of a sudden not
be able to or find it much more difficult to
(21:09):
show up and earn and deliver the way that you
have been for years. And just add that up to
the other, you know, to the piling up list of challenges.
Financial insecurity is uh is one of them, and there's
a lot of shame around that for me too, because
(21:31):
I'm not supposed to be dealing with that. I'm bandy
money Hello, but I want to be If I'm gonna
take off the mask, I'm taking off the mask. If
I'm going to sit here and tell y'all what's been
going on, I'm not going to leave anything out. And
that's true. It's true. Finances are not great, and part
(21:57):
of the reason why they haven't been great is because
I've been patching my lack of productivity with savings, with
dipping into investments, with yeah, tapping that nest egg. Uh huh,
I did it? Ooh, she did it. What's gonna happen? Oh? No,
(22:20):
the police are coming for me. It sucks to say
all this out loud. I mean, it sucks, but it's
it's this is what's behind the mask I feel. So
I don't think you guys know, I feel so deeply
exposed right now, You're really gonna have to make a
choice Brown and Vision. You're gonna have to make a choice.
Ba fan, Is this the host you want to support
(22:40):
or is it too much? I don't know, but I
said I was taking off the mask, so so be
it now with emotional depression. I don't know why I
said that. That's not a clinical term. I don't think obviously,
I'm not a therapist or psychiatrist, so I don't know.
But what I mean that is with the feelings of
depression and my moods and the way that my brain
(23:04):
is has been depressed lately, not lately, but the past
five years. That depression has become physical. It's become in
my body. It's manifested in rapid weight gain, and as
a result of weight gain, sleep apnea. And I've been
(23:27):
diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and I haven't been sleeping
who God knows how long I haven't been sleeping. And
once I had a diagnosis of sleep apnea, on the
one hand, it was relief because at least there's a solution.
I'm going to get one of those giant masks and
(23:47):
I'm going to get oxygen. It's going to go to
my brain and I'm going to be able to sleep
at night. And I realize now why it feels like
I have a newborn like I have been feeling as
depressed as I was in the newborn phase with my
first son during the pandemic, and I've been wondering like,
but I don't have a newborn. They're both sleeping through
the night. This is great, but I'm not sleeping through
(24:10):
the night, and without sleep, there is no path to healing.
I just I know that now, and I know it
in my bones. It's so deeply frustrating that my depression
and the weight gain have led me to a place
that's made things so much worse by robbing me of
my ability to sleep well. But as my husband was
(24:33):
telling me last night, there's no it doesn't help to
beat yourself up for you know, arriving where you've arrived.
It's just like, let's focus on the solution and my
path through the depression. Unfortunately, I have not found the
freaking fast forward button yet. I'm still looking for it.
(24:54):
But my way through the depression has to be through
focusing on my own health first. So that's starting with
me getting work, getting better sleep. And the reality is
that freaking insurance companies don't make it very easy to
get the help you need when it comes to sleep apnea.
(25:18):
And I've had some challenges just getting the the CPAP,
just getting the approvals and finding a service that took
my insurance, and even then like getting mailed the wrong equipment.
That was a big blow last week. I was supposed
to get my I got my I got my shipment,
(25:38):
I got my box. I'm doing the setup, even though
they tell you not to and to wait for your
respiratory therapist appointment. But I was like, I can't wait.
I need to sleep. I'm so desperate for it. Turns
out they sent they sent my big old head a
size small. Y'all like, who what? Yes, I did one
of these virtual It was the closest thing I could get,
was a virtual respiratory therapy like company or whatever. So
(26:03):
they do a virtual scan of your head. I did it.
I did the virtual scan and somehow with my hair
out by the way, and somehow they were like, oh yeah,
give that girl, she's a skinny girl, give her us
some all. I had the world's hugest head. This isn't
It was comical. So I'm now waiting for the size
(26:24):
large head size I might need an XCEL. Well I
don't know if they offer an XCEL. Wait for that
large to arrive, and it could be another week at
this point. So but there's a way, you know, there's
a there's a there's at least there's something, and I'm
doing it. I think that, And when I say something,
I mean at least there's a solution, and I've taken
(26:45):
the steps to to get it for myself. And that's
one of the coping like one of those I hate
to even call it a strategy, but one of the
ways that I am keeping going through all of this
is trying to just give myself a pat on the
back for getting up out of bed and doing something
(27:09):
that will help me better my health. Hey, ba, fam,
we got to take a quick break, pay some bills,
and we'll be right back. And so that could look
like getting on the phone and yelling at the respiratory
therapist people to send me my freakingcy pap. That could
look like making an appointment with my primary care physician
(27:30):
to get some lab work done just to make sure
that I don't have any other I don't have, like
hormonal imbalances or issues that could be worsening my depression
or you know, triggering it in some cases, Like I said,
I've coped with depression my whole life. I've had blood
work many times, but still I just want to have
(27:51):
a full picture of my health. And I got the
pretty much the all clear from my blood work. The
only level now my cholesterol was high a couple of
years ago. It's coming back down. It's in the healthy
range now, thank goodness. But the red flag on my
blood work is that there's a marker for inflammation, and
(28:12):
my inflammation marker is off the charts high. Now, what's
the biggest cause of inflammation lack of sleep. So it
makes sense it's all tracking and high inflammation. Can I
can get arthritis. I already have had a flare up
of psoriasis, which I've dealt with my whole life too,
(28:34):
which is tied to inflammation. There's all sorts of reasons why.
