Erin McKelle

This year I’m going into the holiday season with a self-care game plan, so that I’ll be ready when the holiday blues come around. I think that probably more people get the holiday blues than you would think, since this isn’t an issue that’s often talked about openly.

[CN: sexual assault] No more sex — no touching, fondling… Nada. I was done. I had a new mission: to heal.

When you're single and surrounded by engagements and romantic holiday occasions, you need this Singles Guide To Sex & Dating During The Holidays.

I decided to stop searching for an MMA platform that was going against these norms, since one did not exist, and create it myself.

I had known many people, and even had friends in college, who were in open and non-monogamous relationships. Things always seemed to work really well for them, and I had noticed that everyone was usually on the same page about what was happening in the relationship, which seemed to be a rarity, at least among straight couples.

That’s exactly the spirit that word should embody: someone who is loud, proud, and an advocate for themselves. Someone who stands out and is bold and beautiful for it. Someone who is unapologetically themselves.

My fears of dependence were so potent that I decided to quit meds for good. Though I didn’t just throw away mental healthcare, mind you, since I had been, and planned on continuing to go, to weekly therapy sessions. I wanted to find other ways to manage my mental illness without popping pills on the daily.

I began to see my mental health go completely downhill. This led me to seek out a psychiatrist, who raised an interesting concern: she thought my birth control was messing with my depression. It’s not like I hadn’t been aware of the link between hormonal contraception and depression before, but it never occurred to me that these two personal realities could be connected.

If you’re an entrepreneur like myself, you probably know exactly what I’m talking about. No one is looking over your shoulder to see if you’re on-task, but you’re probably working 12+ hour days anyway.

I decided to experiment. I would set my alarm and get up at 6 AM (or earlier) for seven days straight, no matter what.