People have different comfort levels when it comes to personal disclosure. I have a friend, Sarah, who turns crimson and stares uncomfortably at her corduroys when the topic of sex comes up. She isn’t a prude, she’s just private. I, on the other hand, have a hard time leaving my first friendly outing with a new acquaintance until she knows my entire social, family, medical and dental history along with my feelings on adjustable rate mortgages. I try and remind myself that this person isn’t doing a psychiatric intake-interview, she just wants to get a cup of coffee and test the waters. Despite vows and promises to keep it casual, I can’t help it. Self-disclosure is as natural to me as shedding hair.

So when Sarah and I met near her house for a hike in the woods, I expected our usual banter to include routine information about kids’ progress in school and a cataloging of what was shaking on the work front. As we walked deeper into the woods, Sarah grew quiet. The silence intensified until I was sure she was either on the cusp of bludgeoning me or divulging something significant. That’s when it came out. She had lost her temper with her six-year-old daughter the night before and screamed uncontrollably until her daughter cried. She didn’t turn to look at me. I muttered a sympathetic, “Mmmmm.” My very private friend had spilled her guts about what was to her, a very private matter. I could only imagine how much pain she must be in.

Then I asked, “Was it the kind of yell that made the muscles in your neck seize up and then throb with excruciating pain? Did you lose your bearings and have to grab the wall for balance? Because that’s what I was reduced to yesterday.”

She laughed. Not because she was proud of her actions or happy that my children were forced to face their mother’s meltdown, but because in that moment she knew she wasn’t alone. That she was Not the Only One.

Psychologists refer to the process of hearing others’ responses to similar situations as “normalizing.” It’s an important first step for trauma victims, which I sometimes feel like after my most challenging days of mothering. Knowing that most of us faced with the inevitable stressors that accompany being a parent lose our marbles from time to time reaffirms that we aren’t crazy and we’re Not the Only Ones. None of us wants to scream until our sight is impaired and if you feel that your responses to your children have become unsafe, we urge you to get help. But we’ve all lost our composure. And no matter how much mindfulness we bring to our mothering, chances are we’ll do it again. When we keep our mistakes and difficult feelings private, we miss the opportunity to provide others with the solace that we’re all in the same boat.