There's a reason anti inflammatory diets or a thing. But
unfortunately I'm not going to be able to fix it
with the diet. Only I need my sleep. I need
to be sleeping again. Not being said. Another kind of
(28:54):
positive step I'm taking toward just taking care of myself
and my health is attacking the weight from different angles.
I think I've gained about seventy five pounds since I
had my son, and my weight has been up and
down my whole life. I really suffer from the oprah
syndrome and yeah, I've tried a couple of the GLP
(29:16):
one injection drug, the ozembic, the zet bounds, but my
insurance doesn't cover enough of it for it to be
financially viable. Even with my insurance, which covers sixty percent
of the cost, I'd still be on the hook for
about between four hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars
a month, and I ain't got it, So I'm not
doing that. But I my primary care physician, who I love,
(29:40):
referred me to an endo chronology practice as like a
hormone doctor, and it's a weight loss program, medical weight
loss program, intervention. And for the first time, I'm like
kind of seeing a team of people who are helping me.
So I have the main doctor, the endocrinologist, but I
also have a dietitian and then his nurse practitioner and
(30:02):
physician's assistant, and every four to six weeks I'm going
to see one of them. I've started a couple of
medications that should have the same effect in supporting weight
loss that one of these GLP one type ozembic type
drugs weight loss drugs has. So I mean, I don't
(30:23):
think y'all need to know what medications I'm taking. But
if you have you want to know, I'm happy to say,
but one of them is an antidepressant and the other
one is something that's been used to treat type two
diabetes and can help my body processed sugar glucose and
not store it as fat. But with the nutritionist, she
(30:46):
and I, I've downloaded a MEIL tracking app and I'm
going to and I've been paying a lot of attention
to fiber and protein and take any fat person can
tell you the best way to diet. We know it.
Everything about dining, all the different kinds, I've tried them all,
but none of them has obviously has obviously lasted very long.
(31:10):
And I will say the restrictive dining was always my
go to. But this feels like I'm adding things to
my plate versus things that I'm taking away. And so far,
so good, So I'll keep you all posted on that.
And movement has been really hard to do. There's days
(31:30):
this weekend. This weekend was truly challenging. I just didn't
want to get out of bed physically, felt so ill
and so tired, and I just had to let it.
I had to let that deep that challenging time kind
of go and pass, and finally the clouds parted a
(31:51):
little bit today and I woke up this morning with
a bit of energy and I did a twenty minute
indoor cycle and I did a K Pop demon Hunters
peloton ride. Yeah, yeah, it was so good. I cried.
I always cry. I always cry during the this is
(32:12):
what It Sounds Like song, and I resisted the K
Pop demon Hunter fad, but I am so indoctrinated now.
I hope they never released me from the choke hold
that they have on me. It's so good and especially
for the especially for the time that I'm going through
right now, that movie and the messages in it are
(32:35):
so layered and really honestly helping me. Yeah, an anime
has helped me get through this time and just try
to be more authentic. Though. I just want to I
want to say, if you've been listening to this whole episode,
thank you so much. But I really want to talk
to anyone who's listening, who can't, who any of this
feels like it maybe it's a little bit of what
(32:58):
you're going through, you have gone through, and I just
want to say that I see you, and I'm so
proud of you, and I'm proud of me for continuing
to show up and to take steps that can help
us get out of the darkness. And I'm right on
this journey with you and I I'm kind of sick
(33:21):
of feeling alone, and maybe we could take our masks
off together and just be authentically who we are. And
at least now, when I show up to this microphone
in whatever state I'm in and with whoever i'm talking to,
I don't have Tiffany here who knows what's going on.
But I've let y'all in and be a fam Now
(33:43):
you know me. Now you know a little bit of
my own demon that I am battling. And I hope
that you realize that I'm really trusting y'all with a
big piece of me, and I know I can, but
I just want you to know I don't I don't
say any of this lightly, and I only do it
because you've supported me for all these years, and I
(34:08):
just want to be real with y'all. I just want
to be honest and still show it up. I'm still
doing the show. I think that's the beauty of taking
off the mask. In this way, I can show y'all
that with depression there can still be success, there can
still be productivity, but there can still be work getting accomplished,
(34:28):
but also acknowledging that that's not all there is and
that's not what's going to save us in the end.
