Dear fellow single parent struggling with mental health,

First: Hi. We don’t know each other, probably because we’d just die if the other knew we belonged to this group. But “Hi” nonetheless. There have been enough campaigns to remind us “we are not alone” that I think we all get that by now, right? But, FWIW, hi!

You are not alone.

Second: Get up off your ass and find your childhood friends. If you still have ’em in your life every week, part of me hates you a little bit because I don’t know how you pulled off a career, kids and friends so well (let’s just leave relationships alone on this one). If you don’t still have them in your life, find them. They love you. They probably need you.

You may all need each other.

You know who I’m talking about. The ones who knew you when you were really the most you. The friends who know the stuff you’re not so sure you want your colleagues to know about. Find them. Find them now. See what different people you have become. What heartbreaking and heartbroken people you have become. But also see what inspiring people you have become, what people of resilience you have become.

Then see how much of the same people you still are.

Find them and get them around your kids. Give them a chance to love a version of you that they fell in love with as children themselves; give them a chance to bond with you all over again. Give them a chance to be the aunts and uncles and cousins and tribe that you may not be able to provide in the same way because of the trauma or the anxiety or the history or the abuse that led you to struggle the way we do in brains like ours. Remember those people who love you—that first version of you before you achieved a single thing.

Remember those people who loved you who didn’t have to; people who might not share your name, but people who will never let you live in your shame.

Let them help you remember where you come from. Let them open your mind to the good memories lost in the traumatic ones. Let them tell your children the stories you want them to know you by. Let them laugh with your loved ones and remember what once brought you joy.

My boy Robby makes my boy Rory smarter—pushing him to think strategically and creatively and sometimes even subversively. My boy Danny reminds Rory how his Dad was never just a Priest, and why he needs to learn discipline if he wants to be an athlete. And although Firefighter Sheldon isn’t seen in the Six as much (out in the hinterlands of Brooklyn where there is no internet), he is spoken of almost every day as of late as one of Rory’s iconic heroes—a firefighter known just as much for Daddy Daycare.

Single Dad. Single Mom. Single Parent, Guardian, Aunt or Uncle. If you are struggling in isolation with issues of mental health—seek help. There is help.

But then, no joke, find your childhood, your high school, your college or your twenty-something friends—the ones who knew you best. Find them and get them around your kids.

You owe it to them. Help them see you through the eyes of those who adore you in all your truth and valour. Find them and let them love you. Your kids will thank you one day.