I remember looking at my student loan debt, feeling a pit of despair. How could I ever pay this back? Why was I so stupid to go to a private school? Anxious thoughts filled my mind as I obsessed about this debt looming over my head.
 
I call 2012 my lost year because I didn’t do much except cry and stress about my student loan debt and my seemingly hopeless future. I couldn’t find a full-time job. I was on food stamps briefly, which humbled me to my core. I felt useless and believed that because I was in so much debt, that I wasn’t worth anything. I was worthless.
 
I took action in January 2013 and started my blog Dear Debt. Through perseverance and grit (and a lot of privilege), I got through it and paid off my debt in December 2015.
 
In my blog, I wrote about how debt affected my mental health. The more I wrote about it, the more people would open up to me and tell me their stories. It was as if I unleashed this secret that everyone was holding on to.
 
So many people contacted me and told how depressed they were because of debt. Many readers found my blog Googling “I want to kill myself because of debt”. I realized that the problem was much larger than I anticipated.
 
I started doing advocacy work in 2016 and getting my blogger friends together to write and share stories during Suicide Prevention Awareness Month. I did some research and found out that people that die by suicide are 8 times more likely to be in debt.
 
The link between debt and depression and money and mental health seemed undeniable.
 
But nobody was talking about it. And it’s a problem we can’t ignore and I’m here to change that.
 
Money has the power to influence your mental health. Conversely, your mental health can affect your financial habits as well.
 
There’s a link between debt and depression and anxiety that is so pervasive. Through this site, I want to share the stories and struggles of people who are dealing with issues at the intersection of money and mental health.
 
Now I know that I was not alone when I was feeling so depressed and anxious about my debt. You are not alone either.

I want to recognize the ways mental health affects us and our finances and shed light on a topic that is still in the dark. Let’s bring it to light.
 
--Melanie Lockert