I know that just showing up and doing Brown Ambition,
clowing my way through the show, getting through my coaching calls,
and that that's not going to heal me, and that
(34:50):
the real work that I'm doing outside of this work
that I love, is what's going to heal me. And
I'm working on it very dilligently. I'm working on it
from any angle and I have been for a while.
I really have been for years working on it. Therapy,
group therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, zoloft and antidepressants,
(35:17):
even trying to explore the world of THHC and what
if any benefit I can get from that, and just
there's no stone I have left unturned on this journey.
I'm working so damn hard and if I can be
a source of comfort or at least to anyone listening
(35:37):
who has felt alone or has felt like they're too
toxic and that you're not Okay, as you are, you
know in your current state that you have to wait
until you're healed before you deserve to show up spaces.
I'm choosing to disbelief that, and I hope that you
will as well. And at least now what I'm showing
(36:01):
up in spaces whether or not everyone's gonna hear this episode,
but at least now what I'm showing up in space
is I can honor. I can honor my truth, which
is that I am suffering from depression. And healing is
not a smooth path. It's not a linear path, and
(36:21):
there's good days of bad days, and good hours and
bad hours. But I'm worthy of trying, and I am
worthy of this healing process, and I want to heal
properly this time. And just thank you for listening. I'll
(36:42):
be sharing more. I plan to do a whole episode
on being depressed as a mom of littles, and I'm
really looking forward to that because it's one of the
It's one of the weirdest things about being depressed, is
when you're a mom and you just you can't be.
(37:05):
You can be, but it's just so I mean, honestly,
I laugh so I don't cry. But there's some really
funny and joyful moments that have come out of being
a depressed mom, and I just love it so much. Well,
not being depressed, but I love being a mom, and
I think that that I think that depression in motherhood
needs to be talked about more and much more past that,
(37:29):
even that postpartum, you know, first trimester kind of time
when we tend to get some attention for it, but
not so much for the long haul. So you can
look forward to an episode on that. And as always,
I'm here for y'all and I want to hear from y'all,
so please take the time to leave a review or
(37:51):
leave a comment. If you're watching on YouTube or you're
listening on Spotify, you could comment directly on this episode,
but y'all know you can also find me at Brand
Bishop Podcast on Instagram, Brought a Bishop Podcast at geball
dot com, and my personal ig is at Vandymuddy. I
love you, ba fam, and I hope you know that
(38:12):
I I'm doing this show for y'all and just thank
you thanks for listening, sending all lots of love. Ye okay,
va fam, thank you so much for listening to this
week's show. I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney,
(38:35):
our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for idea to launch productions.
I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and
Cameron McNair for helping me put the show together. It
is not a one person project, as much as I
have tried to make it so these past ten years.
I need help, y'all, and thank goodness I've been able
(38:57):
to put this team around me to support me on
this journey. And to y'all, ba fam, I love you
so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, make
sure you signed up to the newsletter to get all
the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year anniversary
celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to you
soon via bye
This is what's behind the mask. I feel so deeply
exposed right now. You're really going to have to make
a choice, Brown Vision. You're gonna have to make a choice. Bafam.
Is this the host you want to support or is
it too much? I don't know, but I said I
was taking off the mask, so be it. Before we
get into this episode, I want to give you all
the trigger warning. This is a very heavy mental health
(00:23):
episode and I'm going to be talking about depression and
anxiety alight a lot. If you are suffering from depression,
you've got thoughts of harming yourself, and you need help,
you can call or text nine to eight eight. That's
the National Suicide Prevention Hotline. And with that being said,
let's get into today's episode. Abafam. It's your girl, Mandy
(00:53):
aka Mandy Money. This episode has been on my mind
for a while. I can't stop thinking about it. I've
been running through my mind what I wanted to say,
how I want to say it, why I want to
say it. But it's just become abundantly clear to me
(01:15):
that the best thing I can do for myself in
this season is to be brutally honest with the people
I care about the most. And it's about damn time
that I take off the mask and get a little
bit vulnerable. It's already starting. I think the scariest thing
(01:42):
about opening up to you all is that I don't
necessarily at all have an ending to the story to
make you feel better about it, to make myself feel
better about it. There's no and then I did this,
and I'm going to tell you how I've been waiting
for that. If I'm honest, I've been waiting for myself
(02:04):
to get right so that I can come to y'all
and tell you what's been going on after I've figured
it out, and after I, you know, fixed it. I
can't fix it. I can't fix it. I'm not fixed.
