If you are struggling mentally in life with depression, anxiety, etc. … please do not be ashamed or afraid to speak about it. To be forthright, if people want to stoop so low to use your problems against you, let them lower themselves to that level. In all honesty, if people use your problems against you they have a lot more severe problem than you will ever have.

I just read Elon Musk’s biography and he readily admits for 18 months he battled insanity. He would get so mentally down that he would lay on the floor in his office, and the only way his top administrator could communicate with him was to lay down a couple of feet away and talk to him. (Finally getting my feet back firmly on the ground after coming off the worst two years of my life psychologically, it was soothing to read that the richest and most successful businessman in the world was struggling with very similar issues.)

Abraham Lincoln, who many consider to be our best president, at times would not carry a pocket knife with him for fear of what he might do during an episode of depression. (An excellent book to read is “Lincoln’s Melancholy.”)

So, if struggling in life, speak up about it. All keeping it bundled up inside you will do is to exacerbate the problem. Good people will listen and understand.