Tara Trantham was driving home after attending her 11-year-old son’s football game, a cheer bow still in her hair, when she looked up and saw flashing blue lights in the rearview mirror. Her son had gone home with his grandparents, which was good—he’d be spared the sight of his mom getting arrested.

She says the officer bent her over the hood of his cruiser, handcuffed her and took her to jail, where she remained for nearly 30 hours last August. The experience threw Trantham into what she now describes as a rapid “downward spiral” that ended with her finally peeling away the mask she’d spent years constructing to hide her mental health struggles from colleagues, friends and family.