(02:24):
I'm I'm not healed. I'm not okay. I don't know
if I'll be okay anytime soon. And I've been so
hungry and like looking for other people, you know, who
show up in the way that I have too for work,
(02:45):
who are dealing with some similar challenges. And I'm looking
for it. I'm not finding it, and it's it feels
really lonely. Honestly, I don't know if it's bravery so
much as driving in this moment other than just sheer
exhaustion of pretending otherwise. I'm so tired of showing up
(03:07):
to this microphone and putting on the mask. I'm deeply depressed.
I've been deeply depressed most of my life. I suffer
from depression. There's been many periods of my life when
(03:30):
I've been very high functioning. Thank you, doctor Judith Joseph
for giving us that terminology. Very high functioning. Depression was
just another obstacle that I had to overcome on my
path to, you know, creating the life that I've always
dreamed for myself. And I wasn't gonna let it get
me down. And I wasn't gonna let the negativity, I
(03:52):
would say, or my lack of energy and my sadness.
I wasn't gonna let it get in my way. It
was almost I was fighting it, battling it, trying to
be stronger than it. And I succeeded. I was doing
great in a lot of ways. I've been doing great,
(04:15):
and I succeeded my way out of that pain and
that that challenge, that struggle for a long long time.
And what's different? What's different now? Mandy? Why are why
am I not able to just push through it and
(04:36):
ride the waves. A lot of things have happened. I'm
older now, I'm thirty eight years old. I have a
much more demanding life now that I've ever had before.
I'm a mom, I have two children. I'm a wife.
I'm still a daughter and a sister. I am a citizen.
(04:58):
I try to be a good neighbor. I'm the host
of Brown Ambition podcast. I've been running a career coaching
business for three four years now. There's a lot on
that list to be grateful for. So why am I struggling?
Why am I not able to do it? I know
all the things. I know how to do self care,
(05:19):
I know how to meditate, I've done all the therapy,
I've read the books. So what the hell? Why am
I still not getting any better and in fact getting worse.
Another big shift happened this year. Y'all know Tiffany left
the show My Beloved and I was so excited for
(05:47):
the new chapter of Brown Ambition and continue to be.
But showing up to the microphone by myself for the
past ten months has been so challenging. I miss Tiffany,
even if I was showing up feeling like even how
I'm feeling right now, I can always rely on our dynamic,
(06:10):
our chemistry, our friendship to make things feel lighter for
that hour and a half that we were recording. You know,
I've had some incredible Brown Table co host of course,
Chris and Yeat, Nelly. I haven't told anybody. I haven't told,
you know, anyone who's co hosted the show with me
(06:31):
what I'm going through. And what that means is that
I'm putting on a mask for them. And I had
a level of trust with tiffany where I could have
I could be completely honest with how I was feeling
and how I was showing up and at least I
could get that off my chest before we hit record,
and you know, we would do our thing, but I'd
(06:51):
always know that she knew what was really going on.
And it's been really lonely, I think recording the show
and people on the other side of the screen who
don't really know and don't really know me or what's
happening with me. Not everybody needs to know my business.
(07:11):
At the end of the day, I have a job
to do. I'm here to give them a platform, share
my platform with them, and help them amplify whatever it
is that they're working on, and then of course like
do a good show for y'all. But it can get
really exhausting to put on the mask and show up
as frequently as I have been. I've still been doing
(07:32):
two to three episodes per week without fail. I should
have started off by saying this, this is not me
leaving brown ambition. We built this brick by brick. I'm
not walking away from it. But I do want to
stop showing up with a mask on. And I hope
that that's good enough. I hope that I hope that
(07:52):
everything that we say is true, that we can hold
space for people who are going through depression at a
really tough time, and that we can be loving toward
them and not think less of them. I hope that
that's true. I don't know why, but I've been afraid
(08:13):
that if I showed up like this that it would
be rejected, especially at a time when there's so much
We're just all inundated with things to be sad about
and to be afraid of, and there's fear, and is
this really what we need right now? Is bandy woodrof
(08:34):
boohoo and on a podcast? I think depression is a liar.
I know depression is a liar. I know so many
of the things that I think can feel don't actually
have any basis in fact or reality, but the feelings
feel so real. If you've ever felt withdrawn and like
(08:58):
you want to withdraw from everything that everyone that you
love and hold dear because you feel toxic and you
want to protect them from yourself from that negativity. You
want to you want to dig a moat around yourself.
(09:19):
It's really about protecting the ones you love from having
to see you like that and to cause them any pain.
You're already in so much pain. The last thing you
want to do is to cause the people you love pain,
and so you withdraw. And I have been doing that.
I've been withdrawing from most people that I can, anyone
(09:47):
that I really can, anyone I can get away with it.
I have been tapping out. I have been Homer Simpson
disappearing into the hedge. I've been saying no, I've been
buying tickets to events and not going. I've been I
have been RSVP yes and then withdrawing at the last minute.
(10:07):
It's I don't want to show up anywhere where I
have to put on a mask. It's just too exhausting.
