We live in the age of twitter fingers (as Drake would say), and what I mean by that is that we hide behind our @handles. There's a fear of being honest. It's much easier to appear fun, flirty, and fresh on Instagram, than to share with your followers that you're depressed AF.

Did you hear about Demi Lovato's recent overdose? I bet you didn't see it coming. I sure didn't. Based off of her social media I had the impression she was doing well. Seriously. I mean, think about your friends on Instagram. They all seem fine, right? Mine do. But I know they're not, at least not all of them. As mentioned previously, there's a fear of being honest. It's scary to admit real feelings.

And yeah, celebrities are obviously more scrutinized than the average but this pressure affects everyone. It's the pressure to always put your best (and most neutral) foot forward on social media. To snap every night out, #cheers. To spend an hour trying to take the perfect selfie, and then another 30 mins face-tuning it, just to decide it's not good enough for your IG feed. To share pics of that bangin' dinner you had (and then instantly regretted eating because you're low-key dealing with eating disordered thoughts). Let's be real, we both know you cried every night in Cabo because you weren't over your breakup with Brad, yet you captioned your vacay picture with "Best week of my life."

We're just not being real. Sorry.

During one of the hardest times of my life I had a friend comment on my picture and say, "I hope you're having as much fun as your pictures make it look!" Yes, my IG game was fire but I was f***ing depressed and no I wasn't having fun. I was committing fraud. I wanted my friends to think I was thriving when in reality I was drowning. I felt like I had to prove I was okay, but in doing so I only made myself more sad.

Accepting sadness is like accepting defeat, or so I thought. I thought if I admitted it, if I took a break from my "fake it till I make it" social media charade, that maybe "Brad," and all my friends would know that I was sad, and know that I lost the game of life. Silly, am I right?

It was silly, and quite frankly stupid. Almost as stupid as what I'm about to tell you might sound, but I promise it's not.

Let. Yourself. Be. Sad. And stop pretending to be happy.

Stop faking it on IG. Stop snapping happy hour. Give it, and yourself, a rest. You don't have to prove how "happy" you are to the world. It's okay to not be okay, and accepting that is the first step in healing.

To get over "Brad," or "Becky," or whatever crushed you in the first place, you have to accept that you got crushed. You have to feel it, and yes heartbreak is a b*tch. We get feelings for a reason, and if we run away from them they're gonna stick around way longer than if we just face them head on.

To explain it in another way, it's like craving ice cream. If you keep not eating ice cream you're gonna want it way more. But if you just eat the damn ice cream, the craving will be satisfied. The same thing goes for being sad. Once you indulge in your feels, that need to feel those feelings eventually passes.

Speaking for myself, it works. In times of heartbreak, I let myself be sad. I embrace it. I play Lana Del Rey round the clock, watch sad movies, cry, cry more, and typically get off my phone. I've even previously deleted all of my social media. (It's back now, don't worry.) But during those hard times I didn't need to show anyone that I was okay, because I wasn't and freeing myself from that social pressure was a game changer.

It worked, and I got over it. And since learning that, any new heartbreak I face I do the same thing. I feel and then I heal.

So, take my advice. Be real with yourself, and your friends. If you're going through a tough time, embrace the suck. Don't hide it, don't pretend you're happy, just grind it out, and things will get better.

I promise.