The real Applejack wouldn't want me to lie about it, so yes, I did run away from home on Christmas Eve. Or what used to be home before I got my own place last year. I still come back so I can be with my family during the holidays, despite my many not-so-fond memories of childhood.

Well, you know how it goes sometimes: for no particular reason, a dark cloud is hovering over your head, and every small thing that goes wrong intensifies the storm, and you know you're headed for either an explosion or a breakdown. This feeling had been building inside me since I left my job, packed and rushed home in order to surprise my family at their Christmas party--a hectic affair that kept me going for 26 hours without sleep. Home was as dull, difficult and frustrating a place as it had always been, and overhearing my 15-year-old brother watching yet another R-rated torture flick was the last straw.

Some people just explode when they hit their breaking point. I implode. I direct all my anger inward, at myself and my perception of everyone around me. I threw my things back into my car and took off without a word about where I was going. I didn't even know. I just needed to get out, Christmas Eve or not.

I drove around aimlessly for a while, enduring a pointless and mostly one-sided phone call from my mother, who didn't have a clue what was wrong. I stopped in a Target parking lot, seriously considering just jetting onto the highway and driving the 80 miles back to my apartment. What stopped me was a text, and then a phone call, from my second brother. Unlike the youngest he is close to me in age. We grew up together, and were often at each others throats. Now he was the only person I could go to.

"I'm so sick of having to smile at people and go along with their charades, and hide how ****ed up I am," I told him. "I can only be myself when I'm alone. The only ones who understand are the people like me, and they're all hiding too."

As he answered my honesty with some of his own, I learned that we had many of the same problems early in life: social anxiety, feelings of inferiority, unhappy family lives. He dealt with it by drinking and scheming to get out of the house as soon as he could. I retreated helplessly into myself, escaping reality with books, TV, and my own vivid daydreams. I've lived in that protective shell for so long that I don't know where it ends and I begin. If I ever do seek help getting out of it, it's going to be a long and painful process.

But for now, the understanding of one person was enough--more than I ever hoped for. After clearing things up with my mom, I went over to my brother's place and we talked and drank like old friends. The worst Christmas Eve of my life was suddenly one of the best. My greatest gift this year was something I'd never had before: another refuge, and a way forward.

Honesty was the best policy after all. Thank you, AJ.