It truly is. And the only place, the only space
where I have felt like I could really be who
I am is in these four walls of my home.
And I haven't really figured out how to be in
(10:27):
the world depressed without the mask quite yet. I think
I'm so used to putting on that show and sparkling
and tap dancing and bake it everybody feel good to
be in my presence and cracking the jokes and all that,
that I feel so vulnerable and self conscious not being
(10:53):
that version of myself. What does it mean to be
the host of brown Ambition and to be deeply depressed?
What does it mean to be the host of brown
and vision and a coach to women who are striving
and working and deserve more in their careers? If I'm
(11:15):
also plagued by anxiety and doubts and am fighting this
dragon every day? Am I allowed to do those things?
Am I still allowed? Am I still welcome in the
spaces where I have shown up as my full self?
(11:36):
Will anyone want to work with me when they see this?
If they see it? Will anyone trust me? If they
know the truth that I'm not okay all the time.
I don't know. But what I do know is I'm
so goddamn tired of a mask. I don't want it anymore.
(12:04):
You can have it back, you can have it back,
taking it off. No, I'm not giving it to anybody else.
We're just gonna burn the mask. Let's just burn it together.
I mentioned that I've been depressed for most of my life,
and it's a really hard truth to hold, especially as
(12:30):
a mom. I worry because I know at such a
young age I was depressed, you know, by the age
of like seven or eight. I are my first memories
of being depressed, if that's only a few years older
than my oldest son. I was just a case where
(12:51):
in a really volatile home, the one who is quiet
seems to be doing well and needs to be quiet
and needs to be okay because so much else is
not okay. And so from a very young age I
learned how to put on that mask. I was okay.
(13:15):
I did really well in school, grades were popping GPA
on point, but I wasn't able to make friends and
maintained relationships, and I was very isolated and withdrawn into
myself as a child. Why am I sharing this. I
just I just wish that someone had seen me and
(13:40):
uh helped me at a much younger age. And I
just want to acknowledge that so many kids who are
doing well, they're playing sports. Okay, I didn't play any sports.
I was in the mertae band, but they're maybe they're
(14:02):
doing activities and they're doing well in school, and like,
there's there's signs, there are signs that it's a mask.
And for me, that was extreme irritability and just a
horrible attitude. Once I got home and could take the
(14:25):
mask off. I didn't realize it then, but I realize
it now that I was just as exhausted keeping the
mask on at school and in my activities, and when
I came home it felt like I could finally take
it off. But then it wasn't okay to do that
either at home, because you're so frustrated and you have
(14:46):
so much pent up emotion that it manifest as anchor
and bitterness. And I wasn't a delightful person to live
with in my teenage years at all. And you know,
I carried the same coping mechanisms into college. And I
(15:06):
remember it was maybe my senior year of college I
was so high functioning, and I was doing all the things.
I was an editor at the newspaper, I had an internship.
I was driving back and forth to Atlanta to cover
politics and as a journalist, and I took a full
(15:31):
course load. I was determined to graduate, you know, all
the nose at four years and I just found myself
trapped in my car, all my way to a career
fair that I was late for, and I was trying
to tick off all the things on my to do list,
(15:51):
and I was running late, and I just kind of
collapsed in the car and cried. And then I took
myself to therapy that next week, and I remember the
therapist forget her name, I think it was Maria, all
these years later, and just explaining to her that I
was doing all these things, but I wasn't feeling anything.
(16:12):
I didn't feel like successful, I didn't feel proud, I
didn't feel anything. I felt nothing. And I finally have
a word for it, thanks again to doctor Judith Joseph.
In her book High Functioning, she writes about a condition
called on hadonia and handonia. I don't want to butcher that,
(16:33):
and it's essentially why when we're depressed we lack joy
and feeling emotions about things that one would think would
bring us joy. And I really suffered from that as
a college student, and I overcame it at the time. Honestly,
(16:58):
I stopped living based on what I thought I was
supposed to do, and I started to pursue my own
passions and dreams. And I turned down my first job
offer after college, and I traveled to South America and
I did whatever the hell I wanted to do, and
I fell in love, and I played and I went out,
and I partied, and I traveled and I had all
(17:20):
these adventures and it was so liberating. And I came
back from that experience just a changed woman, truly, And
even as I embarked on my career in New York
City as a journalist, I still carried that experience with me,
that freedom that I built so much self love for
(17:43):
myself and really started to love myself during those travels,
and that became this like glowing golden ember inside of
me that I had been missing for so long, and
all of this that I really could feel joy. I
had this positivity, this light inside of being that new
that I could overcome any kind of challenge that came
(18:05):
my way, and that continued really all the way through
my twenties and even my early thirties. And what shifted,
what shifted, what shifted or I hit some bumps in
the road. The pandemic was a huge one. Becoming a
(18:27):
mother during the pandemic was traumatic, and I think I'm
still I know now, I'm still recovering from that trauma
of being alone and being a new mom in that
cold winter of twenty twenty and haven't fully healed from that.
(18:48):
I also had a huge career upset. I'm not quite
ready to talk about that publicly. I had a big
career upset that left me feeling very rejected and cast out,
and I haven't healed from that fully. And I had
(19:09):
and if you've listened to the show, you might know this.
And part of me is like, oh am, I still
talking about this. But I had a heartbreaking, painful breakup
with a best friend and that was I think the
third blow in the in the span of a few years, pandemic,
(19:33):
big career upset, big friendship breakup. And then the heads
kind of kept coming, the heads that come with life.
You know, you have aging parents, you have unresolved family shit,
and yeah, throw a couple of kids in the mix,
and you're you know, you're throwing in a marriage and
you're hitting these challenges and you're not sure how to
(19:55):
even do marriage during times like that, and it just
becomes a clusterfuck of challenges. And it's been a lot.
It still is a lot, and I am reckoning with
the reality that I really can't succeed my way out
(20:22):
of this depression. This time I have tipped over, unfortunately,
from high functioning depression into the land of low functioning depression,
where it is much much, much more challenging for me
to push through and to accomplish and to achieve the
way that I could and have always achieved my way
(20:45):
out of challenging situations. That has been a extremely painful
realization and scary, very scary when you have a family
relying on you financially to all of a sudden not
be able to or find it much more difficult to
(21:09):
show up and earn and deliver the way that you
have been for years. And just add that up to
the other, you know, to the piling up list of challenges.
Financial insecurity is uh is one of them, and there's
a lot of shame around that for me too, because
(21:31):
I'm not supposed to be dealing with that. I'm bandy
money Hello, but I want to be If I'm gonna
take off the mask, I'm taking off the mask. If
I'm going to sit here and tell y'all what's been
going on, I'm not going to leave anything out. And
that's true. It's true. Finances are not great, and part
(21:57):
of the reason why they haven't been great is because
I've been patching my lack of productivity with savings, with
dipping into investments, with yeah, tapping that nest egg. Uh huh,
I did it? Ooh, she did it. What's gonna happen? Oh? No,
(22:20):
the police are coming for me. It sucks to say
all this out loud. I mean, it sucks, but it's
it's this is what's behind the mask I feel. So
I don't think you guys know, I feel so deeply
exposed right now, You're really gonna have to make a
choice Brown and Vision. You're gonna have to make a choice.
Ba fan, Is this the host you want to support
(22:40):
or is it too much? I don't know, but I
said I was taking off the mask, so so be
it now with emotional depression. I don't know why I
said that. That's not a clinical term. I don't think obviously,
I'm not a therapist or psychiatrist, so I don't know.
But what I mean that is with the feelings of
depression and my moods and the way that my brain
(23:04):
is has been depressed lately, not lately, but the past
five years. That depression has become physical. It's become in
my body. It's manifested in rapid weight gain, and as
a result of weight gain, sleep apnea. And I've been
(23:27):
diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and I haven't been sleeping
who God knows how long I haven't been sleeping. And
once I had a diagnosis of sleep apnea, on the
one hand, it was relief because at least there's a solution.
I'm going to get one of those giant masks and
(23:47):
I'm going to get oxygen. It's going to go to
my brain and I'm going to be able to sleep
at night. And I realize now why it feels like
I have a newborn like I have been feeling as
depressed as I was in the newborn phase with my
first son during the pandemic, and I've been wondering like,
but I don't have a newborn. They're both sleeping through
the night. This is great, but I'm not sleeping through
(24:10):
the night, and without sleep, there is no path to healing.
I just I know that now, and I know it
in my bones. It's so deeply frustrating that my depression
and the weight gain have led me to a place
that's made things so much worse by robbing me of
my ability to sleep well. But as my husband was
(24:33):
telling me last night, there's no it doesn't help to
beat yourself up for you know, arriving where you've arrived.
It's just like, let's focus on the solution and my
path through the depression. Unfortunately, I have not found the
freaking fast forward button yet. I'm still looking for it.
(24:54):
But my way through the depression has to be through
focusing on my own health first. So that's starting with
me getting work, getting better sleep. And the reality is
that freaking insurance companies don't make it very easy to
get the help you need when it comes to sleep apnea.
(25:18):
And I've had some challenges just getting the the CPAP,
just getting the approvals and finding a service that took
my insurance, and even then like getting mailed the wrong equipment.
That was a big blow last week. I was supposed
to get my I got my I got my shipment,
(25:38):
I got my box. I'm doing the setup, even though
they tell you not to and to wait for your
respiratory therapist appointment. But I was like, I can't wait.
I need to sleep. I'm so desperate for it. Turns
out they sent they sent my big old head a
size small. Y'all like, who what? Yes, I did one
of these virtual It was the closest thing I could get,
was a virtual respiratory therapy like company or whatever. So
(26:03):
they do a virtual scan of your head. I did it.
I did the virtual scan and somehow with my hair
out by the way, and somehow they were like, oh yeah,
give that girl, she's a skinny girl, give her us
some all. I had the world's hugest head. This isn't
It was comical. So I'm now waiting for the size
(26:24):
large head size I might need an XCEL. Well I
don't know if they offer an XCEL. Wait for that
large to arrive, and it could be another week at
this point. So but there's a way, you know, there's
a there's a there's at least there's something, and I'm
doing it. I think that, And when I say something,
I mean at least there's a solution, and I've taken
(26:45):
the steps to to get it for myself. And that's
one of the coping like one of those I hate
to even call it a strategy, but one of the
ways that I am keeping going through all of this
is trying to just give myself a pat on the
back for getting up out of bed and doing something
(27:09):
that will help me better my health. Hey, ba, fam,
we got to take a quick break, pay some bills,
and we'll be right back. And so that could look
like getting on the phone and yelling at the respiratory
therapist people to send me my freakingcy pap. That could
look like making an appointment with my primary care physician
(27:30):
to get some lab work done just to make sure
that I don't have any other I don't have, like
hormonal imbalances or issues that could be worsening my depression
or you know, triggering it in some cases, Like I said,
I've coped with depression my whole life. I've had blood
work many times, but still I just want to have
(27:51):
a full picture of my health. And I got the
pretty much the all clear from my blood work. The
only level now my cholesterol was high a couple of
years ago. It's coming back down. It's in the healthy
range now, thank goodness. But the red flag on my
blood work is that there's a marker for inflammation, and
(28:12):
my inflammation marker is off the charts high. Now, what's
the biggest cause of inflammation lack of sleep. So it
makes sense it's all tracking and high inflammation. Can I
can get arthritis. I already have had a flare up
of psoriasis, which I've dealt with my whole life too,
(28:34):
which is tied to inflammation. There's all sorts of reasons why.
There's a reason anti inflammatory diets or a thing. But
unfortunately I'm not going to be able to fix it
with the diet. Only I need my sleep. I need
to be sleeping again. Not being said. Another kind of
(28:54):
positive step I'm taking toward just taking care of myself
and my health is attacking the weight from different angles.
I think I've gained about seventy five pounds since I
had my son, and my weight has been up and
down my whole life. I really suffer from the oprah
syndrome and yeah, I've tried a couple of the GLP
(29:16):
one injection drug, the ozembic, the zet bounds, but my
insurance doesn't cover enough of it for it to be
financially viable. Even with my insurance, which covers sixty percent
of the cost, I'd still be on the hook for
about between four hundred and fifty to five hundred dollars
a month, and I ain't got it, So I'm not
doing that. But I my primary care physician, who I love,
(29:40):
referred me to an endo chronology practice as like a
hormone doctor, and it's a weight loss program, medical weight
loss program, intervention. And for the first time, I'm like
kind of seeing a team of people who are helping me.
So I have the main doctor, the endocrinologist, but I
also have a dietitian and then his nurse practitioner and
(30:02):
physician's assistant, and every four to six weeks I'm going
to see one of them. I've started a couple of
medications that should have the same effect in supporting weight
loss that one of these GLP one type ozembic type
drugs weight loss drugs has. So I mean, I don't
(30:23):
think y'all need to know what medications I'm taking. But
if you have you want to know, I'm happy to say,
but one of them is an antidepressant and the other
one is something that's been used to treat type two
diabetes and can help my body processed sugar glucose and
not store it as fat. But with the nutritionist, she
(30:46):
and I, I've downloaded a MEIL tracking app and I'm
going to and I've been paying a lot of attention
to fiber and protein and take any fat person can
tell you the best way to diet. We know it.
Everything about dining, all the different kinds, I've tried them all,
but none of them has obviously has obviously lasted very long.
(31:10):
And I will say the restrictive dining was always my
go to. But this feels like I'm adding things to
my plate versus things that I'm taking away. And so far,
so good, So I'll keep you all posted on that.
And movement has been really hard to do. There's days
(31:30):
this weekend. This weekend was truly challenging. I just didn't
want to get out of bed physically, felt so ill
and so tired, and I just had to let it.
I had to let that deep that challenging time kind
of go and pass, and finally the clouds parted a
(31:51):
little bit today and I woke up this morning with
a bit of energy and I did a twenty minute
indoor cycle and I did a K Pop demon Hunters
peloton ride. Yeah, yeah, it was so good. I cried.
I always cry. I always cry during the this is
(32:12):
what It Sounds Like song, and I resisted the K
Pop demon Hunter fad, but I am so indoctrinated now.
I hope they never released me from the choke hold
that they have on me. It's so good and especially
for the especially for the time that I'm going through
right now, that movie and the messages in it are
(32:35):
so layered and really honestly helping me. Yeah, an anime
has helped me get through this time and just try
to be more authentic. Though. I just want to I
want to say, if you've been listening to this whole episode,
thank you so much. But I really want to talk
to anyone who's listening, who can't, who any of this
feels like it maybe it's a little bit of what
(32:58):
you're going through, you have gone through, and I just
want to say that I see you, and I'm so
proud of you, and I'm proud of me for continuing
to show up and to take steps that can help
us get out of the darkness. And I'm right on
this journey with you and I I'm kind of sick
(33:21):
of feeling alone, and maybe we could take our masks
off together and just be authentically who we are. And
at least now, when I show up to this microphone
in whatever state I'm in and with whoever i'm talking to,
I don't have Tiffany here who knows what's going on.
But I've let y'all in and be a fam Now
(33:43):
you know me. Now you know a little bit of
my own demon that I am battling. And I hope
that you realize that I'm really trusting y'all with a
big piece of me, and I know I can, but
I just want you to know I don't I don't
say any of this lightly, and I only do it
because you've supported me for all these years, and I
(34:08):
just want to be real with y'all. I just want
to be honest and still show it up. I'm still
doing the show. I think that's the beauty of taking
off the mask. In this way, I can show y'all
that with depression there can still be success, there can
still be productivity, but there can still be work getting accomplished,
(34:28):
but also acknowledging that that's not all there is and
that's not what's going to save us in the end.
I know that just showing up and doing Brown Ambition,
clowing my way through the show, getting through my coaching calls,
and that that's not going to heal me, and that
(34:50):
the real work that I'm doing outside of this work
that I love, is what's going to heal me. And
I'm working on it very dilligently. I'm working on it
from any angle and I have been for a while.
I really have been for years working on it. Therapy,
group therapy, dialectical behavioral therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, zoloft and antidepressants,
(35:17):
even trying to explore the world of THHC and what
if any benefit I can get from that, and just
there's no stone I have left unturned on this journey.
I'm working so damn hard and if I can be
a source of comfort or at least to anyone listening
(35:37):
who has felt alone or has felt like they're too
toxic and that you're not Okay, as you are, you
know in your current state that you have to wait
until you're healed before you deserve to show up spaces.
I'm choosing to disbelief that, and I hope that you
will as well. And at least now what I'm showing
(36:01):
up in spaces whether or not everyone's gonna hear this episode,
but at least now what I'm showing up in space
is I can honor. I can honor my truth, which
is that I am suffering from depression. And healing is
not a smooth path. It's not a linear path, and
(36:21):
there's good days of bad days, and good hours and
bad hours. But I'm worthy of trying, and I am
worthy of this healing process, and I want to heal
properly this time. And just thank you for listening. I'll
(36:42):
be sharing more. I plan to do a whole episode
on being depressed as a mom of littles, and I'm
really looking forward to that because it's one of the
It's one of the weirdest things about being depressed, is
when you're a mom and you just you can't be.
(37:05):
You can be, but it's just so I mean, honestly,
I laugh so I don't cry. But there's some really
funny and joyful moments that have come out of being
a depressed mom, and I just love it so much. Well,
not being depressed, but I love being a mom, and
I think that that I think that depression in motherhood
needs to be talked about more and much more past that,
(37:29):
even that postpartum, you know, first trimester kind of time
when we tend to get some attention for it, but
not so much for the long haul. So you can
look forward to an episode on that. And as always,
I'm here for y'all and I want to hear from y'all,
so please take the time to leave a review or
(37:51):
leave a comment. If you're watching on YouTube or you're
listening on Spotify, you could comment directly on this episode,
but y'all know you can also find me at Brand
Bishop Podcast on Instagram, Brought a Bishop Podcast at geball
dot com, and my personal ig is at Vandymuddy. I
love you, ba fam, and I hope you know that
(38:12):
I I'm doing this show for y'all and just thank
you thanks for listening, sending all lots of love. Ye okay,
va fam, thank you so much for listening to this
week's show. I want to shout out to our production team, Courtney,
(38:35):
our editor, Carla, our fearless leader for idea to launch productions.
I want to shout out my assistant Lauda Escalante and
Cameron McNair for helping me put the show together. It
is not a one person project, as much as I
have tried to make it so these past ten years.
I need help, y'all, and thank goodness I've been able
(38:57):
to put this team around me to support me on
this journey. And to y'all, ba fam, I love you
so so so so much. Please rate, review, subscribe, make
sure you signed up to the newsletter to get all
the latest updates on upcoming episodes, our ten year anniversary
celebrations to come, and until next time, talk to you
soon via bye
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